The Unlimited Lights - 1999 in Review

By Fred Farley - Unlimited Hydroplane Historian

Once again, in 1999, the Unlimited Light hydroplanes put together a tremendously competitive season for the fans from coast to coast.

Alan "Bo" Schide and THE ALAMO (UL-16), owned by Ned Allen of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, emerged as the National High Point Champion for the third straight year after a see-saw battle all summer long with Charley Wiggins and EARL'S PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS (UL-10), owned by Milton Wiggins of Gadsden, Alabama.

Wiggins won the first three races of 1999. Then Schide sprinted to victory at the next three events. Wiggins rebounded to win at the Tri-Cities, Washington, while Randy Haas and MISS COMPAIR (UL-110) triumphed at Seattle. Schide then returned to the top-spot with back-to-back victories at Kelowna, British Columbia, and San Diego to clinch the overall season championship.

In the final standings, THE ALAMO had 10358 points, compared to 9851 for EARL'S PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS. Then came POCKET MECHANIC (UL-72) with 7314, MISS COMPAIR with 6405, SHIELD'S AUTOGLASS (UL-38) with 3345, TEAM PEGASUS (UL-23) with 2623, MISS GRAHAM TRUCKING (UL-15) with 2290, and MISS VNODE.COM with 952.

The Unlimited Lights Racing Series (ULRS) is the official support class for the larger Unlimited hydroplanes of the Unlimited Hydroplane Racing Association (UHRA). Since their 1995 debut, the automotive-powered Lights have truly put the "thunder" back into Thunderboat racing.

After winning five out of eleven races on the 1999 ULRS tour, Bo Schide became the winningest driver in the five-year history of the Unlimited Light Class with a total of twelve victories since 1997. He is followed by Charley Wiggins, who has seven wins, George Stratton with five, Brian Reynolds with four, Mark Weber with three, and Dave Bender with three.

THE ALAMO entered ten Final Heats in 1999, won five of them, finished second three times, and didn't finish twice. EARL'S PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS also ran in ten Finals, won four of them, finished second five times, and failed to finish once.

Designed and built by Jamie Auld, the yellow-and-blue ALAMO sports a high-tech carbon fiber composite hull, powered by a 506 cubic inch Pontiac V-8 engine, rated at 800 horsepower.

Prior to the 1999 campaign, the Wiggins racing team purchased the WILDFIRE (UL-125) from Kim Gregory. Designed and built by Ron Jones, Sr., this is the craft that finished second in the 1998 ULRS points chase with George Stratton driving.

POCKET MECHANIC, another state-of-the-art Jones creation, was a competitive presence in 1999, right up until the end. Co-owned by Joe Frauenheim and Phil Bononcini from Issaquah, Washington, the red-with-white-trim UL-72 finished second at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and third at Barrie, Ontario, and Norfolk, Virginia, with Bononcini diving.

Greg Hopp, the Unlimited Class rookie driving sensation, stepped into the POCKET MECHANIC as a one-race replacement for Bononcini at Evansville, Indiana. Greg took an overall third behind Wiggins in EARL'S PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS and Schide in THE ALAMO.

POCKET MECHANIC suffered extensive damage in a test run at the season finale in Honolulu, Bononcini caught a gust of air that lifted him up and over. The boat barrel-rolled and landed hard on the port side. Fortunately, Phil escaped serious injury.

The UL-72 team then leased Bob Larimore's PEGASUS hull for the weekend and loaned Larimore their spare engine. ULRS Rookie-of-the-Year J.W. Myers drove the replacement POCKET MECHANIC to an overall second-place on Pearl Harbor with a victory in Heat Two.

The father-and-son team of Carl and Randy Haas definitely had an up-and-down 1999 season. Their brand new MISS COMPAIR, fresh off the drawing board of Jamie Auld, flipped upside-down at the season-opener on Lake Havasu. Randy was uninjured, although the boat sustained major damage. But the crew, assisted by other teams, worked around the clock, and the Haas team made the Final Heat!

After ironing out the "bugs" of newness, MISS COMPAIR was a major contender by mid-season. The UL-110 team took home the third-place trophy at each of the Madison, Detroit, and Tri-Cities races.

Moving on to Seattle, the hard-working Haas team finally made the big-time. They scored their first-ever victory in five years of ULRS participation. And they accomplished this on Lake Washington, a large unprotected body of water that is one of the roughest venues on the Unlimited Lights tour.

MISS COMPAIR took the checkered flag at Seattle ahead of Charley Wiggins in FREDDIE'S CLUB (UL-10), Rick Bridgeman in MISS TED'S RED APPLE MARKETS (UL-17), and Dave Bender in AQUA TROPICS PETS (UL-38).

Before season's end, MISS COMPAIR took a couple more thirds at Kelowna and San Diego and scored another victory at Honolulu. The boat flipped again at San Diego when Randy did a 360-degree backward somersault (a la SLO-MO-SHUN V). With the engine still running, Haas tried to complete the heat. But with one lap remaining, the engine quit. Again, MISS COMPAIR was repaired in time for the Final Heat!

At the annual post-season Awards Banquet in Las Vegas, Carl and Randy Haas garnered an Outstanding Achievement award for their perfect attendance at every ULRS event since the series inception in 1995--all 42 races! TEAM PEGASUS had a difficult year. They suffered severe hull damage at Lake Havasu and had to miss the Barrie race. The crew was still patching the boat in front of their hotel in Evansville.

With Cal Phipps driving, the PEGASUS took fifth at Evansville as APEX LASER and second at Norfolk as MISS SCI. With Terry Troxell at the wheel, APEX LASER led for two laps in the Final Heat of the Tri-Cities race but was disqualified for a lane infraction involving THE ALAMO on lap three.

Owner Larimore entered the UL-23 in the Automotive Gold Cup at Detroit. The AGC is a non-points race consisting of a single heat for Unlimited Light and Grand Prix Class boats. Phipps and the UL-23, racing as BAD FROG BEER, finished third behind Wiggins in EARL'S PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS and Haas in MISS COMPAIR.

TEAM PEGASUS won the 1997 Automotive Gold Cup as MISS AIRTOUCH CELLULAR with Mark Weber driving.

Dave Bender's UL-38 team from El Dorado, California, attended the majority of races in 1999 and usually finished in the top-five. They took third at Lake Havasu, fourth at Seattle, and fifth at Detroit and Kelowna.

At San Diego, Bender announced his title sponsor for the 2000 season--SHIELD'S AUTOGLASS. SHIELD'S had been a secondary sponsor for the team in 1999 and is now stepping up its involvement in Unlimited Lights racing.

Veteran Jerry Hopp made it into four Final Heats with his vintage UL-15, a Ron Jones product that dates back to the 1970s. Hopp's best finish was a fourth at the Madison Regatta under the sponsorship of SEDAM CONTRACTING.

When Jerry suffered a broken knee while racing his son's Unlimited hydroplane (UNITED FURNITURE WAREHOUSE) at Seattle, a relief driver for the UL-15 was needed for the next race at Kelowna, B.C.

Enter Mike McLellan, who had won the ULRS Rookie-of-the-Year award for 1998 with MISS VNODE.COM. McLellan was quick to line up a local sponsor (PROFESSOR BEE.COM) for the UL-15 and drove to a seventh-place finish on the rough waters of Okanogan Lake.

McLellan shortly afterwards announced the formation of his own Unlimited Lights team for 2000. According to Mike, "It's a Balcer hull that has a Jones cockpit with Nate Brown wings."

The sons of a couple of racing's most famous names made their presence felt in 1999 ULRS action.

Doug Brow, whose father was the late MISS BUDWEISER pilot Bill Brow, drove MISS VNODE.COM at the Western races and tied down a fifth at the Tri-Cities.

Mike McCormick, son of the late MISS MADISON driver Jim McCormick, made his Unlimited Light Class debut at Madison with STEINHARDT HEATING & AIR CONDITIONING (GNH-32), a Grand National Hydroplane, and finished an overall seventh.

After the conclusion of the 1999 season, McCormick announced the purchase of the former MISS MERCRUISER, an automotive-powered Unlimited hydroplane, designed by Ed Karelsen. She will be modified to race as a UL boat in 2000. At 28 feet, she is the largest hull ever to enter the Unlimited Lights Racing Series.

Also seeing brief action in 1999 were drivers Steve Kuhr and Scott Schatz. Kuhr piloted THE IRISHMAN (GNH-317) to a fifth-place at Madison, while Schatz steered KLEEN WATER (UL-136) to a fourth-place at San Diego. The UL-136 team, owned by Dick Sanders of Valley Center, California, plans to be a fixture on the ULRS 2000 tour.

Owing to the unprecedented growth of the Unlimited Light Class, UHRA Commissioner Dr. Ken Muscatel officially created a Commissioner position for the series. Patty Darling resigned as ULRS Administrator to accept the new position.

Cindy Moore also resigned as Director of Communications so that she could accept the new appointment as Administrator. Her husband, Charles Moore, the webmaster of ULRS.org, was named the new Director of Communications for the series.

In the words of Commissioner Darling, "Each and every member of the Unlimited Lights family should look back upon the 1999 season with tremendous pride. Once again, you put together a season of exciting and extremely competitive racing. The prospects for the Unlimited Lights are brighter than ever."