LITTLE ROCK — There might be folks who think that just because the calendar has already rolled past the BCS Championship, the Super Bowl, March Madness, the NBA Finals, The Masters, and even the World Cup, the most anticipated sports contests of 2010 have come and gone. Those folks must not know about the World Championship Cardboard Boat Races in Heber Springs, kicking off this Saturday at 10 a.m.
Borrowing the most ridiculous of sports clichés, “it is what it is.” People build boats almost entirely out of cardboard — no metal whatsoever; there are detectors to make sure — and race them. In water. The goal for many is not to sink. Others take pride in looking the best, and, yes, there are awards for that. You'd be surprised how crafty and classy these boats can get.
But the most-coveted prize among participants is the trophy for speed — a first-place finish secured by completing two runs through a 200-yard course with the fastest time. It may not have the storied history of, say, the Olympics, but the World Championship Cardboard Boat Races have been going for 24 years. And in that time, they have captured the passions of many participants, some of whom have formed a rivalry. It's a friendly rivalry, though. Honest.
The Old Guard
For the better part of the history of this race, the past 20 years or so, a perennial favorite is the team that hails from Dassault Falcon Jet, led throughout by one Darcy Sackwar.
“When we started out, it wasn't as serious as it is now,” Sackwar said. “If it floated, it floated, and if you got a winning time out of it, even better.”
Sackwar said he's never built a boat that sank, and while he hasn't won every year, the team, now under the sponsorship of North Little Rock's Hisco but still piloted and built by Falcon Jet folks, has had its share of success. And that included a streak of seven straight first-place victories going into 2007.
And while it's been suggested that Sackwar and his folks have a leg up — their company builds jets, after all — the truth is less scientific.
“There's a big difference between cardboard and an airplane,” laughed the team captain, who said he and his crew aren't aircraft engineers. They just build the boats off concepts that have been successful in the past — whether their own or someone else's.
But for all the success and tradition, the Falcon Jets are in something of a slump. Though their gorgeous Razorback boat last year won them the Pride of the Fleet audience favorite award, it's been three years since they took home the speed trophy. Arguably the lowest of their lows came two years ago when they didn't just get beat, they got beat badly — and by the same folks who had barely snapped their streak the year before. And this time a national audience was watching thanks to the Discovery Channel's Wreckreation Nation crews filming the whole thing.
The Streak Breakers
It was an unlikely matchup. Those titans of the regatta, the Hisco-Falcon Jet team, had history on their side. The upstarts were in a boat sponsored by downtown Little Rock's Piano Kraft. They were entered only because two employees had picked up a magazine out of Heber Springs while in Clinton, en route from business in Mountain Home. They thought it might be fun, so in 2007 they hastily built a boat out of the heavy cardboard crates the pianos are delivered in. Two of their rowers were 13-year-old girls.
And they won.
“Winning that first year really put us on the map,” said Jeff Karls, captain of the Piano Kraft team. “We didn't expect to win, we just went out there to have fun.”
“And that's what we're still going out there to do now, right?” asks Piano Kraft owner Richard Deutsch.
“No. We're out there to win,” said Karls.
“And have fun,” Deutsch added, more for me than anyone else.
Truth tell, the results of late haven't been as fun as that first year. In 2008 Piano Kraft smoked their rivals for the Discovery Channel's cameras but ended up second overall. Last year their eight-man, 24-foot construction, into which Karls said he sunk more than 120 hours, netted them third — this time finishing behind a boat, which, according to Deutsch, was paddled entirely by 12-year-old girls wearing Santa Claus hats. Karls claims they were college age — and volleyball players to boot.
The problem, Karls said, was that last year’s boat was too big and couldn't turn. This year, he's cut it in half and will have a crew of only four.
“It's the best boat I've built so far,” he said, despite the boat still being in pieces. “I could strap a motor on the back of this thing and I wouldn't worry at all [about the force tearing it apart].
“I've built a good, solid boat, and I just can't improve on that design,” he said. “I'm pretty confident about winning. This is the first year I've been confident in thinking we're going to win.”
The Not-so-new Guy
But this is also the first year Piano Kraft will be without Matthew Billingsley, the other guy who got them into the contest in the first place. Though he'd left the company shortly before last year's race, he stayed on with the team both painting and rowing the boat. This year, he's starting his own team, sponsored by Nichols Furniture in Little Rock.
“He [Karls] will probably say I copied his design,” said Billingsley as he showed off his construction, the design of which, he said, is based on an Olympic kayak. “It's really lightweight and has the minimum [three rowers] required for the team division.”
In fact, Billingsley said, he broke off because he had thoughts on design — input that he said Karls didn't want.
“Jeff is going downhill,” he said, revving up the rhetoric. “He's made the same mistakes two years in a row … Maybe they'll wind up with fourth, but there's no trophy for that.”
Meanwhile, Karls said he'll be happy to let Billingsley have Piano Kraft's third-place trophy (since he won't win his own). He'll just have to wait for the cabinet to get stocked with a few more first places.
Smack talk aside, the competition is friendly. Billingsley admits he actually got some of his cardboard from Karls.
“You gave that traitor cardboard?” was the reaction from Deutsch, who apparently wasn't aware until I asked Karls about it.
(All kidding aside, Deutsch had nothing but praise for his former employee.)
But this is Billingsley’s first solo boat. While he's built in some fail-safes, like a keel and three compartments he can check to see if he's taking on water, he does admit that it might be prone to tip due to its narrow width — only 15 inches.
“But hey, if I'm going to flip over, might as well do it in front of thousands of people,” he laughed. “But I think I'll get first place. I know I will. Though I'm a little scared I might flip.
“It'll either be first place or an all-out loss.”
Sackwar and the storied Hisco-Falcon Jet folks are counting on the latter, both for Billingsley and his former teammates at Piano Kraft. Though mum on details, he said his boat this year is smaller, lighter and has a smaller crew. It's the formula for a return to first.
“So you can tell those piano boys we're coming after them,” he said — then, after a slight correction from his teammate: “Or, they'll actually have to be coming after us.”