The Graham Trucking Cup at Desert Thunder II 2008 took place on the Columbia River in Richland, Washington May 17 to 18, 2008. Phoenix was hot. Would you believe May in Richland was even hotter! (99 degrees on Saturday). The action was hot too with Unlimited Lights, Lighter than Lights and G Boats all well represented. The river was running cold and swift which made it a challenge to keep the buoys in place and also a challenge to photograph hydroplanes from a distance (thermal interference is evident in a number of photos-paticularly those of the UL-13/UL-929 collision but I still left them in the gallery because there is one thing true about hydroplane photography-Retakes are impossible!).