​Kawasaki, known for its high-performance JET SKI® watercraft, dominated this year’s International Jet Sports Boating Association (IJSBA) World Finals in Lake Havasu City, Arizona and Kings Cup in Thaihland. With a final tally of 20 championships, 2003 marked another fantastic year of racing for Kawasaki.

​R&D Factory Yamaha Team Follmer announced today their intention to field two Bill Chapin prepared R&D FACTORY YAMAHA personal watercraft in the IJSBA BULLETT National Team Endurance Championship 6 hour race to be contested at Lake Havasu’s Crazy Horse Campground on December 6th. Reigning IJSBA National Team Endurance Champion Mike Follmer outlined his teams plan to enter their R&D FACTORY YAMAHA GP1200R and their newly race prepped R&D FACTORY YAMAHA FX140 4-stroke watercraft.   The teams strategy mirrors the tortoise and hare tale in that the GP1200R with it’s proven championship winning speed and durability will lead the charge while the FX140, being raced for the first time, will rely on a constant speed and fewer fuel stops to make up valuable time on the 5 mile race course to prevail over the faster boats. Follmer will be teaming again with Greg Saugstad of Montclair on the GP1200R and with David Wulf of Upland who is returning from a brief retirement to team with Mike on the FX140. The Havasu 300 is a six hour endurance race that requires each two rider team to make several fuel stops and rider changes. “The logistics for this type of race require careful advanced planning to enable us to emerge triumphant again,” said Mike Follmer the teams owner, who went on to point out that this two boat effort will require him to ride each boat for 3 hours, meaning he will ride one boat or another for the entire six hour event.
   The teams FX140 has undergone extensive testing and modification under the supervision of Bill Chapin of R&D in Lake Havasu. “All of us at YAMAHA are intently watching this first racing effort of the FX140 and are completely behind R&D FACTORY YAMAHA Team Follmer in their quest to win another title for YAMAHA”, said Rick Phillips, YAMAHA WaterCraft Group Public Relations Manager. In closing, Follmer said, “We’re expecting a good showing from all our R&D FACTORY YAMAHA Team Follmer water craft and personnel in this Bullett IJSBA National Team Endurance race, but whatever the outcome, our long range plans are for 2004 to race the FX160 High Output and GP1300R are taking another large step forward”.

​Don't bother pointing out to Renee Hill that she's old enough to be the mother of many of her competitors. She'll be the first to tell you she doesn't care.

​After all, age is just one of the obstacles this Riverside resident has overcome en route to picking up a second-place trophy last month in the Pro-Am Women's Runabout race at the International Jet Sports Boating Association World Finals at Lake

​"It's fun to go out there with 16-year-olds and give them a run for their money," said Hill, who has accomplished an awful lot on the circuit the past few years despite racing without a sponsor.
She won last month's event despite racing on a fractured ankle.
"We've worked our way up," said Hill, who started jet skiing with her husband, Jeff, seven years ago.
The couple got a pair of bottom-end Sea-Doo jet skis and began riding around on Lake Havasu. They were the runabout style, which means riders sit on them, rather than stand, as the vehicle flies through the water at 65 to 70 miles per hour.
A friend suggested they enter some local races, and Renee and Jeff competed throughout the winter and summer series.
Before long, they had joined the IJSBA and began competing in the 800cc novice-class western regionals, racing all over Southern California. Renee won a world championship in that class in 1999 and then moved up to the next level, the pro-am, where she's been racing for the past four years.
The first year I said I wanted to finish in the top 10, then I'd work my way up," she said. "This year I wanted first place, but it was quite an honor just to stand up on the podium at this level."
Jeff Hill said that if his wife's first-place finish in the 800cc class had come a few years before 1999, back when the sport was peaking in popularity, she might have come away with a lot more.
"We might have had two new boats, and a mechanic," he said, but then explained that the sport has been slumping in recent years. "You have a machine that goes 65 mph out of the box, and if you put a 15-year-old kid on that or someone who's not educated, people get hurt."
So it's just been Renee and Jeff, traveling around, going to events, racing, having fun, without any sort of corporate sponsorship. The summer IJSBA series culminated at Lake Havasu, where racers from 37 nations competed. Kellie Skelton, a 21-year-old New Zealander, nudged Renee to take first place.
"She races for Factory Kawasaki and has a lake in her backyard," said Hill. "I have three children, so I was happy just to be there. It was a great end to four years of hard work."
These four years of hard work almost went unrewarded when Hill hurt herself while riding a quad at Lake Havasu in August. She thought she had just sprained an ankle, but then, after a race in Pahrump, Nev., she found out that the ankle was fractured, only seven weeks before the world finals.
"I was pretty proud to go from sitting on the couch, or being on crutches or in a wheelchair, to racing so quickly," she said.
The next step, Hill said, will be to move away from runabouts and into stand-up competition.
"We'll do it all over again," said Hill of the long road from beginner to standing on a podium, being awarded a trophy. "I'll start in the novice class, then work on a national or world title."
But isn't she worried about injuring herself again?
"Sometimes we say we're done," said Renee Hill. "But we've made a lot of friends and had a lot of fun, so we don't want to give this up."