For those of you that are unaware of what happens in the world of welded aluminum jet boat racing let me see if I can put some light onto the subject.

There are two forms of racing that comes under this heading. First there is river racing or marathon as it is properly referred to and second there is sprint boat racing or also called jet sprints.

Both forms of racing as well as the whole sport of jet boating originates in New Zealand. It seems that shortly after the sport of jet boating had started to really take off in the motherland, Kiwis were quick to want to race their mates to see who was the fastest. That was the start of jet boat racing as we know it today.

It was natural that since jet boats were being used on rivers that the first form of racing was river racing . After a few years of races here and there on the north and south islands of New Zealand someone came up with the idea of having an endurance race consisting of several days of river racing. Thus marathon racing was born.

The first marathon race held in New Zealand was in 1970. That same year a race was held in Mexico on the Rio Balsas. It was not until 2 years later that jet boats were introduced to the Rio Balsas though. In 1972 the first jet boat to win the Balsas was a Canadian boat driven by New Zealander Mike Sandeman.

Canada was next to pick up on the sport of marathon racing. It was in the year of 1975 that they held there first marathon race. It wasn’t long before the competitors in those three countries got together and formed a world championship series. It was decided to rotate the championship races from each country on a yearly basis . In 1978 the first world series was held in Canada.

Marathon racing finally arrived in the US in 1980. It was the Western Whitewater Association that brought river racing to Idaho’s Payette River. The first 2 years were raced by WWA members in there everyday family boats. It was lots of fun seeing guys in their big boat slamming into the rapids on the Payette in an attempt to beat their buddies to the finish line. The third year of the event saw the boys from Canada come down and then we saw some serious racing.

Races started popping up everywhere. A group in Lewiston started a race on the Clearwater river, another group had on the Salmon River. It has now spread to the Oregon coast.

Marathon racing today consists of seven different classes incorporating boats with unlimited horse power to a class with 2-stroke sport jet engines.

This years world series will be hosted here in the US on May 16-26. Go to www.jetboatracing.com or www.outlaweagle.com for more information .

The early 1980’s saw the formation of yet another form of jet boat racing develop once again in New Zealand. Brian Scott and 4 of his mates had been watching a automobile rally one weekend when they came up with the idea of doing that with their jet boats. They had the thought that they could lay out a track around some of the islands on their local river and have time trials around it. It seemed to them is would be lots of fun for them as well as the spectators .they thought that because unlike the marathon boats that go racing by and are gone people would be able to sit and watch each boat run it’s complete course.

Jet sprinting was a success . The sport quickly took off in New Zealand and then to Australia. In Australia the sport took on a new look. Lacking the shallow braided rivers to run in that were found all over New Zealand the Australians came up with the idea of digging a track. They found some flat ground and dug channels about 3 feet deep and 12 feet wide and filled them with water. The fun really started then and the boats took on a new look. Racing in such close quarters meant that one little mistake and you were out of the water in a hurry. That also meant that you were probably going to roll your boat over, so roll bars became mandatory on all sprint boats.

1990 saw jet sprinting first brought to the US. At first racing was held in deeper waters and the boats raced on a track setup with floating buoys. I n 1997 the first in ground track was dug in Marsing Idaho along the banks of the Snake River.

Here in the US jet sprint racing consists of three classes, Superboat, Group A and super modified. The sport is growing in interest with new tracks being dug in St.Johns WA., Sequim WA , and Albany OR. Interest in also building in other parts of the US as well. For more information about sprint boat racing go to www.ussbaracing.com