30th Annual Lakefest at Lake Marble Falls

By JM Hallas

Marble Falls, TX – Well the understatement of the weekend, it’s hot! Saturday’s qualifying began early in the day under coolish temperatures. Of course cool air is good for making horsepower, but humidity(water grains in the air) after the overnight storms was present. This made the tune ups tricky for the crew chiefs. As the day progressed, so did the thermometer, approaching the century mark. Hydrate!

Then the old nemesis reared its ugly head, the wind. Not that it was blowing hard, but hard enough to create rollers and whitecaps. These conditions are not conducive to safe drag boat racing for the faster boats. Officials shuffled the slower classes around to keep the show progressing. They gave it the ol’ college try, but decided neither the wind or water were going to cooperate as the evening approached.

Multi-time/class champion, Marty Logan, was able to get a pass in powering his Top Alcohol Hydro through the course tripping the timers with a 4.45 @ 195.5mph, but damaged the boat too bad to continue in competition.

Top Fuel Hydro

Kebin Kinsley DNR

Mike Robbins DNR

Top Alcohol Hydro

Marty Logan, Livin’ tha Dream4.45, 195.59

Top Qualifiers;

Pro Jet

Richard Ledbetter, The Honey Badger, 3.92, 118.66

Pro Comp Flat (dial in)

Vic Fugate, Flat Blacked Out, 6.51, 117.52

Pro Outlaw(5.20)

Rick Blethroade(Wild Thing), 5.20, 175.93

Pro Modified(5.60)

Cade Janecek, (All or Nothing) 5.61, 167.08

Sportman classes;

Quick Eliminator(6.00)

Larry Flores(Hydo Climatic) 6.03, 142.16

Top Eliminator(7.00)

Kevin Conklin (Texas High Risk) 7.01, 112.20

Modified Eliminator(8.00)

Andrew Decker (N-2 Deep) 8.00, 94.15

Stock Eliminator(9.00)

Michael Ratliff(Capital Punishment) 9.02, 90.33

Personal Watercraft(dial in)

Teagan Finnagan, 13.50, 52.99

Here’s a quick review of the 2022 SDBA points champions to see how they fare during the beginning of 2023 campaign.

Kebin Kinsley(Top Fuel Hydro), Marty Logan(Top Alcohol Hydro), Marcus Kinsey(Top Alcohol Flat), Robert Ledbetter(Pro Jet), Jeff Luehring(Pro Comp Flat), Cody Childress(Pro Outlaw), Henry Boehne(Pro Modified), Brody Martin(Quick Eliminator), Gavin Snider(Pro Eliminator), Jerry Branum(Top Eliminator), Jesse James jr.(Modified Eliminator), Zachery Watson(Stock Eliminator) and Angelee Shaw(Personal Water Craft)