Nancy, left, and Richard Holcomb of Yreka, Calif., take their sprint boat through the race course at the Jackson County Expo Park.
Photo by Jim Craven
By MARK FREEMAN
Powering a tiny aluminum boat fitted with a neurotically fast engine over a tiny pond fit for canoes is something even the most enthusiastic octane-heads might consider a bit excessive.
Nancy and Richard Holcomb would rather call it an ideal husband-wife activity.
No golf clubs or bowling shoes for this Yreka, Calif., couple. The Holcombs like their fun fast, frenetic and for two -- which makes the fledgling sport of sprint-boat racing a fine fit to their zero-to-60-in-two-seconds lifestyle.
"Driving a sprint boat is like taking a Jet Ski and dropping a small-block Chevy engine into it," said Richard Holcomb, an excavator by trade and a weekend racer most of his life. "It's a kick. A real rush.
"I've raced offshore boats, snowmobiles, motorcycles and cars," he said. "But when I saw this, I thought, `Hey, this is a kind of racing Nancy and I can do together."'
Richard will drive and Nancy will navigate the couple's 350-horsepower sprint boat today and Sunday during special sprint-boat races at the Jackson County Expo Park.
More than a dozen teams, many of them husband-and-wife teams and most of them from the boat-racing mecca of Idaho, are expected for the two-day races that are part of this year's Jackson County Harvest Fair.
Time trials are today, with elimination runs Sunday. Races will be from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days.
The Holcombs expect to blast through the course at the Expo's south pond in less than a minute and a half, negotiating tight turns and lapping waves just a few feet from spectators on bleachers lining the shore.
"Anybody can just go fast straight down a line," Nancy Holcomb said. "But these boats are so neat. They go so fast around such tight corners."
The boats are aluminum and range from 12 to 15 feet, most often equipped with hydro-jet pumps powered by massive engines from 350 to more than 800 horsepower. They race the clock, speeding between buoys set up on a pond to force plenty of 90- and 180-degree
turns.
The two work in tandem: Richard drives while Nancy keeps an eye on all the instruments and navigates with pointing and other hand signals meant to steer Richard toward the correct buoys.
"He'll ignore my fingers if they're straight," Nancy said. "Bit if they're doing this," she says, shaking her hand up and down frantically, "he better follow them."
Sprint boat racing began in New Zealand, with videotapes of the races first reaching the United States about 1990. It has since caught on in the Pacific Northwest, with Medford's local boat-building and racing community latching on.
The Expo Park has hosted a race three of the past four years, once housing the U.S. Sprint Boat Association Finals.
The sport has captured the enthusiasm of racing fanatics who see sprint boats as one of the few boat races where they can sit in one place and see a full race.
It also captured the imagination of people like Chris Borovansky, the Expo director who took one -- and only one -- ride in a sprint boat.
"You feel like you're in a Road Runner cartoon," Borovansky said. "You go so fast around these turns, you feel that what you're doing just isn't physically possible."
The various racers seem to feel that way as well.
"Eight hundred horsepower in a 13-foot boat is a little bit intimidating," said Dale Barger, an Idaho man whose boat has an 840-horsepower engine that can go from a dead stop to 85 mph in 3 seconds.
"I've been involved in racing a long time, and it's without a doubt the biggest handful I've ever had," said Barger, who will race this weekend.
The Holcombs first saw a sprint boat race in 1995, and immediately came away wanting to participate. They've since spent about $22,000 on their sprint boat, dividing time between races and buzzing around nearby rivers and lakes.
"The faster you go, the tighter you turn, the quicker you get through the course," Richard Holcomb said. "There's nothing like it."
