PORT ANGELES — When the engines start screaming Saturday at the new sprint boat track southeast of William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles, Wicked Racing sprint boat pilot Dan Morrison will be ready to “bring it.”
And so will 29 other sprint boat teams.
“We could go into your garage doing 80 [mph] and come out doing 80,” Morrison told about 30 Port Angeles Business Association members Tuesday morning.
Saturday’s inaugural race will start off with a bang, hosting the United States Sprint Boat Association National Finals.
Gates will open at 8 a.m. at the newly completed Extreme Sports Park, 2917 W. Edgewood Drive.
Boats will be warmed up at 9 a.m., and races will begin at 10 a.m., he said.
The stadium-like layout of the boat track includes grassy terraced viewing for about 5,000 spectators, but only about 3,500 are expected to bring their lawn chairs to set up at the inaugural event.
Coming into the race, Morrison and his navigator, Cara McGuire, already won the Superboat title for 2011, but there are still two titles to be contested Saturday, he said.
There are three classes of sprint boats: the Super Modified-class (600 horsepower), Group A-400 (700 horsepower) and the Superboat, or Unlimited-class boats, which boast 900-horsepower engines, he said.
Many boats feature women as navigators, partly because they are small and weigh less than men, he said.
Morrison’s stepdaughter, McGuire, is a second-grade teacher and one of the premier navigators in the sport, he said.
“She has ice for blood,” Morrison said.
“I would get out of the boat shaking, and she would just ask for a sandwich,” he said.
McGuire has become something of a celebrity in sprint boat racing circles.
At a recent race, a fan asked to get a picture of herself sitting in the Wicked boat, said Wicked crew chief Randy Alderson.
When Morrison prepared the pilot’s seat, the fan shook her head, Alderson said.
“She said, ‘No, I want to sit in Cara’s seat,’” he said.
Recently an all-woman team, Vindictive Racing, has been making headway in the sport.
The only thing wrong with the team is that its boat is underpowered, Morrison said.
With a better boat, the team would be winning races, he said.
Two years ago, Morrison decided to give himself a two-year deadline for creating a track in the Port Angeles area.
If it didn’t happen, he was going to leave town, Morrison said.
“I’m completely humbled by what happened,” he said.
“I had complete support.”
Dozens of volunteers turned out to help build the track, including local excavating professionals, and there was amazing support from the city of Port Angeles and the Port of Port Angeles, he said.
Morrison has hopes to add a rock crawling track to the Extreme Sports Park.
The track resembles a giant, rocky skateboard park for highly customized four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Rock crawling is as quiet and slow as sprint boat racing is noisy and fast, Morrison said.
It’s about control and agility and could bring as many as three major events to Port Angeles per year, he said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
