Hydros: Cooper’s U-3 may race at Gold Cup - Update, Will Race

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The Go3Racing unlimited hydroplane, the last piston-powered boat, last raced on the Columbia River in 2009. BOB BRAWDY — Herald file


By Jeff Morrow
Tri-City HeraldJuly 10, 2015

There just might be some thunder among the unlimited hydroplanes yet when the APBA HAPO Gold Cup takes place in the Tri-Cities on July 24-26.

The Go3Racing Team, the only piston-powered boat in the unlimited fleet, is looking for sponsors to race at the Gold Cup.

Mitch Evans, a former driver of the U-3 who owns a business at Lake Chelan, said he talked to U-3 owner Ed Cooper Jr. on Friday.

“Ed has been in progress working with H1 (Unlimited) to come up with an agreement to race again,” said Evans.

Cooper beached his boat and team back in 2010 after he had a falling out with then-H1 Chairman Sam Cole.

He drew a line in the sand then, saying he wouldn’t be back to race until Cole was out as chairman.

Cole stepped down last season, and former Oberto driver Steve David has taken over.

There has been work from both Cooper’s side and H1’s side in trying to make things happen again.

David was unavailable for comment Friday.

“There was some contractual stuff in the past that Ed had trouble with,” said Evans. “It sounds like they’ve worked through some of those issues — technical issues and referees.”

Close enough that Cooper told Evans and Rick Bowles to go ahead and start looking for sponsors.

Cooper is in Valleyfield, Quebec, this weekend, watching Grand Prix races with his current driver, Jimmy King — who is racing in them.

The possible addition of the U-3 would give the HAPO Gold Cup a 13-boat count for the unlimiteds.

Anyone interested in helping sponsor the U-3 should email rick@go3racing.com.

“Or they can call me at (509) 670-8261,” said Evans. “What I did is I committed personally for my business, Evans Marine, for seed money. We’re just gonna beat the brush to see what we can find.”

While the U-3 hasn’t raced competitively since 2010, Cooper did bring out the boat in June of 2014 for a match race exhibition in Evansville, Ind., against the gbr11 Peters & May.

“It was awesome!” said King, who was interviewed by the Herald last July at the Columbia Cup. “Absolutely spectacular. The last time we ever qualified we hit 149 mph. We got out there in Evansville and hit 154. I fell back into old home week.”

And if Cooper ever decides to race the U-3 on a consistent basis, King said he’d be ready for that.

“I keep telling Ed that it’s my ride,” King said.

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2015/07/10/3647138/hydros-coopers-u-3-may-race-at.html#storylink=cpy

[Serious News]

Gold Cup: Cooper misses Tri-City area
By Jeff Morrow

Ed Cooper Jr., has never liked politics.

The retired school teacher from Indiana just wants a few things. That’s it.

“I want to run my boat and have fun doing it,” Cooper said. “I want all the other stuff to go away.”

So it is that he hopes to raise enough sponsorship money this week that he can get the old team together to compete at next week’s APBA HAPO Gold Cup.

Cooper’s Go3Racing boat is the only one on the H1 Unlimited circuit to run on pistons, rather than the turbines everyone else has.

But he beached his boat back in 2010 when he had too many disagreements with H1 officials, and except for an exhibition race last year against the gbr 11 Peters & May in Evansville, the 3 boat has stayed drydocked.

So the thought of him bringing the boat to one of his favorite race courses, the Columbia River, has him more than excited.

“I have so many friends in the Tri-Cities,” Cooper said. “How can that race course and everything there not be one of your favorite race courses?”

The possible comeback started last fall, when Steve David took over as H1 Unlimited chairman and he gave Cooper a call.

“I said ‘Tell me what your grievances are,’” said David. “Initially we were far apart. Be we worked to come together.”

There were things David couldn’t bend on, like the ESPN3 contract and individual contracts with each team that had to be signed to appear at races.

“San Diego, I guaranteed a lesser boat count, but Ed was willing to make a few concessions too,” said David. ‘If he can’t make it to San Diego, that’s OK.”

Now, it all depends on whether the team can raise enough money to run the boat.

As of Monday, a gofundme account had raised $13,000. But the team still needs sponsors.

“Pretty much it’ll take to the end of the week,” said Cooper. “Then we’ll decide.”

But he said the boat is race-ready, with a number of piston engines that he’s put together these last few years.

“The boat is sitting there ready to go,” Cooper said. “It’s been ready since we ran it last summer in Evansville.”

David did say that drivers must be recertified after they haven’t raced competitively for at least two years.

But because the U3’s driver, drove the exhinition last year, he won’t have to go the whole distance.

“One race, he’ll have to start behind the field, and the next race we’ll put him on the outside,” said David. “After that, he can do what he wants.”

As far as his past problems with H1, Cooper said he likes the effort that David has been making to keep a fair playing field.

“Whatever happened in the past is done,” said Cooper. “The fans of unlimited hydroplane racing have always been great supporters of this boat.”

NOTE: Anyone interested in helping sponsor the U-3 should email rick@gobowles.com, or call Mitch Evans at (509) 670-8261. ... David said Cooper’s boat would give the Tri-Cities 12 boats. He didn’t think the U-21 team, which lost its boat in a flip last year in the Tri-Cities, would be ready to race next week.

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2015/07/13/3650549/gold-cup-cooper-misses-tri-city.html#storylink=cpy

[Serious News]

Grigg Ace Hardware steps up to sponsor U-3 hydro

By Jeff Morrow, Tri-City Herald

Charlie Grigg remembers hearing the roar of hydroplanes while playing in his Pasco neighborhood near the Columbia River when he was a little kid.

“I lived a block off the river,” said Grigg. “I’d hear a boat starting up near the pits and beat feet to the river. You just miss that sound.”

Grigg, whose family owns Grigg Ace Hardware around the Tri-Cities, was talking about the sound a piston-powered unlimited hydroplane makes.

Last week, when he read a Tri-City Herald story about the Go3Racing team looking for sponsorship, he eventually came to a decision to sponsor the team in the Tri-Cities.

“I thought I should do it, then I shouldn’t, then I should,” Grigg said. “I went back and forth a number of times. I finally sent (team member) Rick Bowles an email and asked how much it would cost.”

While Grigg wouldn’t say, he did get the Ace Hardware company to go half in on the sponsorship.

“I split it 50-50 with them, so there is some national sponsorship,” Grigg said.

The boat will be called the U-3 Grigg’s presents the Miss Ace Hardware, meaning the U-3 is definitely competing in next week’s APBA HAPO Gold Cup.

Mitch Evans, the former U-3 driver who is also helping sponsor the team through his Evans Marine company at Lake Chelan, said the team was leaving from Indiana on Saturday.

The addition of the U-3 gives the Gold Cup a lineup of 12 unlimiteds competing for a spot in the July 26 race.

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2015/07/17/3655957/grigg-ace-hardware-steps-up-to.html#storylink=cpy

[Serious News]

Go3 Racing going to Gold Cup

The field for next weekend’s Gold Cup will include at least one more former winner of the oldest active trophy in motor sports.

The Evansville-based Go3 Racing Team, which has not competed on the H1 circuit since 2010 or run in an actual H1 heat since 2009, has reached an agreement to rejoin the series at Tri-Cities next weekend and has landed a sponsorship to compete as Griggs presents Miss Ace Hardware.

The team initially indicated plans to compete on the Columbia River last weekend and launched a GoFundMe account to allow fans to raise money to support the effort ($3,800 had been pledged as of Friday night). Later this week the sponsorship deal was reached with Ace Hardware stores in Tri-Cities and now it looks like the boat will also compete the following weekend in Seattle.

Go3 Racing, owned by Ed Cooper and driven by Jimmy King, is the only piston-powered Unlimited that has competed on the circuit in recent years. Powered by a turbocharged V-12 Allison engine, the boat was last seen at an H1 event in 2010 when the team qualified at 143.241 mph at Madison — damaging an engine in the process — and then withdrawing from competition on Saturday over a dispute with the sport’s sanctioning body.

The team did run an exhibition — a duel format race with the Miss Peters & May — at Evansville in 2014 but has otherwise been sitting race-ready in Cooper’s North Poseyville Township race shop for the last five years.

Founded in 1986, the team won its first race on the Columbia River at Tri-Cities in 1989 with Mitch Evans driving. The team’s best season was in 2003 when Evans won three races — the Thunder on the Ohio at Evansville, the APBA Gold Cup at Detroit and the Bill Muncey Cup at San Diego.

http://madisoncourier.com/Content/Sports/Sports/Article/Go3-Racing-going-to-Gold-Cup/18/289/91681