Rio Vista Cal Cup - Sept. 6, 2003
Pritchard wins Rio Vista Cal Cup

Sunny Northern California skies and a brisk gusty wind blew through the Sacramento River delta this weekend making for some superb course racing conditions. All of the Bay’s best were there to take on the challenge of going head to head with Kevin Pritchard.

In the first race of the day it was an awesome battle between Kevin and the Bay areas speed man Rob Hartman. It has been quite some time since the two had competed against each other and Pritchard still had a bone to pick as he got beat by him about 5 years ago. With that in mind Pritchard was not about to make any mistakes and put the hammer down and lit the water on fire with his Starboard 147 and Gaastra 9.8 Nitro 4. Despite Pritchard’s untouchable speed Hartman took the victory in race number one as Pritchard went through the "closed" starting line and giving him a dsq for race number one. Unaware that the line was closed, due to a non existing course diagram, Pritchard shook his head and smiled and went on to the next race.

In the next races Pritchard took the lead with a vengeance, hitting the course with some speed. With some random challenges from Mike Zaicheck and Rob Hartman, Pritchard and his Starboard 147, Gaastra Nitro was untouchable, bulleting all of the remaining races.

The final race of the day was a long distance course that went upwind to the top mark, downwind to the bottom mark, through a 50 meter upwind canal for about 4 km with numerous tacks going from the bank of one side of the river to the bank of the other, and then back downwind to the finish. This made for some great tacking practice and was a great display of how quick the formula boards could accelerate. Pritchard took a commanding lead and with no one in sight he headed back down to meet up with the second place Mike Zaijchek, and started back upwind again. This made for a heated battle as the two swapped out for the lead crossing each other every thirty seconds. In the end Pritchard pulled back into the lead to head downwind and finish the day in first position.

"This was a great race out here. The wind was perfect 9.8 conditions, sunny and warm. The competition was pretty good too. I go around the world and the bay area pretty much has the fastest local racers in the world. It is pretty impressive. I thought after the first race where I crossed the line in first only to find out that I couldn’t go through the line on the way downwind, I was like oh hear we go again, I am probably going to get beat by one of these guys again; in the end I managed to put the Starboard Gaastra combo in front of the pack. My equipment felt great out there and had some great speed. It was pretty cool to see so many people into formula at such a high level. Thanks to everyone who was involved in the race in making it happen...." said Kevin Pritchard.