A great big “That a boy” goes out to Marty Wolfe who I said “took a knife to a gunfight” and took on the best Australia and New Zealand GP boats in the World GP Championships a couple of weeks ago down under in New Zealand. Marty had the second fastest time in the qualifying heats and finished second to Grant Harrison in the GP final. I know a lot of you out there are saying “so why didn’t he win?” You are right, but he went up against seven other GP boats with over 2,000 horsepower each against his 1250 HP. I think Marty did one hell of a job. Special thanks go out to Marty and his team for a job well done.

Speaking of Marty, he and Dean Rojas will be taking their East coast GP boats to challenge the best of the West coast GP boats in Lake Havasu, AZ on Easter weekend in April. It should be another great GP shootout. Here again Marty and Jimmy Shane (Dean’s driver) will be up against 150 plus horsepower to the APBA west GP group. Again I know you’re thinking why don’t you build a more competitive engine? Well those supercharged engines cost over 35,000 dollars to build so spending that kind of money for only a couple of races doesn’t make much sense. From speaking to a lot of our GP owners, drivers, and the rest of our ACHA group will probably be heading to Stuart, FLA the weekend after the Lake Havasu GP race to run at the Stuart Sailfish Regatta in sunny South Florida. Although it won’t be an ACHA series race for the GP class it will be a nice warm weather tune up race for our season opener in Long Sault, Ontario, Canada.

I’ll be showing all our fans my yearly straw poll from all our teams as to who they think will win the 2012 GP championship in my March Newsletter and we’ll also be starting a 350 newsletter that same month so stay tuned!

Huey

Talk about competition how would you like to race in the 2.5 stock or new H350 series where you have 20 to 28 boats competing. Wow!! If you’re lucky enough to win the high point championship in the series you know you’ve worked your butt off and beaten the best there is in North America.

Speaking of spring, Chuck “Rookie” Woodruff came up to Ohio (it was snowing) from sunny south Florida to pick up his new toy the GP55 boat. On Friday the 13th we dynoed his updated blown engine and actually picked up 32 more horsepower than our 2011 Crush motors. On Saturday Mike Weber helped Rookie install the motor in the boat, hook everything up, and saw him on his way back to Florida where he’s got to get busy on his Stuart regatta event. Already seven GP boats have committed to run the Stuart race on April 13th to the 15th. Rookie tells me he’s still getting phone calls from drivers wanting to drive his GP boat. The latest, Patrick Hayworth, is still trying to make a deal to get Pierre Maheu’s ADF Diesel hull but if this falls through he would like to drive for Rookie. Rookie did comment “Hell, I might even jump in it and make a few laps “.

On a sadder note Grand Prix lost a true friend and GP owner. Michel Favreau passed away recently and will surely be missed by the GP family and many race fans.

In my next newsletter I’ll be giving everyone a news update on all the teams and driver changes if any. Until then “THINK SPRING”

HUEY

UPDATE:  Huey sent us a last minute information that confirms Patrick Haworth will be the main Driver for Chuck “Rookie” Woodruff  for the ACHA races after the Stuart Race.

For giving me these past 30 years I want to thank all my great drivers for the many great seven liter and Grand Prix wins, titles, and world records we’ve all been through; Marty Niles, Mike Endres, Tom Baker, Bert Henderson, Mike Monahan, Jeff Richards, and Patrick Haworth. The red/orange “CRUSH” was always in the thick of things and thanks to all these great drivers that made it happen. Speaking of Patrick, word out of Valleyfield is Patrick might be coming back to our GP class. What a great addition to our group of GP boats. Our prayers go out to the Haworth family for Patrick’s dad, Warren, who’s undergoing chemo therapy.

Word out of Florida has Chuck “Rookie” Woodruff looking for a driver for his new GP rig. Mike Weber is only going to drive it at the Stuart Regatta to help set it up and to get all the bugs out of it after setting up these past four months. I hear Scott Liddycoat’s name mentioned along with Mike “Mr. Dependable” Monahan. Scott just returned home in November from winning the final Unlimited race in Qatar and would bring lots of experience to our GP field of drivers. Of course we all know what Mike can do and we were all disappointed when he almost won his first GP race in Saint Felicien this year and had to finish second to Pierre Maheu. After talking to most of our owners and drivers these past couple of months everyone and I mean everyone, is really fired up for the 2012 season to get started. As usual ACHA has put together a great event schedule and our leaders tell me if the Stuart Regatta goes off as planned it’s very possible that we will be racing an ACHA GP even there in 2013. I’m sure no one would mind going to Florida in the springtime next year.  Also this year, Milt Wiggins tells me he will be at the Stuart Sailfish Regatta in April but not with his new boat but his older one. Good to see Milt back racing. Milts boats have always been very competitive. Well just wanted to bring all our fans up on what’s going on with our GP bunch. Got to go and get on the phone to Bert and get his butt working on our new project!

See everyone the 21st at our ACHA convention.
Huey.

(Editor: Bert Henderson is building a new boat and the team will be back in 2012 with a new name.)