By Jennifer Maiorana ’16 | Page Editor

Reaching two hundred miles per hour is an everyday occurance for Jimmy Shane.

The Miss Madison hydroplane driver and his Oberto Beef Jerky sponsored team won the 2014 American Power Boat Association Gold Cup last Sunday.

Before the race, Shane, who also works with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, said winning the Gold Cup  “would be a childhood dream come true.”

In order to ensure his seed for the finals, Shane said he hit speeds up to 204 miles per hour in the preliminary heats on last Saturday.

“We had a pretty big feat this weekend: we ran a lapping competition at over 160 miles per hour average,” said Shane. “Nobody ever in the sport on the Detroit River has ran a lap over 160, so that’s pretty cool.”

Shane slightly improved his preliminary time during the finals on Sunday, averaging 162.613 miles per hour, according to the H1 Unlimited website.

Driving a hydroplane is a unique experience, Shane said. He described driving a hydroplane similar to flying a low airplane with low visibility.

“There are times when you go through a rooster tail where you can’t see anything and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Shane. “You try to peek through little holes where you can and try to pick up buoys, but once in a while when you go through a spray of water, you can’t see anything. When you go through a spray of water, it’s like a wall of concrete.”

Unlimited hydroplanes are specially crafted with 3000 horsepower turbine engines enabling them to reach 200 miles per hour, according to the H1 Unlimited website.

“The (hydroplane) engines are directly out of Chinook helicopters,” said Shane. “There’re a turbo shaft boat which means there’s no thrust involved; it’s all rotational force.”

However, Oberto crew member Lee Hooton said there are some restrictions on the unlimited hydroplane’s mechanics.

“We get data on engine output speed, the RPM (rotations per minute) of the shaft that comes onto the gearbox and fuel flow of high and low pressure,” said Hooton. “Those are the two things that H1 regulates: that we have to be under 4.1 gallons per minute on fuel flow and 110 percent RPM.”

With 20 years of experience under his belt, Shane said he has always had a passion for boat racing stemming from his family’s interest in the sport.

“When I turned old enough to race, it was the only thing I could think about,” said Shane. “At school I’d be drawing pictures instead of paying attention.”

Sure enough, at 8 years old Shane said he began racing small boats and continued working his way up to unlimited hydroplanes by age 21.

“What got me here is building my own boats and building my own engines, making boats go fast on my own. It’s because I had the passion to go fast and race boats,” said Shane. “Once I turned 18, I started crewing with these boats and getting my name involved in the unlimited community. And eventually they found out I did a pretty good job driving. In 2005, I had an opportunity to test a boat, so that’s how it all started.”

His experience with constructing boats and engines also benefitted Shane with his career. For instance, he gained the opportunity to work with Amazon’s founder, he said.

“I build rockets for Jeff Bezos, the guy who started Amazon; it’s his private company, so there’s no public funding or stocks. I assemble and build and put parts together for the rockets,” said Shane. “They hired me as an engineer with no engineering degree because of my experience with composites. By building the boats and building engines, I got a lot of composite experience and real life hands on experiences, which is what companies like that are looking for.”

Shane said he travels around seven to eight weekends per summer all around the country for unlimited hydroplane races. Typically, he brings his 1-year-old son along from his home just north of Seattle.

In fact, Shane said his son is an important factor when it comes to whether or not he continues racing.

“When he gets to the age of playing t-ball, I’ll have to reevaluate everything and see if it’s worth my while to continue racing unlimiteds,” said Shane. “If he’s into it, obviously it’ll make it easier, but it he has other interests then who knows.”

However, if he does give up racing, it will be tough because in addition to his family, racing has been a very significant portion of his life, he said.

“It (hydroplane racing) relates to everything, all aspects of my life: socially, being able to handle things under pressure and being able to work in situations that aren’t ideal,” said Shane. “With working on a race boat and racing under pressure, you have limited time to do stuff and that’s the real life experience that will take you farther if you learn how to handle that.”