2011 Valken.com U-7

 

  Boat Statistics

Boat Name:

 

Year:

Designation#:

 

Valken.com

2011

 

U-7

Owner/Driver:

 

Year Model Built:

 

David Heilbrunn

 

2011

Builder:

 

Construction:

 

 

Dave Helton

 

Plywood, Foam, Plastic, Fiberglass

Motor:

 

Speed Controller:

 

Leopard 3674 2200

 

?

Prop:

 

Paint Colors:

 

 

?

 

Black, White, Red& Gray

Type of Graphics:

 Radio:

 

 

Vinyl by Helton

 

?

The model:  Dave Helton debuted this boat at the 2013 Silver Cup in Lacey and it performed well right out of the box. This it a pretty boat that Dave took his time building and finishing.  The boat only weighed 3 lbs - 9 ounces geared up without batteries when it was first built. David Heilbrunn bought the boat in 2018 and joined the CT frenzy in division 3. The Valken is still very light and fast. In 2019 David drove it to a 9th place finish in season points and is working on consistently finishing heats with it.

The real boat:  Ted Porter's three boat race team landed Valken as a sponsor for 2011 and put a nice vinyl wrap on the red U-5 FormulaBoats.com boat after primary team driver Jeff Bernard decided to take the U-7 hull for himself, believing it to be the best of the team's boats.  It turned out that maybe it wasn't the boat after all.  Rookie driver Scott Liddycoat drove the Valken boat impressively, outperforming his teammate on several occasions during the year.