March Madness Drag Boats at Pirates Den 2025

[Sportin' Wood]

@angiebaby and I attended our first drag boat race at Pirates Den in Parker yesterday. What a nice way to spend a beautiful day sitting on the banks of the Parker strip. Knowing nothing about drag boat racing we still had a great time and will likely try and attend next year when we return south from Montana. I've got lot of questions about the format, it seemed like they where trying to achieve as close a time as the benchmark of 7 seconds, I assume this was to handicap the field for the actual main event racing. Can someone give us the high level overview of how it all works, or point us to a resource? I really liked that there was some rung what you brung entries.

Would be wild to see drone footage of some of these guys, I was surprised we did not see any in the air.

Any additional advice on the best way to enjoy this type of racing is appreciated.

Finished the day off with friends at Foxes, which also brought back a lot of memories of our younger days Glad to see the drinks are still poured correctly.

 

[mjc]

Hard to answer question. Many different classes and all have different times to try and run. The boat I work on is a QE class. We try to get as close to 6.0 but not faster, ran 6.025. other classes are like with different time. Come on back out and stop by our pit and learn more. 00 QE boat.

 

[Sportin' Wood]

Hard to answer question. Many different classes and all have different times to try and run. The boat I work on is a QE class. We try to get as close to 6.0 but not faster, ran 6.025. other classes are like with different time. Come on back out and stop by our pit and learn more. 00 QE boat.

Going out on the lake today, but thanks for the offer. Where the pits open to spectators? I would have loved to get a close look. I did kind of assume that times was dependent on the class. Super fun to watch the fast classes, totally amazing how fast some of them are.

Where the pits at Pirates Den or over at the Park?

 

[mjc]

Going out on the lake today, but thanks for the offer. Where the pits open to spectators? I would have loved to get a close look. I did kind of assume that times was dependent on the class. Super fun to watch the fast classes, totally amazing how fast some of them are.

Where the pits at Pirates Den or over at the Park?

We are just down the beach aways right on the water.

 

[coolchange]

@angiebaby and I attended our first drag boat race at Pirates Den in Parker yesterday. What a nice way to spend a beautiful day sitting on the banks of the Parker strip. Knowing nothing about drag boat racing we still had a great time and will likely try and attend next year when we return south from Montana. I've got lot of questions about the format, it seemed like they where trying to achieve as close a time as the benchmark of 7 seconds, I assume this was to handicap the field for the actual main event racing. Can someone give us the high level overview of how it all works, or point us to a resource? I really liked that there was some rung what you brung entries.

Would be wild to see drone footage of some of these guys, I was surprised we did not see any in the air.

Any additional advice on the best way to enjoy this type of racing is appreciated.

Finished the day off with friends at Foxes, which also brought back a lot of memories of our younger days Glad to see the drinks are still poured correctly.


View attachment 1487510

You have the right idea. What you saw was the seven second index. This allows many different boats to run in one class. Hydro
racing jet boats, racing flat bottoms. When you may not have enough boats to run individual classes.
I assume Parker runs Countdown tree.
Countdown timer, starts from 10. Depending on what type of boat you have, think jet boat compared to a flat bottom on the leave. So you have a flatbottom, the timer starts and you have your leave set at seven. You leave at seven, then you can’t cross the starting line Before the clock gets to zero and goes green. If you do you red light. The closer you get to zero is your reaction time. Now if you have a quick jet boat, your leave may be on a 5 1/2. That’s why you may see two boats racing each other, but one leaves before the other one. But doesn’t cross the starting line Before the green.
Then you want your boat to Run as close to the index as possible, in this case seven seconds.
Now here is why you may see a boat that runs 7.30 , Beat a boat that runs 7.08, Because the slower boat had a better reaction time than the faster boat.
In a nutshell

 

[TrollerDave]

@angiebaby and I attended our first drag boat race at Pirates Den in Parker yesterday. What a nice way to spend a beautiful day sitting on the banks of the Parker strip. Knowing nothing about drag boat racing we still had a great time and will likely try and attend next year when we return south from Montana. I've got lot of questions about the format, it seemed like they where trying to achieve as close a time as the benchmark of 7 seconds, I assume this was to handicap the field for the actual main event racing. Can someone give us the high level overview of how it all works, or point us to a resource? I really liked that there was some rung what you brung entries.

Would be wild to see drone footage of some of these guys, I was surprised we did not see any in the air.

Any additional advice on the best way to enjoy this type of racing is appreciated.

Finished the day off with friends at Foxes, which also brought back a lot of memories of our younger days Glad to see the drinks are still poured correctly.


View attachment 1487510

This video may not explain all the classes, but it gives a bit of insight into drag boat racing.