Image Of The Week: Air St. Clair

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Uncategorized: Image Of The Week: Air St. Clair

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Not known as a big-water race for obvious reasons, Michigan’s St. Clair River Classic does occasionally produce some wild aerial moments. Between sporty-plus wakes and strong currents, the aquamarine waterway can get sloppy, especially when you have 47 teams roughing it up as they did yesterday during the Offshore Powerboat Association-produced event.

Whoever said river races can’t get rough needs to talk to the Crazy Rythm team. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

As anyone who knows him can tell you, speedonthewater.com chief photographer Pete Boden is not a fan of shooting flat-water races. But he remains patient and keeps shooting because he knows that even those contests can produce a cool photo or two of a raceboat in flight.

And that was exactly what Boden captured in the image above of the Bracket 400-class Crazy Rythm team of Ken Hobden and Chuck Schell in their Challenger V-bottom raceboat. It is far from his wildest big-air photo, but thanks to the waters of the St. Clair River, those of the vibrant boat itself and the muted background hues, it could be his most colorful.

Next up for Boden is this weekend’s Great Lakes Grand Prix and Michigan City, Ind. The fifth of eight races in the American Power Boat Association Offshore Championship Series, the Michigan City contest also isn’t known for producing big-water, but given that it runs on Lake Michigan anything can happen.

Either way, we know Boden will capture at least one high-flying moment.