Taking place from July 13-15, the annual event will bring in racers from all over the world including Mexico, New Zealand and Idaho, as well as local racers from the Peace Region and into the N.W.T.

Peace River native Mac Mccue, who races in the FX-V Class, participated in his first race this summer in Grande Prairie and won the event, so he is looking forward to attempting another win at his hometown race.

“I’ve watched the race in Peace River for the past eight or nine years, but this will be my first time competing in it so I’m definitely excited to be in front of the home crowd,” said the 22-year-old, who happens to be the youngest racer in this year’s event. “It is really competitive but it’s more fun than anything.”

Mccue just recently got into competitive racing, though he’s been around Jet Boats for many years.

“I got into it after I started crewing as a mechanic for my friend Tyson Allen, who’s also racing this weekend,” he explained. “I ended up buying a boat from him when he got a new one, and now we get to race against each other, which makes it pretty fun.”

Allen, who has roughly five years of racing experience under his belt, will drive the S.S. Adrenaline in opposition to Mccue in the FX-V class and welcomes the friendly rivalry.

“It’s really nice to have somebody so enthused and ready to go; it kind of rejuvenates myself as well because he reminds me of myself when I started,” Allen said of Mccue. “He’s really gung-ho about racing so it will be interesting to see how he does this weekend.”

For those who have yet to take in a Jet Boat Race, Allen says the experience can be fun for people of all ages and interests, and suggests the Saturday circuits as a starting point.

“You get a look at all different kinds of boats, there’s different classes and easily the fastest boats you’ll see on rivers will be there,” he said. “The Saturday circuit is very exciting; there’s lots of tight turns around the tops of the islands and there’s always some tight passing going on.

“If you can get up the river on Sunday and get to some of the bigger spots, you can see how some of these light aluminum boats can navigate through some really rough water at high speeds.”

According to Allen, as the name of his boat suggests, adrenaline and high speed is what Jet Boat racing is all about – along with the social experience.

“It’s absolutely the adrenaline, but also the people that come with the sport,” Allen said. “It kind of builds itself a little community and you see the same faces out at the races, so it’s good to see those guys a few times a year and build that camaraderie.”

Chad Burns, another Peace River native racing in the Unlimited Class, is also looking forward to a successful event. His boat, the U 339 Bad Habit, is unique in that it boasts a T58 General Electric turbine engine, which is capable of reaching 140 miles per hour.

“There’s only a handful of turbine boats in the world,” Burns explained.

For him, the most exciting component of the Peace River Race is the gruelling Smokey River course.

“It’s one of the more challenging courses that we’ll see in the Canadian circuit,” said the two-time Gold Cup winner. “There’s lots of rocks and big waves so it can be pretty intense.”

The weekend will kick-off on Friday, July 13 with a Show n’ Shine on River Rd. from 4-10 p.m., with the circuit races beginning on Saturday at 10 a.m. in the north end and 2 p.m. in the south end.

On Sunday, July 15, the infamous Peace River to Watino race is set for 10 a.m., while the Watino to Peace River race will begin at 2 p.m. The event will wrap up Sunday evening with an Awards Banquet at the Misery Mountain Ski Chalet at 5 p.m.

jeff.blay@sunmedia.ca

In early June of 2011, DFI installed a 21 meter oil derrick at the Red Deer College near the Centre for Trades and Technology building. The derrick was generously donated by High Arctic Energy Services and will provide students in the rig technician program with a platform to put their classroom knowledge to the test.

The installation was straight forward enough, and more than one DFI worker commented on how enjoyable it was to haul equipment on pavement for a change. The derrick was loaded at High Arctic’s yard with a 30 ton RGZ crane, and hauled to the college with a tri-drive tractor.

Along with time and equipment, DFI donated the foundation for the project. A 40 ton RGZ all-terrain crane equipped with a 4.5 tonne hydraulic hammer was used to install four 16 inch, 14 meter piles. The derrick was set into place with a tandem lift using the RGZ-130 and RGZ-100 cranes.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Once in place and secured to the driven steel pile foundation, a platform was raised into position, and crews working from a man basket permanently mounted the railed platform.

Watch this video on YouTube.

The derrick includes a functioning set of draw works and winches and will allow for hands-on training by College instructors. DFI is proud to have contributed to a great cause—training future oilfield workers for a stable growing industry benefits all Albertans.

When you’ve spent 40 years building a reputation for getting the job done “on time and on budget,” unplanned downtime isn’t just costly – it’s unacceptable.

For oilfield services provider DFI, keeping its versatile fleet of equipment up and running has been crucial to the company’s success.

“Downtime is costly on a number of different fronts,” says DFI shop foreman, Chris Whitford. “For one, you’re not working for the customer when your equipment’s down but also, what does it cost you to leave their site? Are they going to call you back? What has it done to your name and reputation?”

DFI is an oilfield services provider that specializes in driving piles that are custom-built at its own pipe mill in Edmonton, Alberta. At any given time, the company has up to 35 work crews driving piles throughout Western Canada. It also runs a fleet of highway trucks, vacuum trucks, winch trucks, pickers and cranes. About 90% of DFI’s equipment is powered by Detroit Diesel and backed by Waterous Power Systems.

“One of the reasons we use Waterous Power Systems as much as we do is because of the service side,” says Whitford. “The product is good, but the service is what makes it for us. They have a lot of good branch locations spread all over the province and field mechanics we can actually get a hold of.”

DFI made the switch to Detroit Diesel power in 1991, after growing frustrated with the poor support it was receiving from other suppliers, says DFI general manager Sean Freeland.

Keeping a fleet as diverse as DFI’s running smoothly requires a supplier that’s every bit as versatile, Freeland points out.

“If it’s a road tractor, I can go rent one of them. But I can’t rent one of these cranes, we build them ourselves and they have a very sophisticated hydraulics system on there,” he says.

Building its own equipment is nothing new to DFI. It also builds its own hammers and piledriving leads. But DFI is most proud of the pipe mill it constructed in Edmonton.

“We have a crew of young guys on our design and engineering staff that just love building new equipment,” Freeland says.

DFI has been able to differentiate itself from its competitors thanks to its custom-built solutions. But the company still requires a strong partner to service its vehicles and get them back on the road quickly in the event of a breakdown.

Freeland acknowledges equipment failures are inevitable in trucking and in oilfield services. It’s how you respond that can make or break a business. He recalls an incident with a Western Star picker truck in the mid-90s, shortly after making the conversion to Detroit Diesel power. The truck was still under warranty but Waterous Power Systems went beyond his expectations.

“We had a problem that caused the engine to seize up,” Freeland says. “We hauled it in to Waterous on a cold, miserable Friday night around midnight. I went back Monday morning and picked that truck up, it had a brand new engine in it and they didn’t charge me a nickel. They worked all weekend on it.”

With the recent integration of Allison automatic transmissions into the fleet, Freeland says he also appreciates being able to turn to one company to service both the engine and the transmission.

“It’s not left for me to be fighting between two different companies,” he says. “Things get done. There’s a nice marriage there.”

As the oilfield industry and the economy bounce back, DFI is too busy focusing on its own customers and new opportunities to be worrying about its equipment. In fact, Freeland says the company is considering opening a satellite office in Regina as it makes its first foray into Saskatchewan.

“I wonder if Waterous has a branch there?” he asks. They do.

Definitely building custom equipment. DFI builds a lot of its fleet from scratch which is unusual for an outfit our size. To work on a unit that was designed, fabricated, and assembled all under the same roof is a great thing to be part of. This is a family owned company, and I work directly with the owners every day. Because the team is fairly small, decisions can be made in minutes that would often take months in bigger operations.

What’s been your most interesting project so far?

DFI is best known for driving the steel piles under gas plants and other field facilities. Our most used piledriver in the past has used a gravity drop hammer to drive the pile into the ground. Our latest project has been a hydraulic piledriving hammer that outdrives a conventional hammer four to one. I can honestly say that these are the only self contained hydraulic hammer piledriving trucks in the world. We bring our own crane, loader, hammer, leads, and the beginning of the pipe load all in one picker truck–trailer unit. It takes only two men to set up and be driving piles within an hour of reaching site. Our goal was to create the best mobile, high performance piledriver for the oilfield. We’ve done it.

As shop foreman, what’s your role in creating a new machine?

When our engineers are working on a new project, the shop has a lot of input in the design. We can weld, cnc plasma cut, or machine almost everything we need onsite so changes are easy. The shop staff creates most of the hydraulics, controls, and programming right out on the shop floor. We have some very talented staff; my job is to get them whatever they need to succeed.

What else have you done at DFI?

In my nine years with the company, our most ambitious project had to be the pipe mill. It’s unusual for a company our size to make its own pipe, let alone scratch build its own ERW pipe mill. I helped put it together until the day we made the first piece of pipe—in fact, I wound up supervising the operation for a while. The mill produces tons of piling material that is shipped all over North America.

Give us the bottom line.

DFI runs a true custom shop and I’m proud to be a part of that.