TRI-CITIES, Wash.-Two Northwest favorites, coffee and boat racing, will combine at the Water Follies Apollo Columbia Cup this year thanks to a lifelong hydroplane fan and Washington business owner.
Morgan Harris has been a fan of boat racing his whole life and now the owner of Mercurys Coffee is sponsoring an H1 Unlimited Hydroplane.
“I’ve been a hydroplane fan forever since I was a little kid,” Harris said. “My dad’s taken me to races nonstop. We went to the Tri-Cities and Seattle every year.”
Harris became a fan while attending those races in the 1980’s with his dad and even as a kid he had the dream of sponsoring a boat, urging his dad to sponsor a race team back then.
“Back then we were talking about getting a 10-inch sticker on the side of a boat or something, right?” Harris said.
Now, as the owner of Mercurys Coffee with 11 locations in Western Washington and a son of his own, Harris is realizing one of his boyhood dreams by sponsoring the U-11.
For Harris, the debut of the boat, driven by Jamie Nilsen, in the Tri-Cities for spring testing in May was a special moment.
“My dad cried,” Harris said. “Couple of my friends did too, so it was pretty cool.”
After two races the U-11 has 2,092 points and is currently third in H1 Unlimited High Points heading into the Columbia Cup.
As a lifelong hydroplane fan Harris fondly remembers the heyday of the sport, something he’s hoping to rekindle by getting involved as a sponsor.
“There’s so much connection to the boats,” Harris said. “A hardware store that you shopped at or a clothing brand that you wore or a beverage that you drank or jerky you ate, right? We know what all of them are going back to the dawn of time.”
First comes the Columbia Cup, but who knows, in the future perhaps one of the boats every fan will remember is the sharp red, black and white Mercurys Coffee gliding across the rivers and lakes of the H1 circuit.
The 2024 Water Follies Apollo Columbia Cup will be broadcast on SWX from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 28.
