Dennis Caines makes Diamond Cup a festival, not just a race

photos by Dennis Caines

OLYMPIA – For the second straight year, Dennis Caines and the community in which he and Linda live, put on one helluva show at the ERCU Diamond Cup.
 
It was stop two on the 2025 ERCU Championship Series.
 
The Diamond Cup featured Scott Lake community support and enthusiasm unmatched by any other events on the ERCU race circuit. Through Dennis’s drive and passion for not only racing, but also his community and Scott Lake, the event was truly a festival, with 29 scale hydroplanes as the main event.
 
Vintage and modern firetrucks, firemen, face painting and other activities for the kids filled out the park and a first-class concession stand with everything from pulled pork sandwiches to root beer floats was amazing.

Tenth scale modern started things off with Paul Dunlap piloting Nelson Holmberg’s Bucket List racing to the heat one victory and 400 points but would be the only heat the Bucket List would compete in as technical issues resulted in DNS in heat two followed by scratches for the remainder of the day. That left just David Newton’s 2004 Budweiser and David Heilbrunn’s 2015 Dalton Industries in the class. There were no surprises here as Miss Budweiser took the checkers in heat 2, 3 and the winner take all final.

1/10 classic featured a field of five with one visiting driver making some big waves. From the racing McKeon clan, Tyler McKeon made his occasional pilgrimage to ERCU and threw down with his 1977 Natural Lite. Four heats, four wins for a 1,600-point day for Tyler. The rest of the field divvied up the crumbs Tyler left in his wake with Jerry Dunlap and Jim Hagan and Dray Newton each scoring over 700 points on the day and Gary Dawn had a bummer day with his 1983 Gilmore Special, tallying 450.
 
A reduced field made up the 1/10 vintage class as just three entries were able to make the trip. Paul Dunlap, David Heilbrunn and Dray Newton came to race. The preliminary heats were all won by David Heilbrunn and his 1964 Blue Chip. The Exide picked up a DNF in the first and second heats and Dray Newton’s Hawaii Kai was second in both. Headed in the third and final preliminary heat the pressure was on Dunlap as another DNF would take him out of contention for the winner take all final heat, Dunlap of course responded and finish second in the third punching his ticket and entry into the final. Heilbrunn entered the final heat with a perfect day, 1,200 points and his first-ever ERCU opportunity at a perfect day. Alas, this was not to be as Heilbrunn fought valiantly but crossed the finish line a second or two behind Dunlap’s Exide. Dray Newton tallied 1,050 points which when added to his 821 from the first race this season brings Dray to 1,871 and the lead in 1/10 vintage season points headed into the next race coming up in three weeks in Ellensburg.
 
The combined 1/7 modern and classic class featured an event-high nine boats at the beginning of the day. McKeon brought his 2010 Peters & May and he and Mike McIntosh with his 2024 Beacon Plumbing each won preliminary heats 1A and 1B. The second and third flight, Heats 2A, 2B, 3A and 3B would each be won by McKeon’s Peters & May and Heilbrunn’s 2024 Goodman Real Estate. The winner-take-all final was set to be a barnburner with McKeon, Heilbrunn, McIntosh and three new members; John Havens Jr.’s 1976 U-95 Miss Budweiser, Scott Whitestine’s 1972 Notre Dame and Carl Lewis’s 1975 Lincoln Thrift. The final was neck-and-neck for the first two laps with Peters & May and Goodman slugging it out for the lead. Fast forward to lap number three where the Peters & May and Goodman came together in turn two with the Goodman boat getting the worse of it, taken out by a chewed-up propeller from the incident. McKeon recovered and finished the heat ahead of Budweiser good enough for his second 1,600 point day.
 
That left just 1/7 scale vintage class with seven entries. This one would be David Newton and his 1958 Hawaii Kai going four for four, scoring 1,600 points. His closest competition would be provided by Caines’ 1968 Miss Eagle Electric, McKeon’s 1967 Miss Lapeer and McIntosh’s 1967 Miss U.S. V.
 
ERCU moves over the Cascades next for its third race – the Presidents Cup – of the season on Saturday, May 3 in Ellensburg, the 2025 Presidents Cup. Pre-registration is already open, and can be done by clicking here.