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Great news for those of us who love the sport.
Even better is the number of new, young and other first time racers .
After this race their next race is in Gravenhurst!!
Check the TORC web site or their Facebook page for details.

We currently have 3 T850 registered for the Gravenhurst race. I know of several more sitting on the fence thinking about that race. T750 guys are welcome as well. T owners who have never raced should try running at Gravenhurst. Gull Lake is perfect water to race on. Easy boat launch and a wonderful park to watch the boat racing. It doesn’t get any better!

Gravenhurst T850 currently has 5 super fast 75 mph boats running both Saturday and Sunday. The boys will be rocking. Bet we get a few at the race signups as well. Two families have 2 boats in the race. ASSUME!!

Gravenhurst races are this weekend!!

T850 race at Gravenhurst was a great show and even better for the racers.....the clock start was a challenge for many...but bad starts made for good racing with come from behind passes...not sure if the price of gas played a role or just a miscalculation but we hadn’t had a boat run out of gas since 2006.
Congratulations to heat winners Kristian and Rusty.

ended up being a pinched fuel line for Chris Gordon

Nice to see the results posted on the TORC site
Seven boats showed up at Gravenhurst.
Kristian has a small points lead over Rob Gordon after the weekend races
Critchfield ( from Top Gun Marine) and a Florida Allison were top runners this weekend
Jesse Coulter ran a Top Gun Critchfield
Craig ran an original Danny Critchfield
Eric ran a Voodoo competition model built by Hydrostream Canada
Chris ran a Critchfield not sure who built it
Rusty ran a Marty Brodeur Critchfield

All the motors were 56 cubic inch OMC on 15 inch midsections
Three different blocks
Oval port..foam cast block
SST 60 foam cast block
1986-7 Bridgeport production cast (sand) block

What makes the Critchfield desirable? Speed, cornering, both?

David thank you for the good question.
The origins of this class and similar classes goes back to the mid 1960’s. The classes developed and became popular with the development of the Deep V hull designs. In the early 1980’s a young man in his twenties named Danny Critchfield designed his own raceboat. He took hull designs from the delta and Allison hulls and combined those with a deck design he saw racing in Europe on Bristol and other boats.

The resulting hull was quicker than the other boats on a race course. Quicker is not about top speed. Quicker the the total time it takes to do a lap around the race course. That is called ET...elapsed time. The Critchfield has very good top speed....corners very well.....accelerates well out of the corner...handles rough water well.
But the boat is only a small part of being successful. You need the complete package boat, boat setup, prop and most important driver and driver’s experience. The boat is NOT the most important.

Kris's critch is a Rossiter/Top Gun built boat, originally it was Kevin's (HeviKevi). Lukseps purchased after Rob blueprinted the bottom. and I believe Lukseps sent it back to Rob for rigging etc.

Several of the fence sitters after seeing the Gravenhurst videos don’t think they are competitive with those boats.

Those boats are capable of running 72 to 76 mph. The clock start and the rougher water after lap two make a big difference in the finish. You normally need a top 3 start to have a chance to finish first. These boats cannot run 72 mph in the rough water. They need open water to get to top speed. That’s why you sometimes see the first place boat get a larger lead after lap 2. That boat has the better water in front of it and can run faster than those in the pack.

The fun of racing in T class is about having a few boats to race against during the race. It is not much fun running last and being lapped in a 5 lap race. You need a few boats that run similar to yours. Talk to your friends about coming out as a group. You can sign up to race just that weekend. The TORC family is a wonderful group and you will get loaned safety gear.

The smaller boat count in a heat ( normally under 10 boats) means they will run both T750 and T850 boats in the same heat. You could find your 49 running against equal running T750 boats.

Just try it!!