Lewiston's Lillie, Rogers land EC Enterprises sprint boat titles

May 3—One seeks to stop madness, while the other embodies it — but both Leighton Lillie and River Rogers of Lewiston found their way to victory in their respective divisions amid a mixture of local, regional and international sprint boat opposition Saturday at EC Enterprises Motorsports Park.

Hundreds of spectators lined the sandy slopes overlooking a course made up of waterways interspersed with grassy green islands through the several-hour long American Sprint Boat Racing Association-sanctioned event on Albright Grade outside Lewiston.

Lillie, a 2001 Lewiston High graduate who successfully transitioned sports from motocross to sprint boat racing after losing the use of his legs in a 2009 accident, steered his boat, Preventing Insanity, to Saturday's championship in the 400-cubic inch class with the help of navigator Cody Holzer. Rogers and his navigator Cole Keatts took top honors in the Unlimited class with the bright-orange craft Pure Insanity.

"We're just pumped to be in our hometown racing," Lillie said. "It's nice to be home doing what we love to do; we really enjoyed it."

Family ties

Readers who suspect a connection between the name of Lillie's boat and Rogers' are on the right track. Lillie is a longtime friend of River Rogers' father Ryan Rogers, who also fielded a boat called Pure Insanity, and he conceived of his own vessel's name as a sort of variation on the theme.

"Really, I'm out there trying to prevent my insanity by giving me something fun to do, so it just made sense," Lillie said.

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Saturday's win was Lillie's second straight, following a first-place showing in the V8 Superboat Championships on March 28 in Keith, Australia. He attributes his recent momentum in part to switching to a new manufacturer, Pulse Race Boats out of Australia. Longtime navigator Holzer was not with him for that event, where Macey Roylance of New South Wales substituted in the role.

"Today's my first day in the new Pulse hull, so it went fabulous — super-smooth," Holzer said. "Our last boat was Unlimited and different hull; this one is a lot smoother and seems like it picks up really well."

How it happened

Several rounds of preliminary competition Saturday led to a pair of decisive elimination rounds as boats took turns vying to complete the course in the fastest time without running aground or sputtering out. When wipeouts did occur — one of them ending with a boat sliding a significant distance and running into the fence surrounding the water course — a crew of "island hoppers" would come to the rescue, performing a heave-ho and dislodging them from muddy banks.

"The water does look pretty inviting, doesn't it?" the loudspeaker announcer said at one point as the crew waded toward a boat that had washed ashore on one of the mid-course islands.

Temperatures climbed well into the 80s as morning turned to afternoon, but spectators were soothed by the occasional cool breeze and light spritz of droplets as the high-powered water vehicles churned up massive waves while turning corners at high speeds.