In Search of: Unlimited Hydroplane Race Schedule
Fans of any sport (especially Unlimited Hydroplane Racing) need to know when their favorite teams play. They rightfully rely on the “league” for definitive information about their sport. For basketball, we often get the final word from the NBA. We hockey fans often turn to the NHL and of course when we need quick access to specifics about fast cars, NASCAR is our choice for stats, rulings, and schedules.
Schedules
The good people at H1 Unlimited have challenges these leagues don’t understand. This is a bit overly simplified, but think about it: when the NHL wants to schedule a hockey game, it’s part of an 82-game schedule. The arena is reserved, some people take tickets, the teams arrive, beer and hot dogs are consumed, and in about 3 hours, the game is over. Next city.
An unlimited hydroplane race isn’t a single game in a season. Each race is its own “event.”
Thousands of people converge on a lake over an entire week-end. Permits, insurance, environmental impact studies – you name it, H1 deals with it.
We’ve established that things are different here. One of the challenges that comes with this unique makeup is the effort it takes to get an event confirmed. The result? Schedules can sometimes be tentative for quite a while until they are such that hats can be hung on them.
Confirmed, Tentative and Rumored, Oh My!
Let’s add some more complexity. H1 works hard to nail down the confirmed event schedule. That’s their world and that’s what they do. Of course, they have some involvement as well in the envisioning that comes with a tentative date and location. Then add the rumored venues and you can see having a centralized calendar just isn’t feasible.
Or is it?
UnlimitedHydroplaneRacing.com is just naive enough to think that such a calendar is possible. I’d like to suggest that we give it a try. Notice the “we.” This proposed calendar will only be as good as the Damn Smart Fans that visit this site. I’ll start things out with what I know and you help me keep it up to date.
Deal?
Let’s start this off with what is currently shown on the H1 site as tentative:
2012 Unlimited Hydroplane Racing Schedule
(Note that when this image was captured, H1 still had Doha at November 15-17. That has now been updated to November 8-10)
If it is more convenient, here’s the same information as text if a “copy/paste” is what you need:
2012 Unlimited Hydroplane Racing Schedule
Fri-Sun July 6-8 Madison, IN Madison Regatta
Lucas Oil Indiana Governor’s Cup www.madisonregatta.com
Fri-Sun July 13-15 Detroit, MI Detroit Yacht Club
APBA Gold Cup www.gold-cup.com
Fri-Sun July 27-29 Tri-Cities, WA Columbia Cup
Lamb-Weston Columbia Cup www.waterfollies.com
Fri-Sun August 3-5 Seattle, WA Seafair
Albert Lee Cup www.seafair.com
Fri-Sun September 14-16 San Diego, CA Bay Fair
Air National Guard Championship www.sandiegobayfair.org
Thu-Sat November 8-10 Doha, Qatar Oryx Cup
UIM World Championship www.qmsf.org
Look for a “Schedule” page soon. It will start with what I can find routinely (like the published H1 tentative schedule) and I will begin to add input from you and anything that I can find online. News clips, blogs, hieroglyphics – they’re all fair game for building a one-stop-overview.
Special Thank You
This has been something on my mind for some time, but Neil from Australia sent in a message asking for 2013 schedule information. Now that’s my kinda guy – planning ahead. That incited me to finally do something about this challenging topic. My thanks to Neil for the kick in the pants!
Let me know what you think. Is “naive” the right word to describe this quest, or would you have a somewhat, ahem, stronger word? Or would this be something of value to us average fans?
Dave