ERCU celebrates two decades of history this season

Founded by Roger & David Newton, Rick Lentz, Ron Daum, Bob Van den Akker, Monte Steere and numerous others, ERCU was born in 2003, following a successful model long before established by RC Unlimiteds.

But the club itself still isn’t old enough to go out for post race beers.

This season, we celebrate our 20th season of racing as we’ve begun to re-emerge as the region’s largest fast electric scale hydroplane racing club, with more than 100 boats registered to race in the 2023 season. To celebrate, and to recognize those who established the club, who built the club and who sustained the club over the years, we will find ways to celebrate and recognize the first two decades of the club’s illustrious history. Stay tuned to our website, our social media and please make sure to attend our events this year.

ERCU was formed by folks who enjoy building and racing models of some of the truly great, and even some of the not-so-great unlimited class hydroplanes from the past and present. Who knew that 20 years later, the whole world would be electrifying everything from their homes to their cars.

With the blessing of RC Unlimiteds, which supported the startup new club, Roger Newton led the founding of the club during an organizational meeting at the Northwest RC Model Show at the Washington State Fairgrounds in Puyallup. That was February 2003. By that spring, there were enough members, and enough race sites – including the waterfall pond at Bellevue Downtown Park – to conduct the first racing season with just a handful of 1/10 scale FE boats.

With know-how, energy and a lot of hard work by the founding members of the club, and later by Jeff & Mike Campbell, it wasn’t long before the number of boats grew significantly, and motor and battery technology quickly changed and evolved to something that kicked off the modern era of 1/10-scale RC racing.

While the club continues to be very strong, and is still growing, there is always room to learn and to improve. We’ll see what’s to come in the 20th season of ERCU racing. Should be fun.