Nauti Water Racing 2013
Rounds 1-2 Rivercross Challenge

Nauti Water Racing started their 2013 tour at the 4th annual Wichita Riverfest in Wichita, Kansas on June 1 and 2.  Thousands of spectators lined the river on both banks and bridges to cheer on the racers as they maneuvered through the tight course to compete for the first place win.  Racers came from all of the Midwest to take part in this challenging event.

The ski class events dominated the weekend.  Expert ski open proved to be the highlight of the weekend with powerful boats and experienced riders putting on a good show!  Troy Armstrong came on strong on the first day but ended up taking second for the weekend as Jeremy Poper took the lead on day two of the races taking home the 1st place trophy.  Justin Luinstra rode a strong race to finish 3rd for the weekend.  Chris Cowan, Harold Green, and Jeremy Styno also raced in this spectacular nail biting class.

Our racers in the junior 10-12 lites class were AJ Luinstra and Jessie Glennon, with Luinstra winning both rounds for a 1st place overall finish.  McKale Seivley raced unopposed in the junior 13-15 lites against the other two juniors for a winning weekend.

An interesting combination of  women’s ski limited, junior ski 13-15 limited, novice ski limited, and vintage ski lined up next to each other at the starting gate to put on a good show for the crowd.  Allison Partch of Nebraska took the win in the Women’s Ski Limited class over Anna Glennon who had boat trouble on day two and borrowed her sister’s stock ski to finish the weekend.  McKale Seivley rode his Hydrospace to compete in the 13-15 limited class while Chase Mueller took the win in the Novice Ski Limited, and Chris Cowan rounded out the line-up on his vintage 650-800 conversion.

Jeremy Poper and Justin Luinstra battled it out to the finish in the Pro-Am GP ski class.  Each of the racers had a 1st place finish but the big trophy went home with Poper as he took overall wins for both days.  These gentlemen took to the line against the novice ski stock class with Anna Glennon taking home the first place trophy over Cameron Lauber and Max Snyder.

We were excited to have four new runabout racers with us at the Riverfest this year.  Steve Lee raced unopposed in the beginner and novice stock classes learning that racing is much harder than one would think it would be.  Casey Knowles came to race with us from Moore, OK just narrowly missed by the devastating tornado with a good run in the R/A Pro-am stock class.  Jami Wakkinen and David Martinez also joined Nauti Water for the novice limited and expert limited classes.  Richard Little took the win in the R/A novice limited class with Jamie getting second and David coming in for a third place finish.  Tim Hicks swept the weekend over David and Jamie in the R/A expert limited class.  Cyle Roberts raced unopposed day one in the R/A amateur 800 limited but was overtaken on day two by Jason Kelly who happily returned to racing after his accident last year in Hillsdale.  Girl power was shown in the R/A women’s class by Amber Smith who held her own as she competed against the men.  Greg Streit and Ryan Smith joined us for round 2 of the racing weekend.  Greg took the win for the day with Ryan being plagued by boat trouble.

Rounding out the racing was our small sport spec class.  Justin Luinstra took the win over his little brother, AJ Luinstra, and Glen Julien.

Nauti Water Racing is looking forward to our 3-2-1 Classic at El Dorado Lake in El Dorado, Kansas on June 22-23 for Rounds 3-4 of our Mid-America Watercross Tour.