Defending hydroplane Gold Cup champ, Corey Peabody of Kent, talks to Northwest Newsradio’s Ryan Harris:
You’ll see fast planes overhead and fast boats on the water as Seafair Weekend returns to Lake Washington.
This year’s Seafair unlimited hydroplane races mean a unified title – with the winner taking the Seafair Homestreet Bank Cup, the Gold Cup and the racing season’s high points championship, but they have to do it on a shorter, 2-mile course defending Gold Cup champ Kent native, Corey Peabody, says comes with those parallel rollers that hit the course when their wakes bounce back off the log boom. “We have to go through that slop,” Peabody says, “It’s not fun, but everybody has to do it, so we just drive through it and hope for the best.
Peabody tells Northwest Newsradio he’s one of the lucky ones who gets to go for the first Gold Cup to be awarded in Seattle in 38 years. Peabody says, “I won it last year in Guntersville, Alabama, and happy to have it here and happy to have…my sponsor was one of the ones responsible for getting the Gold Cup here in Seattle, so hopefully we can go out there and get a win for them.” Peabody drives the U-9 Miss Beacon Plumbing, and he had high praise for Bill Cahill, who owns the Kent company. Beacon Plumbing has long been a sponsor of Northwest Newsradio.
Seafair president, Eric Corning, says after a bumpy few years, this year’s festival feels like the first one that’s really back to normal. Corning says, “The amount of people and organizations coming together to be able to make Seafair fantastic is incredible. It really feels like what we were doing in the pre-pandemic levels.”
The hydro races start at 9:00 AM each day, interwoven with air show performances after 10:30, including a Boeing 737 flyover Sunday at 3:15. The air show wraps up each day with the Blue Angels’ C-130 cargo plane, “Fat Albert”, at 3:20 and the rest of the Blues at 3:30.
Blue Angel #4, Lieutenant Scott Goossens, talks to Northwest Newsradio’s Ryan Harris:
