"9-year-old among hydro racers...Lakefair Boat Races continue this morning at Capitol Lake" -- July 16, 2006

BY CALEB BREAKEY
THE OLYMPIAN


A boisterous buzz thundered through the air, piercing the ears of dozens of spectators alongside Capitol Lake on Saturday during the Lakefair Boat Races.

Sunshine danced off the rippled water and revealed the causes of the deafening noise -- polished, colorful, aerodynamic hydroplanes.

Doug Martin, father of 9-year-old J-stock driver Jared Martin, waded into the lake while waving his arms high in the air, signaling for his son to dock his hydroplane.

Jared spotted Martin, jetted in about 200 feet, then squeezed the throttle just enough to keep his boat moving.

Holding the gas lever a split-second too long, Jared's hydroplane came in quicker than Martin expected. The hydroplane grazed Martin as he dodged to the right, but no harm was done.

Spectators on shore at the event, which resumes at 11 a.m. today and continues into the afternoon, blurted comments out to Martin as he stood knee-deep in the lake.

"At least I learned to get out of the way," Martin joked with a wide smile. "Somebody better get the stretcher out here."

Jared, who started racing in March, had just removed the "new driver" label from his name by finishing his 12th heat.

Jared drives a a hydroplane that he and his father spent 26 Saturdays building through the HARM J-Project, a parent-child hydroplane-building project of the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent.

The museum, which restores old unlimited hydroplanes, donated space to the project comprised of five parents, five children and five boats.

The group works at the museum every Saturday for about three hours, and will have logged a combined 1,000 hours of work once the other hydroplanes hit the water.

Jared --whose hydroplane was the first completed --and the four other children apart of the project were selected because they showed interest and excitement in the sport, Martin said.

Even though a primary goal of the project is to fashion new racers, Martin said he wants his son to just enjoy the hydroplane experience.

"My main thing for Jared -- have fun," he said. "Just don't run me over."

Racer Tony Perman, member of the Seattle Outboard Association, came up with the HARM J-project idea four years ago, but this is the project's first year in existence.

He said he envisions the project will birth new racers that will help keep hydroplaning alive and well.

"I hear stories about how the Seattle Outboard Association used to have twice as many people here," Perman said. "The way to keep the club healthy is to make sure we have new guys coming in all the time. So far (the HARM J-project) has been just a roaring success."

Perman said he gets a kick out of watching new racers jump into hydroplanes and punch the throttle.

"I don't think I've seen a kid yet who came out of those boats without an ear-to-ear grin on their face," he said.

Jared was no exception to young racers' broad smiles, especially after achieving one of his hydroplaning goals on Saturday.

"I broke my world record today," he said. "I went faster than I did before -- 36.2 miles per hour."

His previous mark was 35.4 mph.

The slender, tan, shaggy-haired Jared said he wants to race at the highest level, where speeds exceed 100 mph, he said.

Jared said hydroplaning is like playing video games, "except for you're in it."

The projects' participants received their kits for 8-foot-6-inch hydroplanes and then built jigs, which serve as a starting point for the building process.

Rocky Peterson, a member of the Seattle Outboard Association who volunteers to help build the boats on Saturdays, explained how the boats are made:

"Women make clothes, they have patterns. That's how the thing kind of starts," he said. "You take these patterns, cut them out, and you glue them to stringers. Then you take the stringers, and you connect them to the cockpit sides."

Once the stringers are in place and the form set, the group clothes the hydroplanes with okoume plywood -- nice, light and strong, Peterson said. The boats, which can't exceed 290 pounds, are then mounted with 15-horsepower engines and are set to go.

Jared and the others help sand, glue and pound nails while constructing the boats.

"When they're done, they take it home," Peterson said. "It's their boat. Slowly, they get done, and then they come out and race with us."