Race-boat driver has
her eye on big boys
By
Bill Center
Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 2 a.m.
What: Powerboat races on
When: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and tomorrow
Admission: $25 general admission covers all three days,
with children under 12 admitted free.
Parking: $20 on East Vacation Isle, $10 on
What's running: Unlimited Lights, Unlimited-like G Boats,
Offshore Powerboats, Drag Boats, Tunnel Hulls, limited-class hydros and
flatbottoms.
What's
missing: Unlimited
Hydroplanes, the traditional featured class of the event.
With no
Unlimited Hydroplanes in the
One of the
more interesting belongs to 21-year-old Kayleigh Perkins.
Not only
does Perkins drive in one of the co-featured — if lesser than the absent
Unlimiteds — classes this weekend, she already has clinched her third
national driver's title and second boat championship in the Unlimited Lights
class.
Of the
more than 100 boats assembled in the East Vacation Isle and
“My
disadvantage is my strength,” Perkins said yesterday. “Cars have
power steering; race boats don't. It takes some muscle to get one of these
things around the course.”
But
Perkins said she's working out toward the goal of eventually becoming the first
female driver on the Unlimited tour. Teams already have expressed interest in
Perkins, although she admits she will be selective.
“I
want to do the Unlimiteds,” she said. “But it has to be with the
right team.”
Toward
that result, Perkins is being counseled by Hall of Fame Unlimited Hydroplane
champion Chip Hanauer.
Going from
the Lights to the Unlimiteds is a major step.
The missing
Unlimiteds weigh 7,000 pounds, with turbine engines rated at 3,000 horsepower.
The Unlimited Lights weigh 2,500 pounds and are powered by automobile engines
rated at 900 horsepower.
Plus, the
Unlimited Lights race five-lap features, with courses measuring 1¼ to 1⅔
miles — the distance this weekend — in length. The Unlimiteds run
on 2- to 2½-mile courses.
“I'm
a jockey when it comes to boat racers,” joked the 5-foot-6 Perkins, who's
working on her strength through her daytime job of cutting and installing
commercial windows for a
Perkins
has been around boat racing all her life, although her family was into the
administrative end of the annual Seafair races in
“My
dad was a committee chairman and a judge,” she said. “I grew up
inside the course on a boat, watching the boats. I never wanted to
drive.”
But after
her older brother Brian caught the racing bug, he talked his 15-year-old sister
into taking a spin in his 2½-liter hydro.
“It
was unbelievable,” she recalled of her first experience in a race boat.
“I thought I was going out by myself, and there were a lot of other boats
practicing at the same time. It was rough, and a lot of stuff was going on, and
I loved it.”
Perkins
soon started racing small hydros “with some but not total success.”
But when
she got a chance to drive the penultimate boat in the hydroplane food chain,
she found the perfect fit.
“I
didn't really feel like I knew what I was doing until I got into this
boat,” she said. “I love this boat. It's so easy to drive. It's a
Cadillac.”
As a
19-year-old rookie in 2007, Perkins drove the UL-72 Foster Care to both the
national boat and driver championships. She won a second straight driver's
title last year. And this season she has clinched both titles again coming into
Sunday's season finale on
She comes
to
Surprisingly,
Perkins, who has a working knowledge of the history of her sport, has trouble
counting her own wins in the Unlimited Lights. “Between seven and nine,
maybe 10,” she said.
But
Perkins said she has no desire to try her hand at the more financially
lucrative world of car racing.
“I'm
a boat racer,” she noted. “This is where I belong. I don't want to
be known as a girl who drives. I want to be known as a girl who can
drive.”
Union-Tribune