TUNNEL VISION
Boat racer eyes national championship
It all started with bathtub races. “Doesn’t it always?” asked Kelowna’s Mike McLellan with a laugh. “I’ve always raced boats. As a kid, that means getting in a bathtub and trying to get it to go through the water as fast as possible.”
That led to racing personal watercraft, something at which McLellan, now 50, was particularly good. He won a national championship in that sport in 1993.
Then he moved on to hydroplanes, the type of speedboats featured back in the days when Kelowna hosted Thunderfest on Okanagan Lake.
He was good at that, too, being named rookie of the year in 1998.
Lately, McLellan is racing Formula 1 and Formula 150 tunnel boats, those distinctive single-seater, enclosed-capsule vehicles that look like a little space rocket.
“Tunnel boats are just so exciting and a heck of a lot of fun to drive,” said McLellan.
“They are 17 feet long, weight at least 1,150 pounds and are powered by a V6 outboard motor that pumps out well over 300 horsepower, so you can reach top speeds of 200 kilometres an hour.”
Such boats can out-accelerate Ferraris and Lamborghinis, the exotic sports cars.
McLellan just landed two new title sponsors for his boat and racing program — Canadian Energy and Optima Batteries.
To introduce his sponsors and show off his newly logoed boat, he’s displaying it at the Vancouver International Boat Show through Jan. 21 at B.C. Place Stadium.
He’s also screening video shot from his perspective in the cockpit from last racing season.
After the Vancouver show, McLellan and his boat will return to the Okanagan so he can begin testing and practise on Okanagan Lake in April, and also display at the Kelowna and Vernon boat shows.
McLellan describes boat racing as his full-time hobby.
However, he does have a day job as a bus driver.
The schedule for the upcoming Formula 1 and Formula 150 spring, summer, fall season hasn’t been set, but McLellan plans to enter at least a halfdozen races.
His goal this year is to win a Formula 150 national championship and finish in the top 10 in Formula 1.
Formula 1 is a little different, with the boat outfitted with a 2.5-litre outboard engine, with a bigger gear case, that’s quite often fuel injected or carbureted.
Last season, McLellan finished sixth in North America on the Formula 150 circuit based on accumulated points at races such as Seafair in Seattle, the Port Alberni Regatta, Indiana and Manson, Wash.
The Seafair races are televised, thus the importance of sharp sponsor logos on the boats.
Formula races are all made up of laps on either long or short courses.
For instance, the Manson race, in which McLellan finished second, is a short course of six laps, each completed in about 45 seconds.
Seafair is a long course of 10 bigger laps.
Regardless of the size of the laps, the name of the game is to go as fast as possible on the straightaways and take the corners carefully enough not to lose control.