It all started down in Mexico, poolside over a couple of drinks.  Rob, Leo and I were enjoying the evening at the pool and we got to talking.  After a while the talk came around to the 2008 race  season.  Rob and Leo said that they were done racing and they set in on convincing me to race.  Finally, after a while of  badgering me to race, and a few more Rum and Cokes I gave in - but only on one condition.  That condition was that if I was going to race, I was going to put a turbine in the race boat.  Plus we needed another reason to go back to Mexico.

This was the dream of a man that I greatly respect and admire, Shirley Laird, who passed in 2002.  Shirley, Mike Phillips (my past navigator with the  original Burning Desire boats), and I had contemplated putting a turbine into a boat many times before but had never really gotten around to doing it.  The closest we got was brief talkings with Howard Arneson, a man who had an off-shore boat with two turbines in it.
 When I arrived home from Mexico, I started persistently researching what I needed to do to make this project a reality.  The first thing was to locate a turbine that would be able to accelerate and decelerate properly.  I talked to people from all over the world, searching and researching for the right turbine.   I finally    located a T-58 turbine from Akron Turbine in Akron, Ohio. 

The next thing was sourcing a gear box that would link the    turbine to the standard jet pump.  I found through research that Rolls Royce had the strongest gear boxes and I luckily found a gear box in Holland, Europe.

Then came the largest dilemma of the new power plant.  The turbine turned in the opposite direction of a standard gas powered piston engine.  I solved this problem by having Casale Engineering build a second gear box that would reverse the rotation of the turbine into the impeller.  They did a great job building a gear box that would hold up to the stress and the possible 1,400 horsepower workload of the T-58 Turbine.

We choose to use an Outlaw/ Eagle hull that was built heavier than a normal hull - to make up for all the weight that was lost from the big block engine to the turbine.  The turbine only weighs 375 lbs compared to 800 plus pounds of a Chevrolet big block.

Then there was the paint job.  It was originally going to have one beautiful girl on the bow which, due to a small prank became 14 beautiful girls scattered and hidden in the flames.  I wanted the boat to look like two different boats when traveling upstream and downstream. This was made possible by world class painter Ed Hubbs who has been a guest on the ‘Pimp My Ride’ television show for his amazing talent of painting realistic flames.

I would like to thank many people that have helped me make my dream of building a turbine jet boat possible.  These people include Keith Delong for custom machining multiple pump parts, drive line, pulley parts, and brackets.  Wayne Adams for the fuel tanks, motor mounts, internal fabrications, and most of all for the time he has taken out of his days to use his machining shop.  Gary Nourse for his superb welding of necessary odds and ends throughout the boat.  Jim Wright for the countless hours of labor and stress relieving wise cracks, and also to Ryan Ringer for his help on odds and ends and   being this year’s navigator.

Lastly I would like to thank my beautiful loving wife Simina Harding, for putting up with my stressful nights following evenings of hard work; and my son Brandon Harding for helping with the boat and keeping me company on the long nights out in the shop.

Only time will tell if this project is a success, but what is certain is that I would have not gotten this far   without the help from the many people mentioned here. 

Once again I thank everyone for the support and the help that have made this possible.  I am very proud of the group effort allowing us to push this new creation off of the trailer come race day.