It’s not the serene Pacific Ocean. It is mud-bottomed Grass Lake, a link in northern Lake County’s Chain of Lakes.
He’s not cheerful, likable old Gopher welcoming travelers to some romantic port of call. He is cheerful, likable Clem Haley welcoming folks to the Port of Blarney.
This isn’t the Love Boat. It’s the Blarney Queen.
Five dollars will buy a round-trip shuttle ticket out to Blarney’s Island where every Thursday evening from May through mid-September spectators can watch a sport that’s rare not only on the Chain of Lakes but in all of Illinois.
Here drag boat racing, unconditionally illegal on most Illinois waterways, attracts upwards of 2,000 spectators on summer nights.
On Thursday nights 20 to 30 boats vie for highest season points and fastest overall speed in eliminator rounds on a watery quarter mile. It’s a lot like automobile drag racing, said drag boat driver John Cost of Fox Lake, but without tires. He calls it low maintenance, but the cash purse is equally low, he says.
Daily first-place winners at Blarney’s can win as much as $300. Most classes pay $80 or $160 for first. Season high-point holders win trophies and small cash prizes in September. There’s bigger money in professional drag boat racing, Cost says, but the associated expenses are higher.
“But there is nowhere that I know of where people can watch drag boat racing either free or as cheaply as they do at Blarney’s. It’s an exciting, unique place. I really enjoy it,” Cost says. He’s not alone.
The weekly event draws 200 to 500 people, says John Haley, Clem’s brother and owner of Blarney’s Island. Though the crowd is pretty much male-dominated (men appear to outnumber women about 3 to 1), the sport draws spectators in all age groups. Families also seem to enjoy the excitement.
Folks who don’t take the 11-minute shuttle out to the island on the Blarney Queen can pull their boats right up along the edge of the race course and watch for free. It is estimated that as many as 500 to 1,000 spectator boats line the course on any given race night.
Blarney’s Island is little more than a large free-standing pier with a bar, restaurant and gift shop. Tables line the perimeter so patrons can watch the races while dining or drinking. A series of catwalk-like docks serve as pit slips for the race boats.
“We have permits, insurance policies, paramedics and patrol boats,” says John, who is as stubborn about rules and regulations as he is enthusiastic about a good time. According to a spokesman from the Lake County Sheriff’s Department Marine Base, Blarney’s Island has permits not only from them, but also from the Illinois Department of Conservation and the Illinois Waterway Management Agency.
“Blarney’s Island races are sanctioned by this department,” was the unnamed Sheriff’s Department spokesman’s curt response to a quick telephone inquiry. And, according to John Haley, theirs are the only such sanctioned drag boat races on the Chain of Lakes.
“It all started back in 1978,” recalls the 37-year-old. Blarney’s Island has been in the Haley family since 1972. John took ownership from his father in 1986, he says, and around ’78 friends of John, Clem and brother Ed began bringing their hot boats out to the island for a little fun.
“The boats weren’t legal. They made too much noise and were set up for racing not recreation,” John said. “But the guys had nowhere to run them except for professional drag race courses which were too far away and too expensive.” At the time, John said, those race courses were mainly in California, Texas or North Carolina.
According to Tim Albright, executive director of Orange, Calif.-based International Hot Boat Association, professional drag boat races began on the East and West Coasts more than 40 years ago. They are held in such places as Idaho, Michigan, Missouri and Oklahoma. The acssociation is the drag boat sanctioning arm of the American Power Boat Association, Albright says.
Other drag boat racing sanctioning groups include the Southern Drag Boat Association, the National Jet Boat Association and the American Drag Boat Association, which combined with the International Hot Boat Association this year to become the largest drag boat sanctioning group in the U.S., Albright says. The Hot Boat Association’s bi-monthly consumer magazine, Liquid Quarter Mile, has a circulation of more than 80,000.
Albright estimates that more than 30,000 people nationwide who participate in drag boat racing regularly. As a spectator sport Albright claims drag boat racing at places such as San Diego’s Mission Bay draws crowds as large as 250,000. Prize money at races that large, where 125 to 145 boats compete in twelve classes, can top $100,000.
“But in many towns you’ll find there are grass-roots places like where kids go to hone their driving skills in sportsman eliminator races, build up their boats and have a whole lot of fun,” he says, “That’s where most of our professional drivers come from.”
The Haleys didn’t aspire to professional drag boat racing-just a legal outlet for speed boats. “So we went to the sheriff and the conservation department and asked them if we could run races one night a week with their permission,” John said. They reasoned that with legal races the police wouldn’t have to chase boat racers down every weekend.
The authorities agreed. “It gave the guys who wanted to run fast boats a place to do it legally,” he said.
“We started with boats just runnin’ around and jamming. Then we started putting boats into classes. Next we started racing them against each other drag-racing style,” John said. People who raced attracted friends who liked to watch, and before long, he said, more spectators started to come out.
Blarney’s divides boats into seven classes, according to motor size (cubic inches) and location (inboard/outboard), carburetion and fuel. Some, John says, who have a lot of money to spend on their boats, would win every time if placed against smaller, less-elaborate boats.
“We try to do the best we can to evenly match the competition,” John says.
Racers pay a $15 entry fee, and Blarney’s puts up a weekly purse from which they pay winners. Promptly at 6:30 on summer Thursday evenings, when the weather’s good, John conducts a drivers’ meeting. He goes over entry rules and regulations, gives boats a quick technical inspection and checks required safety gear.
At the very least, drivers must have helmets with face masks, long-sleeve shirts and life vests. Drivers of alcohol- or nitrous oxide-powered boats also must have fireproof suits and shoes, and a life vest with a parachute, according to John. A number of detailed, technical safety rules apply to power equipment, fuel pumps and storage, plus appropriate shut-off valves and fire extinguishers.
Even with these precautions, critics say drag boat racing isn’t safe enough, and never can be. Proponents don’t flinch from the question but believe the sport can be fast and safe.
Professional drag boats can top 235 miles per hour. Critics say when an emergency occurs at 235 m.p.h. nothing can save a boat driver.
Albright disagrees. “Six years ago, after a number of driver fatalities, (the hot boat association) took a long look at safety. That’s when we completely rewrote our safety rules, and we went in a revolutionary new direction in driver safety. Our rules make drag boat racing safer than automobile racing,” he claims.
One innovation for boats that reach speeds of more than 200 m.p.h., is a chrome molly-tubing role cage. It’s a safety capsule in the boat to protect the driver in an accident, says Albright. Chris Davidson, sales director of Hot Boat Magazine, believes even that can’t guarantee safety.
“Safety tests for cars are done with crash test dummies. Safety tests for boats are performed on the water with real people. There simply isn’t enough safety testing of boats to ensure proper driver protection,” Davidson says. That’s one reason he says his Lake Havasu City, Ariz.-based magazine changed its editorial focus away from boat racing.
Boats at Blarney’s races don’t go much faster than 90 m.p.h., Cost says. Still, last year Kathy Frank of Somonauk was lucky to break only her leg when she lost control of her boat and her body hit the water at 90, says her husband, Roy. Accidents happen, he says, and Kathy’s back out there this year in her 19-foot Nordic tunnel hull jet boat.
Roy Frank admits, “It’s harder to build safety features into a boat. You just have to be as careful as possible.” Roy races a 16-foot Texas tunnel hull jet boat. It has a 500-cubic-inch Chevrolet engine. With nitrous oxide it gets more than 1,000 horsepower, he says.
In-line nitrous oxide, according to John, boosts horsepower by about 200 to 300. It is also used to boost the horsepower of drag racing car engines. Other power boosters include alcohol, John says. Those boats run in their own classes.
Roy and Kathy Frank and John Cost race in what they call the professional circuit as well as at Blarney’s. Cost sells performance boats and parts at his Lake Villa business called ARS Marine. Roy Frank is manager of the body shop at Village Pontiac in Naperville, and Kathy is studying to be a nurse. All admit drag boat racing is an expensive hobby.
“If we didn’t do this together there’s no way we could afford the sport,” Roy says. He estimates travel expenses to about six events per year plus boat and motor maintenance carry an annual price tag of $10,000. Even in a good year, when neither of them is injured and the boats run well, cash prizes don’t begin to match the expense, he says.
Cost echoes that and says that the initial investment for a professionally competitive boat and motor can top $40,000. “That’s why we like to race at Blarney’s Island,” Roy says. “It’s close and not as expensive because travel costs are lower.
“And we can race as often as we like. We’re usually there about every week,” Roy says, adding that a big part of the attraction is the friends who gather at Blarney’s.
Albright says getting started with a ground-floor, entry-level outboard or inboard jet boat can cost “as little as $10,000 to $15,000, even less with an average ski boat.” Though ski boats are sold at every marine store, Albright says jet boats are available only at marine performance shops.
Classified ads in the hot boat association’s Liquid Quarter Mile magazine list used “ready to race” boats from around $5,000 (without motor) to $30,000 and more.
Cost says most folks start with a small ski boat and work their way up, often with the help of sponsorships. The Franks acknowledge they would be unable to race if not for their numerous sponsors.
Hours after the Thursday sun has set on scenic Grass Lake, and drag boats have silenced their motors, the Blarney Queen shuttles laughing patrons back to the mainland. It may not be the Love Boat, but when the heady aroma of boat fuel combines with steamy summer night air tinged with the electricity of competition, it can be a lot more fun.
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For information on drag boat races call Clem Haley at 708-395-4122.
