Sea-Doo racers shine at HydroDrags

Sea-Doo claims all four Hydro classes at Spring Nationals

Sea-Doo watercraft mounted racers claimed all four Hydro classes in the RIVA Racing HydroDrag Spring Nationals.

The RIVA Racing HydroDrag Series is the first ever PWC drag racing and top speed event series, utilizing the innovative “Launch Pad” starting system for exciting and fair starts for the 1/8th mile sprint. The event took place at the C-54 canal near Fellsmere, Fla. in front of nearly 1,000 on-lookers and saw the fastest watercraft in the eastern United States and the Caribbean.

Dan O’Keefe of Osage Beach, Mo. repeating as Spring National HydroDrag Unlimited class champion on his highly modified Sea-Doo RXP watercraft in the premier class. O’Keefe is owner of Jet Draft, a high performance PWC race shop in Lake of the Ozarks, Mo. and is renowned for building some of the fastest racing Sea-Doo watercraft in the world and he proved that again by heat after heat eliminating his competition.

Stan Hightower of Lindale, Ga. and his Extreme Propulsion/PPG sponsored Sea-Doo RXP-X watercraft won both the Hydrodrag Stock and Limited class titles. Hightower edged closed-course veteran racer Steve Sewell of Orlando, Fla. – also aboard a Sea Doo RXP-X – in the Hydro Stock Final on Saturday then collected another win on Sunday. Sunday’s Limited Final pitted Hightower with good friend Jeff Dyckowski, aboard another Sea-Doo RXP-X. Hightower repeated his Fall national performance by collecting two HydroDrag Championships with a win against Dyckowski.

Veteran watercraft racer Eric Lagopoulos dominated the Vintage class (1997 and earlier watercraft) aboard his 1997 Sea-Doo SPX taking the HydroDrag win ahead of Albert Rodriguez and posting the fastest top speed in the Speed Alley event with a run of 66.6 mph.

Speed Alley proved to be an exciting event with record speeds being posted with Mitch Newlin from Cross Junction, Va. aboard his Sea-Doo RXP-X recording a top speed of 80.3 mph in the Hydro Stock class. Hightower also added to his trophy collection for the weekend with the fastest Hydro Limited run with a 77.7 mph.

The big story of the weekend in Speed Alley was the modified Rotax 4-TEC powered turbo watercraft of Julio Rivera. Rivera travelled from Puerto Rico with his Amsoil team and claimed the top speed in the Hydro Unlimited class with a run of 99.7 bettering Fernando Gonzales. Gonzales rode a highly modified, Nitrous oxide equipped Sea-Doo RXP to a top speed of 95.7 mph, but fell short of Rivera’s impressive second run.

In what was to be a victory encore run, Rivera became the first documented person to break the century mark, recording a peak top speed of 100.5 mph as recorded on a calibrated Stalker Radar Gun.

The next HydroDrag event is tentatively scheduled for July 18-19 in a venue TBD in Alabama. 

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