PORT ANGELES — The biggest part of the construction of a 4-acre sprint boat track within an extreme sports park in Port Angeles is complete, said Dan Morrison, the track’s main proponent.
Crews are planting grass and laying pipe from the property’s five wells to fill the track on a 113-acre property at 2917 W. Edgewood Drive, just southeast of the William R. Fairchild
International Airport.
The clay-lined, twisting track will hold about 3 or 4 feet of water, Morrison said last week.
“It’s bigger than what this town’s expecting,” he said.
6,500 people
The arena features bleachers for 500 spectators, plus grass seating for an additional 6,000 or more people.
Its debut will be Sept. 17, when 30 boats from four states and Canada are expected to compete in the U.S. Sprint Boat Association National Finals.
Morrison, who is also the U.S. Sprint Boat Association vice president, said the contest will be the sprint boat equivalent to the Daytona 500.
He and the other members of A2Z Enterprises — made up of Morrison, Dan Zozosky and Jerry Payne, all of Port Angeles, and Scott Ackerman of Colfax — expect television coverage from the Travel Channel and Speed TV, along with several Seattle stations, in addition to a live webcast on the national sprint boat association’s website, www.ussbaracing.com.
‘Ton of sponsors’
“We are taking calls from a ton of sponsors,” Morrison said. “This sport is growing rapidly.”
The track was engineered to be the fastest in the sprint boat circuit, Morrison said, allowing speeds up to 100 miles per hour in some areas, Morrison said.
“We take seven or eight Gs in the corners,” he said. “We don’t go straight.”
The sprint boat track, under construction since October, is a maze of sunken track snaking around man-made islands.
It is scheduled to be filled with water in about two weeks, to be ready in plenty of time for the nationals, Morrison said.
Set in a clay base, the track should hold water with little seepage, he said.
Despite the speed and extreme sport designation, sprint boat racing has several advantages that also make it one of the safest, Morrison said.
“No one has ever died in this sport,” he said.
With boats speeding through shallow water, crews can reach overturned boats quickly and easily, preventing drowning accidents, and safety crews are stationed on islands in the middle of the track, to rapidly reach any point on the course, he said.
There is also a tough fence between the boats and spectators, he said.
Sprint boat racing is not the only extreme sport the group has had in mind.
Morrison said in the spring that he is working with W.E. Rock of California to host rock crawling on the property.
In that event, four-wheel-drive vehicles would climb an artificial hill up to 30 feet in height. That could be held on the property as early as next year, Morrison said in March.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
