By Heidi Sanders
Reporter
Jimmy Shane spends his days during the week working as an integration engineer for Blue Origin in Kent, but on summer weekends, the 29-year-old pursues his lifelong passion of racing hydroplanes as driver of the H1 Unlimited Oberto’s Miss Madison.
“It has always been a pretty large passion starting as young as I did,” Shane said.
Shane began racing hydroplanes at the age of 8. His father began racing in 1969, and Shane’s mother and sister also took up racing. Shane said the family raced against each other during his teenage years.
“We all traveled together as a family,” he said. “It was fantastic.”
Shane was named American Power Boat Association Region 4 Rookie of the Year in 2001. He drove in the limited classes before entering Unlimited competition as a substitute driver in 2007. He raced his first full season in the Unlimited series in 2012 and joined the Oberto team in 2014.
Shane’s passion for hydroplanes also includes their construction. He built his own boats when he first started racing.
“My family owned a custom metal fabrication business,” he said.” I grew up in the industry of metal fabrication.”
Shane said his background in metal fabrication and experience building boats, led to his job building rockets at Blue Origin, a privately funded aerospace manufacturer set up by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.
Shane started working at Blue Origin about two years ago, when he moved to Covington from his native Maryland with his wife, Bianca, who is originally from Sammamish.
“She got her way and we ended up here in Seattle,” Shane said.
Shane said he is able to balance his job at Blue Origin with racing by using vacation time to go to races during the season.
“They (Blue Origin) knew hiring me about the hydroplane racing,” Shane said. “They have been absolutely great to work with.”
Shane said his wife and 2-year-old son, Colton, often travel with him to the races.
“We like to do that as family,” he said.
Shane said he will let Colton decide when he gets older if he wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and pursue racing.
“If he is anything like me it is going to be really hard for him not be somewhat involved growing up in that environment,” he said.
Racing has taught Shane a lot of life lessons, such as trying new things and learning from failing.
“Setting goals and trying to achieve to the highest you can is one of biggest life lessons I have learned,” he said.
Shane said his goals for this season are to win the Gold Cup and a national title, both for the second year in a row. Shane achieved the first of his two goals on Sunday with a win in the Tri-Cities. The win, Shane’s ninth career win in H1 Unlimited Hydroplane series racing, puts Oberto in the lead for the National High Points Title. Shane said winning the National High Points Title not only comes with the U1 number for the boat but gives the team bragging rights for an entire season.
Shane said winning the Gold Cup last year, in his first season with the team, was a big deal, since it had been 43 years since Miss Madison had won the Gold Cup.
Shane said Oberto has been one of the boats to beat for a while, with five National High Points Titles in the past seven years.
“Everyone knows when Oberto shows up we are there to win races,” he said. “We go into season knowing that everyone is shooting for what we have.”
Shane said he is fortunate to work with a team like Oberto. He said it took some time for the team to adjust to Shane as the boat’s new driver last year.
“They were a team that was very experienced with their driver and crew chief for last 10 years,” he said. “It threw a loop into the operation.”
Shane will take to the waters of Lake Washington this weekend for the Albert Lee Appliance Seafair Cup. The course can be challenging, Shane said.
“Seafair is a very unique course,” he said. “It is a smaller course being a two-mile track.”
He said the logboom makes for a choppy waters, not allowing the boats’ waves to dissipate.
“When the wind gets blowing it throws another toughness to the race course,” he said. “It is very unpredictable and changes every single lap.… It is exciting for the fans but tough for the race team to win Seafair and keep the boat in one piece.”
Shane said hydroplane racing has struggled in the last few years, but seems to be on the upswing, gaining popularity.
There will are five races in the circuit this year, but two will be added next year, bringing the total closer to days of 12 unlimited races each season.
Shane said hydroplane racing has a good following in the Pacific Northwest, with Seafair and the races in the Tri-Cities drawing a couple hundred thousand spectators.
“If we can get some new areas to have that same market, we will be in really good shape,” Shane said.
