Let's Go Racing
Scooter Boham travels in some fast company. Very fast. "I cover a quarter mile in under 10 seconds," says the Roanoke Rapids mechanic, who spends his weekends on the professional dragboat circuit as a member of the East Coast Dragboat Association and the American Dragboat Association. It's a sport that showcases raw power and skill, as drivers race from a dead stop to the finish line at speeds nearing 120 miles per hour.
Lifelong Love Affair With Boats
"Ever since I was small, I've loved boats," says the North Carolina native. "When my dad bought me my first boat, it had a 1 1/2 horsepower motor. I kept tinkering around with it until I got it to go faster."
Today, Boham races a sleek, custom-made dragster that he's modified himself adn dedicated to his brother, Mark. Ironically, Mark drowned when Boham was a small boy, "so it's a way for me to help keep his memory," he says. It also serves as a reminder that the water can quickly turn dangerous if you are not careful. "With so little time in a race, there is no room for mistakes," Boham says. "If you catch too much air under your boat, or you lose sight of the horizon even for a second, you're in a world of trouble."
A Champion Racer
No one can ever say Boham has lost sight of his horizons. He holds several North Carolina championships as both a water skier and a regular boat racer, competing on oval courses, but took up drag racing "because my family worried about me too much," he says. "Racing around an oval course with every boat aiming for the same buoy can get a little hairy," he admits. "You have to put a lot of trust in the racers around you."
That kind of trust needs to be earned. "Everybody on the oval-course circuit goes through intensive training, and rookie racers have to put an X on their helmets and boats so the rest of us can steer clear of them," Boham says with a chuckle. "Coming out of that environment, I figured drag racing against only one other boat has got to be easier."
It isn't. If anything, it's a more intense team sport that requires a higher level of precision and rapport among drivers and pit crew. "In drag racing, the crew and mechanics are the heroes, not the driver," Boham says. "If things go right, it's because the team worked well together."
Lessons From the Fast Track
Boham brings that same sense of teamwork to the mill each day. "There are a lot of similarities between working here and racing," says the three-year champion. "To be successful, both require teamwork, precision, and the drive to do the best you can. We take a lot of pride in our work here at the mill, the same as I always do when I'm out on the race circuit."
In both cases Boham's out to win. "That means being never quite satisfied with what you've already accomplished," he says. "There's always somebody out there aiming to beat you, and there's also room for improvement, whether it's racing or making paper." PJM
from the December 1998 issue of THE WIRE newsletter, reproduced with permission of Champion International Corporation.
|
