The organizer of this weekend’s Smoke on the Water boat races on Raccoon Lake is extremely pleased with the turnout of participants and spectators. Al Owen says the number of boats and trailers was or was near a record in the 19 years of the event.
“The event overall was great. We had a really huge turnout. We’ve had some beautiful days of racing. We raced Friday, Saturday and now today. We’ve had probably 130-140 entries and probably 45-50 trailers here this weekend. So its been a very good turnout.”
Owen was also pleased to see the number of spectators watching from Castle Ridge as well as those attending the Saturday night concert.
One of the national winners in the National Boat Racing competition was Mike Kirkendoll of Woodlawn in the “D” Runabout class.
The only incident to mar the weekend was a boat racer from Northern Illinois who was injured when his boat flipped over as he was leaving the starting line in the first heat Sunday. Owen says the racer was able to return to the event after getting out of the hospital to tell everyone he was okay and would be back next year.
The Centralia Fire Department boat crew with a diver from Lake Egypt were able to roll the boat back over and place the racer on a backboard to remove him from the water after he had been unresponsive for 2 to 3 minutes. After initially being taken to SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital, he was airlifted to St. Louis for treatment. Owen says the racer was very lucky and only received a fractured finger.
Speeds sometimes reached 100 miles per hour in some of the heats at Smoke on the Water on Raccoon Lake. Photo by Pat Hodges.
