The 2013 Hot Products Mark Hahn 300 dropped the checkered flag on another very successful event. Jim Russell's DSM Staff hit another home run in implementing co-producer Mike Follmer's vision of honoring the memory of Mark Hahn with a world caliber endurance race. This was the 9th installment of the annual event and the racing scene is already abuzz of the some special things being planned for next year's event. But, let's not distract from the event that just concluded... here is the recap and result from today's competition. The Hot Products titled event was presented by Yamaha and sponsored, primarily, by Sea-Doo, Hydro-Turf, Riva, R&D, Tech One, Clawsons Motorpsort, and CMD Marine.
The morning started off with Hot Products greeting and shaking hands with competitors, mechanics and crew personnel while race director, Ross Wallach corralled everyone into an 8:00 AM(ish) riders meeting. More than 50 teams, including individual Iron Man competitors, signed up for the event. The demons of attrition took at least two superchargers out during tuning and the parade lap. Exactly 50 teams scored points.
Jean Bruno Pastorello was on the winning team of the 2011 and 2012 events and was fresh from winning the 2012 IJSBA World Offshore World Champions in Vlodivostok, Russia. This year, he selected multi time World Champion, Chris MacClugage as his team mate. Team Pastorello lagged in the first portion of the race behind the team of John Karle/Aaron Salladay for two laps before leading and then were temporarily passed by Yari. After three fuel stops, MacClugage and Pastorello took a lead that would not be relinquished. Craig Warner, challenging as an Iron Man solo rider, held second place for a while and managed to finish respectably despite a temporary mechanical episode. Longtime legend, Tera Laho, debuted her comeback to racing with her teammate Oliver Pole and finished seventh overall.
The second overall team was some very hard chargers from Portugal, Carlos Truta and Filepe Filepe who won the Vet's Masters Open Class. Third overall was another French team, David Chassier and Jeremy Poret. Fourth overall was a very cool combination of Mike Klippenstein and Mark Queen who won the Four Stroke Stock class on a Sea-Doo RXP-X. These guys were seriously fast and kept everyone on the beach in suspense lap after lap.
International competitors were noticeably in great attendance in this year's Hahn 300. Alex and Robert Tottewitz, Aero Aswar, Yuri Ryabko, Andreas Kubtatzki and Stephan Shredle, Les Cooke and Kylie Ellmers, Yoshiaki Ueda and Yunichi Hashimoto, and the team of Marc Baslaux and Philippe Engels were among to competitors from foreign soil.
Stand Up riders were especially noteworthy at this event. Flying French and American flags were waving for winners Pastorello and MacClugage but the high-fives on the beach were going to the D'Antonio, Holland, Felish team for completing the event on a Kawasaki 550. Ryan Decker would win the overall Ski title, and Ski Ironman, in his first race after knee surgery. Brock Austin came in second, and Pete Yauri would come in third. All top three finishers were also solo Iron Man contenders. The trio of Charles Sims, Annie Simms, and Todd Young came in a close fourth. In other notable Ski performances, Brian Smith out of Texas finished a very respectable 13 laps solo. Kylie Araiza joined the Vilone sisters, Ocean and Maelle, in completing 14 laps.
Below is the results. IJSBA congratulates all competitors as well as the hard work of Jim Russell, Ross Wallach, Mike Follmer, Tom Perry, Shawna, Gary, Roger, and the rest of the folks who work so hard to make this event such a success.
