Dad's XB 2002 running in the 90s

[macho]

I found an old photo album with some action shots of my dad in his old Allison. Believe this was the early or mid-90s. A reporter wrote an article about fast boats running on the Amite River and snapped some pictures of my dad.

Looks like he put in at Canal Bank on Diversion Canal that day.






This pic has a good view of the Diverison bridge in the background and the lack of condos and houses that are there today. Must have been nice to run on this part of the river before all the bulkheads turned it into the washtub that it is today.






















As far as setup goes, he was running a stock 2.5l 200. Can’t remember what all was special about this motor. The old heads tell me it was ready to make some real power, but dad never pulled the stops. It was apparently only sold in this configuration for 1 year (91 or 92?). My old man never even bothered to swap out the 40-amp stator.

His prop of choice was a 28p Hoss Hyperdrive, with a lot of tail lift worked into the trailing edge and triple cupped. It ran 96mph on its best day but was apparently more drivable than any other Allison it rode next to.

Dad likes to tell a story about running wide open down Diversion Canal, passing up bass boats headed to weigh in (apparently the wet t-shirt contest was about to start). He likes to emphasize that he blew passed them with a bottle of beer in one hand and the steering wheel in the other. He says the other Allison running with him was a 100+mph boat but couldn't keep up even with both hands on the wheel.

Steering was rack and pinion with a torque tab fixed to the bottom of the skeg. You might notice the cables coming out on both sides of the motor.



He rode it for about 10 years and decided to start having kids. He sold it to someone in Mississippi and hasn’t owned a fast boat since. Somehow in the past year he’s convinced my mom that they should get one again. We’ll see how all that goes at a later date.

You'll have to forgive me if the formatting of this post looks a little weird, this was my first time