For Many at Wheeling Regatta, Passion for Raceboats Courses Through the Veins
Derek Redd Trending
WHEELING -- Both Mark Cravens and his grandson Nick Brewer used the same word to describe Nick's run Saturday morning at the Wheeling Vintage Raceboat Regatta -- "nerve-wracking."
For Cravens, he was watching his 17-year-old grandson race a boat for the first time, becoming the family's third generation to get into the sport. For Brewer, he didn't want to disappoint either his grandfather or his mother, Becky Cravens, who have excelled in the sport before him.
The nerves were replaced with pride when the ride was over, and the family celebrated a new generation of racing at Heritage Port.
Vintage raceboats often are a family affair. Look around the pits at Heritage Port and moms, dads, kids, in-laws and grandkids can be found all over the place. It's part of what makes events like the Wheeling regatta so much fun for so many of the drivers.
Debbie Joseph and her husband Dr. Dan Joseph have been co-directors of the Wheeling Vintage Raceboat Regatta in all of its 17 years. They've been fans of the sport well before that and their children also got bitten by the bug early. Dan Joseph's brother Brian also races with his wife Julie. The entire family can be seen in the pits, suiting up to race and bouncing between the pits and the trailers and tents on Water Street helping the event stay running smoothly.
"It's a lot of fun," Debbie Joseph said. "And that's really why, for our family, it's kind of grown. The family is interested. Our two daughters both married guys who just love this stuff and really, really have been involved, so that's fun."
All of Dan and Debbie Joseph's kids race and have grown in the sport through the boats the Joseph family has collected through the years. Their first races all have taken place in Brian Joseph's boat Little Fission, an S-Class hydroplane that is perfect for beginners learning how to drive. As they all grew in the sport, they graduated to some of the larger, more powerful boats like the E-Class Agitator and F-Class Jade Dragon.
Those raceboats are the thread that ties together the families found in the Wheeling regatta pits throughout Labor Day weekend. The Glasgows of Triadelphia are another big family that is an event mainstay. Anne Glasgow said that seven family members, with father Ty Glasgow at the helm, were at Heritage Port this past weekend.
The shared love of the sport makes family gatherings easy and fun, Anne Glasgow said. There may be disagreements in other subjects, but raceboats is a subject where everyone is in sync.
"Pretty much every big family holiday, we're talking about what boats we're going to try and get ready," she said. "We have a whole fleet of, like, seven or eight boats at this point. So we say, 'OK, we can't bring all seven. What are we going to try and work on this winter to be able to take care of and get things done?'
"A lot of people, they have football or soccer," she added, "but I have racing, which is almost a dying breed now."
Yet there are new generations of these families who are ready to help keep the sport alive. Debbie and Dan Joseph's 9-year-old granddaughter Kylie Cox has been telling her grandparents and parents, Kristin and Chris Cox, that she wants to race and already has the Jade Dragon in her sights.
"It's really, really fast," Kylie said.
"Do you think you'll be able to drive the Jade Dragon as fast as Daddy drives it?" Debbie Joseph asked her granddaughter.
"Faster," Kylie said with a smile.
Glasgow said her 12-year-old son Aston is champing at the bit to hit the water in one of the family's hydroplanes, too. He wants to feel the rush that Brewer felt on his maiden voyage Saturday in the S-Class Fools Gold.
He joked within earshot of Mark Cravens that he'll race better than his grandfather one day, but on Saturday, he felt that his first run in a boat was a major accomplishment, like graduating from college, only it's his first day in pursuing his degree in hydroplane racing.
Learning what makes for a great driver is a challenge, Brewer said, but it's one he's ready for with his family in his corner.
"I'm very fortunate I grew up in the family I did," he said. "And I'm very fortunate my life is turning out the way that it did."