By Chuck Ashmun
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, August 5, 1974
Unlimited hydroplane racing’s survival of the fittest came down to a coin flip yesterday.
Jim Lucero’s coin came up tails, and Dave Heerensperger headed for the champagne.
Lucero, crew chief of the Pay ‘n Pak, the boat which won yesterday’s Gold Cup race on Lake Washington, almost was outvoted until coming up with the coin-flipping idea and a last-minute engine change.
Pay ‘N Pak’s driver, George Henley, was pleased with his engine’s performance in the next-to-last heat of the nine-hour regatta and suggested the crew leave the same motor in the boat for the final heat.
Heerensperger, Pay ‘n Pak owner, agreed, "but I told Lucero the final decision was up to him."
Considering the way other boats’ engines had been flying apart all day, Lucero wasn’t certain he wanted to take a chance.
"The engine that was in the boat had four heats of racing on it, and you never know when one of these things is going to break," said the crew chief. "We had this other engine which had no racing time whatsoever on it.
"Tails was the new engine, heads the other one. When it came up tails, we switched."
Heerensperger, who said he was hauling the champagne around "just in case" Pay ‘n Pak won, popped the cork after the race and bubbled about Lucero:
"Since I first hired Jim, we’ve won 10 of 18 races. He’s got to be doing some-thing right."
Henley, tired but beaming, couldn’t seem to conjure up enough compliments about Lucero and the rest of the Pay ‘n Pak crew.
"You should have seen the way they worked all day," said Henley. "They made three engine changes, the last one in about 15 minutes. They’re really beautiful."
"George is by far the easiest driver to work with I’ve ever been with," Lucero said in return. "He does everything you ask, and, besides, he’s a super guy.
Then came Heerensperger’s turn:
"Our crew was very prepared. They worked down here until about 8:30 last night, checking everything over. They wanted to give me this as a wedding are sent, and who could ask for a better one? I’ve waited for this for nine years."
Heerensperger, who was married Saturday night, never before had won a Gold Cup, although his boats had won every other major hydroplane race in the country. The win also was Henley’s first in a Gold Cup race and came in his first year as the Pay ‘n Pak driver.
"We weren’t satisfied with the way the boat was performing after Thursday’s qualifying," said Lucero. "We worked on it a lot to improve the handling and changed the gear ratio in one engine which wasn’t snappy enough."
From then on, things went smoothly in the Pay ‘n Pak camp—so smoothly that some of the crewmen found time for a Frisbee-throwing contest yesterday while other crews frantically worked to get their boats back into the action.
The Pak finished first in every heat in which it raced, and the skywriting plane did a splendid job of spelling out "Dave and Jill" with accompanying heart.
"I guess," said Lucero, "you could call that a perfect day."
Monday, December 21, 2009
Borrowed Prop Pushed Remund’s Pak To Victory
By Chuck Ashmun
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, August 6, 1973
Seattle’s longtime love affair with unlimited-hydroplane racing has survived another series of squabbles, and this time the favorite hometown couple marched to the altar.
Mickey Remund and Dave Heerensperger successfully combined something old, new, borrowed and blue and kept their vows to secure the World Championship race title for the Pacific Northwest.
Had it not been for the borrowed item, however, Heerensperger’s Pay ‘n Pak, piloted by Remund, might have wound up a bridesmaid.
The owner of the new turbine-powered U-95, Jim Clapp, contributed the borrowed part — the propeller that pushed Pay ‘n Pak to victory in yesterday’s final heat on Lake Washington.
"Thanks for testing my new equipment," Clapp told Heerensperger with a grin after Remund had nosed out Dean Chenoweth, driving the Miss Budweiser, at the checkered flag.
"You may never get it back," responded the Pak’s owner.
"We started the season with nine propellers," Heerensperger said. "I think we’re down to about three now. No, make that four, counting Jim’s."
The Pak’s propensity for dropping props cropped up again in yesterday’s first "hot boat" heat.
Remund, who had staged a five lap duel for the lead with the Budweiser in hydroplaning’s fastest heat ever, coasted across the finish line in second place. The Pak’s driveshaft had snapped, and the propeller was left to sink somewhere between the north turn and the finish line.
"That’s the finest race I’ve ever been in my life," said Remund. "A 125 lap, and no visibility."
He amended that later, saying that he could see far enough to grin at Chenoweth while skimming through the rain at 125 miles an hour.
"I had a big smile on my face — and I was running second," he said. "I looked over and said, ‘Hi, Deaner,’ I’m sure we weren’t more than three feet apart."
The closeness continued through the final beat. "You’re required to give him a 20-foot lane," related Remund. "But I wasn’t about to give him 21 feet.
"By holding my position, it meant Deaner had to turn a little tighter, and it cost him a couple of miles per hour in exit speed."
The Bud remained in challenging position however, and made a final attempt to overtake Remund on the last lap.
"I knew I had one shot left, so I floorboarded it," said Chenoweth.
Remund, advised he had won by less than a boat length, said, "I didn’t know he was that close. I thought I had about three or four boat lengths on him. Things get a little hectic out there."
The "old" item was the Pak’s engine, which held up through three hot heats while the power plants of other boats faltered and hastily were replaced.
"I would have changed it," Heerensperger said. "But Jim made the decision."
Jim Lucero, Pay ‘n Pak crew chief, said he was confident the motor would last. "I’m just glad a Seattle boat won it," he said with a sigh.
"You’re going to send some people back to the drawing boards," an admiring spectator told Lucero, referring to something new — the Pak’s horizontal stabilizer.
The Remund-Heerensperger courtship started last November.
"Ron Jones told me three years ago that Mickey was the guy I oughta have," Heerensperger said. "I first talked to him in November, but he’s a hard guy to convince. I didn’t get an answer until February."
Remund, a former limited-hydro champion, insisted he was not wooed into the unlimited ranks. "It was the other way around," he said, indicating he had to convince Heerensperger that he should pilot the Pay ‘n Pak.
Why, then was the owner left waiting for an answer? "Well, that’s what you call negotiatons," Remund said with a smile.
Jones, the unquestoned leader in designing unlimiteds, was the day’s "best man." He conceived the new-look craft which won, plus the second-place finisher.
Some soggy spectators were chilled almost to a blue hue, but the bluest of the blue was Lee Schoenith.
"I still don’t like the fan plan," said Schoenith, the Seattle dew dripping off the Detroiter’s Stetson. It’s not fair for the spectators who come out here all week and . . ."
Few were listening. Schoenith’s week-long complaints about the race’s format had been drowned out.
But the Detroit-Seattle stew still simmers.
Asked if he had seen Bill Muncey, who drives the Atlas Van Lines for Schoenith, during yesterday’s final heat, Remund wryly replied:
"Yeah, I waved at him before the race started."
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, August 6, 1973
Seattle’s longtime love affair with unlimited-hydroplane racing has survived another series of squabbles, and this time the favorite hometown couple marched to the altar.
Mickey Remund and Dave Heerensperger successfully combined something old, new, borrowed and blue and kept their vows to secure the World Championship race title for the Pacific Northwest.
Had it not been for the borrowed item, however, Heerensperger’s Pay ‘n Pak, piloted by Remund, might have wound up a bridesmaid.
The owner of the new turbine-powered U-95, Jim Clapp, contributed the borrowed part — the propeller that pushed Pay ‘n Pak to victory in yesterday’s final heat on Lake Washington.
"Thanks for testing my new equipment," Clapp told Heerensperger with a grin after Remund had nosed out Dean Chenoweth, driving the Miss Budweiser, at the checkered flag.
"You may never get it back," responded the Pak’s owner.
"We started the season with nine propellers," Heerensperger said. "I think we’re down to about three now. No, make that four, counting Jim’s."
The Pak’s propensity for dropping props cropped up again in yesterday’s first "hot boat" heat.
Remund, who had staged a five lap duel for the lead with the Budweiser in hydroplaning’s fastest heat ever, coasted across the finish line in second place. The Pak’s driveshaft had snapped, and the propeller was left to sink somewhere between the north turn and the finish line.
"That’s the finest race I’ve ever been in my life," said Remund. "A 125 lap, and no visibility."
He amended that later, saying that he could see far enough to grin at Chenoweth while skimming through the rain at 125 miles an hour.
"I had a big smile on my face — and I was running second," he said. "I looked over and said, ‘Hi, Deaner,’ I’m sure we weren’t more than three feet apart."
The closeness continued through the final beat. "You’re required to give him a 20-foot lane," related Remund. "But I wasn’t about to give him 21 feet.
"By holding my position, it meant Deaner had to turn a little tighter, and it cost him a couple of miles per hour in exit speed."
The Bud remained in challenging position however, and made a final attempt to overtake Remund on the last lap.
"I knew I had one shot left, so I floorboarded it," said Chenoweth.
Remund, advised he had won by less than a boat length, said, "I didn’t know he was that close. I thought I had about three or four boat lengths on him. Things get a little hectic out there."
The "old" item was the Pak’s engine, which held up through three hot heats while the power plants of other boats faltered and hastily were replaced.
"I would have changed it," Heerensperger said. "But Jim made the decision."
Jim Lucero, Pay ‘n Pak crew chief, said he was confident the motor would last. "I’m just glad a Seattle boat won it," he said with a sigh.
"You’re going to send some people back to the drawing boards," an admiring spectator told Lucero, referring to something new — the Pak’s horizontal stabilizer.
The Remund-Heerensperger courtship started last November.
"Ron Jones told me three years ago that Mickey was the guy I oughta have," Heerensperger said. "I first talked to him in November, but he’s a hard guy to convince. I didn’t get an answer until February."
Remund, a former limited-hydro champion, insisted he was not wooed into the unlimited ranks. "It was the other way around," he said, indicating he had to convince Heerensperger that he should pilot the Pay ‘n Pak.
Why, then was the owner left waiting for an answer? "Well, that’s what you call negotiatons," Remund said with a smile.
Jones, the unquestoned leader in designing unlimiteds, was the day’s "best man." He conceived the new-look craft which won, plus the second-place finisher.
Some soggy spectators were chilled almost to a blue hue, but the bluest of the blue was Lee Schoenith.
"I still don’t like the fan plan," said Schoenith, the Seattle dew dripping off the Detroiter’s Stetson. It’s not fair for the spectators who come out here all week and . . ."
Few were listening. Schoenith’s week-long complaints about the race’s format had been drowned out.
But the Detroit-Seattle stew still simmers.
Asked if he had seen Bill Muncey, who drives the Atlas Van Lines for Schoenith, during yesterday’s final heat, Remund wryly replied:
"Yeah, I waved at him before the race started."
The Champion Fog Cutter of the World
By Georg N. Meyers
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, August 6, 1973
It was the greatest unlimited-hydroplane race nobody ever saw.
If it had been a baseball game, you would have gone home with a raincheck.
It looked like a scene from a Hitchcock movie — eerie shapes snorting out of a drifting fog.
A visitor from another planet, aghast at the huddled masses in oozing mud under dripping trees, would have radioed reports of fugitives fleeing some cataclysmic disaster.
Why else would 65,000-odd (the term is explicit) earthlings subject themselves to the croup on a mired shoreline in a relentless downpour?
In fact, thousands smartened up early, slogging soggily homeward to the family hearth and a flickering screen.
And slick Mickey Remund, in quick Pay ‘n Pak, won $10,300 and the title of World Champion Fog Cutter before the sparsest throng ever to witness the finish of an unlimited-hydroplane regatta.
Five moist hours earlier, nobody would have bet a bent kopek that the World Championship Seafair Race ever would finish — or start.
Visibility was scant. After a 15-minute delay, it was only a little worse, so Referee Bill Newton thumbed the boats onto the lake.
George Henley, in Red Man II, set a fearful pattern for the day. In the opening heat, he vanished into the vapors. Rumor swept the official barge that he took a wrong turn in the fog and skidded into the Seward Park bath house.
Radar-equipped rescuers found George parked in the south turn, cussing out a dead engine.
By then, everybody on the water should have been ticketed for driving without lights.
Apprehensive drivers were advised, in their warm-up runs after the 5-minute gun, to vote whether to continue racing — thumbs up, yes; thumbs down, no.
Since no thumbs were visible through the mist, the race continued.
The field was trisected into exclusive heats for Hot Dogs, Near Misses and Also Rans.
That was supposed to make it more fun. It did — especially for Chuck Hickling in Ms. Greenfield Galleries.
Chuck amazed the dissolving multitude by graduating into the Grand Finale as the only Also Ran to finish two heats. In fact, in the only boat still running in his second heat. Chuck really finished seventh — behind six startled ducks that overtook the Ms. in the homestretch.
Several veteran hydroplane reporters, accustomed to heightening their summer tans on Seafair Race Day, capitulated to the elements. Their ballpoint pens, alas, would not write under water.
Still, in spite of the most horrendous weather ever visited on the intrepid rascals who risk their necks for glory afloat, what took place out there in murky privacy was the swiftest thunderboat race ever.
Credit Remund for that paradox.
Mickey served notice of scurrilous intent by blazing to a qualifying record of more than 126 miles an hour and then chased daring Dean Chenoweth in Miss Budweiser to the fastest 15-mile heat since the invention of the quill shaft — a foamy 122½ miles an hour.
That heat will go down in legend, though soaked shorebirds scarcely were able to discern the boats through the liquid haze.
For four laps, Bud and Pak shared the same roostertail. Melodramatically, as Remund crunched the throttle in a last-gasp try to beat Chenoweth to the checkered flag. Pak threw a propeller and shattered its shaft.
Pak thus racked up another record: This season she also dropped one propeller each to the bottom of the Detroit River and the Columbia.
In effect, that mishap — comparable to a pulled hamstring and a severed Achilles tendon for a basketball player — promoted a fractional debut for the U-95, the turbine-powered mystery skiff which was not ready for baptism here.
The Pak returned to action with a propeller loaned by the U-95. Though fitting and adjusting a propeller is one of the most sensitive operations in thunderboating, Remund drove as though the "wheel" were custom-built for Pay ‘n Pak.
Mickey’s climactic comeback victory over Chenoweth in the payoff sprint, coupled with heat earnings and $1,600 for the top qualifying speed, packed $10,300 into the Pak’s petty-cash fund.
That just about will pay for the propellers at the bottom of the Detroit, the Columbia and Lake Washington.
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, August 6, 1973
It was the greatest unlimited-hydroplane race nobody ever saw.
If it had been a baseball game, you would have gone home with a raincheck.
It looked like a scene from a Hitchcock movie — eerie shapes snorting out of a drifting fog.
A visitor from another planet, aghast at the huddled masses in oozing mud under dripping trees, would have radioed reports of fugitives fleeing some cataclysmic disaster.
Why else would 65,000-odd (the term is explicit) earthlings subject themselves to the croup on a mired shoreline in a relentless downpour?
In fact, thousands smartened up early, slogging soggily homeward to the family hearth and a flickering screen.
And slick Mickey Remund, in quick Pay ‘n Pak, won $10,300 and the title of World Champion Fog Cutter before the sparsest throng ever to witness the finish of an unlimited-hydroplane regatta.
Five moist hours earlier, nobody would have bet a bent kopek that the World Championship Seafair Race ever would finish — or start.
Visibility was scant. After a 15-minute delay, it was only a little worse, so Referee Bill Newton thumbed the boats onto the lake.
George Henley, in Red Man II, set a fearful pattern for the day. In the opening heat, he vanished into the vapors. Rumor swept the official barge that he took a wrong turn in the fog and skidded into the Seward Park bath house.
Radar-equipped rescuers found George parked in the south turn, cussing out a dead engine.
By then, everybody on the water should have been ticketed for driving without lights.
Apprehensive drivers were advised, in their warm-up runs after the 5-minute gun, to vote whether to continue racing — thumbs up, yes; thumbs down, no.
Since no thumbs were visible through the mist, the race continued.
The field was trisected into exclusive heats for Hot Dogs, Near Misses and Also Rans.
That was supposed to make it more fun. It did — especially for Chuck Hickling in Ms. Greenfield Galleries.
Chuck amazed the dissolving multitude by graduating into the Grand Finale as the only Also Ran to finish two heats. In fact, in the only boat still running in his second heat. Chuck really finished seventh — behind six startled ducks that overtook the Ms. in the homestretch.
Several veteran hydroplane reporters, accustomed to heightening their summer tans on Seafair Race Day, capitulated to the elements. Their ballpoint pens, alas, would not write under water.
Still, in spite of the most horrendous weather ever visited on the intrepid rascals who risk their necks for glory afloat, what took place out there in murky privacy was the swiftest thunderboat race ever.
Credit Remund for that paradox.
Mickey served notice of scurrilous intent by blazing to a qualifying record of more than 126 miles an hour and then chased daring Dean Chenoweth in Miss Budweiser to the fastest 15-mile heat since the invention of the quill shaft — a foamy 122½ miles an hour.
That heat will go down in legend, though soaked shorebirds scarcely were able to discern the boats through the liquid haze.
For four laps, Bud and Pak shared the same roostertail. Melodramatically, as Remund crunched the throttle in a last-gasp try to beat Chenoweth to the checkered flag. Pak threw a propeller and shattered its shaft.
Pak thus racked up another record: This season she also dropped one propeller each to the bottom of the Detroit River and the Columbia.
In effect, that mishap — comparable to a pulled hamstring and a severed Achilles tendon for a basketball player — promoted a fractional debut for the U-95, the turbine-powered mystery skiff which was not ready for baptism here.
The Pak returned to action with a propeller loaned by the U-95. Though fitting and adjusting a propeller is one of the most sensitive operations in thunderboating, Remund drove as though the "wheel" were custom-built for Pay ‘n Pak.
Mickey’s climactic comeback victory over Chenoweth in the payoff sprint, coupled with heat earnings and $1,600 for the top qualifying speed, packed $10,300 into the Pak’s petty-cash fund.
That just about will pay for the propellers at the bottom of the Detroit, the Columbia and Lake Washington.
Remund Wins It All — By 25 Feet
By Del Danielson
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, August 6, 1973
On an afternoon fit for frogs, Mickey Remund leaped to the biggest win of his boat-racing career.
Ignoring a pelting rain which cut visibility to almost zero, Remund and Dean Chenoweth yesterday put on the wildest, woolliest duel in 23 years of unlimited-hydroplane racing on Lake Washington.
Remund needed every ounce of the mind-bending speed produced by the pickle-forked Pay ‘n Pak. His margin of victory — after 15 final-heat miles — was 25 feet.
"Another 50 yards and Chenoweth would have won," one regatta official said of the storybook finish. Chenoweth pushed the Bud to its limit in trying to catch Remund on the final lap.
The Bud trailed by about 500 feet as the two boats rounded the exit buoy, one third of a mile from the finish line.
"I tried, boss," Chenoweth said to Bernie Little upon arrival in the pits a few minutes later. "I really put my foot in it. I thought I might flip, but I had to try "
Little, owner of the Budweiser, congratulated Chenoweth as though he had won."No apologies or excuses are necessary after a boat race like like that," Little told his driver. "You were fantastic."
Remund, beaten by Chenoweth in an earlier, equally suspenseful heat, had the upper hand in the winner-take-all final. He nosed the Pay ‘n Pak ahead coming out of the first turn and maintained about a 10-foot lead as the two boats whistled down the backstretch at 160 miles an hour.
Remund increased his lead in the north turn and rounded the corner first. Chenoweth moved to the outside, but he had to cross Remund’s wake to reach a clear lane.
"As soon as you have to cross a wake, that costs you a lot of time," Jim Lucero, Pak ‘n Pak crew chief said. "That’s why they lost the race."
The maneuver did put the Bud about four seconds behind and it took Chenoweth four full laps to close the gap and set up the nip-and-tuck windup.
The speeds attained by the Bud and Pak were almost unbelievable and even more incredible considering the weather conditions.
In Heat 1-C, the hot-dog section of the fan-plan race, Chenoweth won with a record average of 122.504 miles an hour. That easily erased the eight-year-old mark of 116.079.
In the same heat, Remund set a single-lap record of 124.424 m.p.h. to eclipse Bill Muncey’s standard (117.137 m.p.h.), set here last year.
The 1-C duel may go down as the classic hydroplane race. Chenoweth had the inside lane — his favorite spot — at the start. Remund passed the starting buoy first, but Chenoweth held the inside lane and the boats were side by side for the first three miles. The Bud’s lead after one lap was 30 feet.
Remund, still on the outside, gained slightly in the corners and had a 50-foot edge after two laps.
Had the race ended after three laps, it would have been a dead-heat finish.
Using his inside-lane position to full advantage, Chenoweth opened a slight edge the fourth time around the three-mile course. At the finish, the margin was about two roostertails. Neither driver went under the 120 mark on any of the five laps.
The Bud clearly was ahead as the two record-setters rounded the final turn of the heat, but Chenoweth’s margin of victory would have been less had the Pak not lost a propeller and part of its drive shaft.
Remund coasted across the finish line, then turned to the infield and asked for a tow.
Lucero’s crew replaced the shaft, borrowed a prop from the U-95 team next door and had the Pak back in business for Heat 2-C another match up with the Bud.
Chenoweth quickly moved to the lead in 2-C, but a blown supercharger near the finish of the third lap stalled the beer wagon and opened the door to an easy win for Remund.
Chenoweth and Remund provided 99 per cent of the day’s racing.
Muncey, in the "medium fast" heats (1-B and 2-B) by virtue of Lee Schoenith’s sandbagging tactics during qualifying, was a distant third in the final.
Schoenith, who owns the Atlas Van Lines which Muncey drives, felt he had a better chance at national points and money by not running Muncey against Chenoweth and Remund. Schoenith did put his second-best boat (Pizza Pete, driven by Fred Alter) in the hot-dog flight.
As it turned out, Schoenith’s double entry earned $13,600. Had Muncey run with the speedsters, Lee would have pocketed $13,300.
For the victory, the Pay ‘n Pak team collected $10,300 (including $1,600 in qualifying money).
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, August 6, 1973
On an afternoon fit for frogs, Mickey Remund leaped to the biggest win of his boat-racing career.
Ignoring a pelting rain which cut visibility to almost zero, Remund and Dean Chenoweth yesterday put on the wildest, woolliest duel in 23 years of unlimited-hydroplane racing on Lake Washington.
Remund needed every ounce of the mind-bending speed produced by the pickle-forked Pay ‘n Pak. His margin of victory — after 15 final-heat miles — was 25 feet.
"Another 50 yards and Chenoweth would have won," one regatta official said of the storybook finish. Chenoweth pushed the Bud to its limit in trying to catch Remund on the final lap.
The Bud trailed by about 500 feet as the two boats rounded the exit buoy, one third of a mile from the finish line.
"I tried, boss," Chenoweth said to Bernie Little upon arrival in the pits a few minutes later. "I really put my foot in it. I thought I might flip, but I had to try "
Little, owner of the Budweiser, congratulated Chenoweth as though he had won."No apologies or excuses are necessary after a boat race like like that," Little told his driver. "You were fantastic."
Remund, beaten by Chenoweth in an earlier, equally suspenseful heat, had the upper hand in the winner-take-all final. He nosed the Pay ‘n Pak ahead coming out of the first turn and maintained about a 10-foot lead as the two boats whistled down the backstretch at 160 miles an hour.
Remund increased his lead in the north turn and rounded the corner first. Chenoweth moved to the outside, but he had to cross Remund’s wake to reach a clear lane.
"As soon as you have to cross a wake, that costs you a lot of time," Jim Lucero, Pak ‘n Pak crew chief said. "That’s why they lost the race."
The maneuver did put the Bud about four seconds behind and it took Chenoweth four full laps to close the gap and set up the nip-and-tuck windup.
The speeds attained by the Bud and Pak were almost unbelievable and even more incredible considering the weather conditions.
In Heat 1-C, the hot-dog section of the fan-plan race, Chenoweth won with a record average of 122.504 miles an hour. That easily erased the eight-year-old mark of 116.079.
In the same heat, Remund set a single-lap record of 124.424 m.p.h. to eclipse Bill Muncey’s standard (117.137 m.p.h.), set here last year.
The 1-C duel may go down as the classic hydroplane race. Chenoweth had the inside lane — his favorite spot — at the start. Remund passed the starting buoy first, but Chenoweth held the inside lane and the boats were side by side for the first three miles. The Bud’s lead after one lap was 30 feet.
Remund, still on the outside, gained slightly in the corners and had a 50-foot edge after two laps.
Had the race ended after three laps, it would have been a dead-heat finish.
Using his inside-lane position to full advantage, Chenoweth opened a slight edge the fourth time around the three-mile course. At the finish, the margin was about two roostertails. Neither driver went under the 120 mark on any of the five laps.
The Bud clearly was ahead as the two record-setters rounded the final turn of the heat, but Chenoweth’s margin of victory would have been less had the Pak not lost a propeller and part of its drive shaft.
Remund coasted across the finish line, then turned to the infield and asked for a tow.
Lucero’s crew replaced the shaft, borrowed a prop from the U-95 team next door and had the Pak back in business for Heat 2-C another match up with the Bud.
Chenoweth quickly moved to the lead in 2-C, but a blown supercharger near the finish of the third lap stalled the beer wagon and opened the door to an easy win for Remund.
Chenoweth and Remund provided 99 per cent of the day’s racing.
Muncey, in the "medium fast" heats (1-B and 2-B) by virtue of Lee Schoenith’s sandbagging tactics during qualifying, was a distant third in the final.
Schoenith, who owns the Atlas Van Lines which Muncey drives, felt he had a better chance at national points and money by not running Muncey against Chenoweth and Remund. Schoenith did put his second-best boat (Pizza Pete, driven by Fred Alter) in the hot-dog flight.
As it turned out, Schoenith’s double entry earned $13,600. Had Muncey run with the speedsters, Lee would have pocketed $13,300.
For the victory, the Pay ‘n Pak team collected $10,300 (including $1,600 in qualifying money).
George Henley Remembered
By Fred Farley, Unlimited Unlimited Historian
Unlimited hydroplane racing has lost another of its all-time greats.
George Henley, one of the top drivers of the 1970s, passed away on December 14, 2009, following a recent heart attack. He was 72.
During an Unlimited career that lasted from 1970 to 1975, the Eatonville, Washington, resident won twelve out of thirty-four races entered.
Although short and stocky in build, "Smiling George" was a giant of a man behind the wheel of an Unlimited hydroplane.
Like very few drivers before or since, Henley could guarantee results. But his price was high, as Dave Heerensperger, the owner of PAY 'n PAK, will readily attest.
After a stellar 1974 campaign, George decided to concentrate on his Eatonville-based marina business and to retire from Unlimited racing.
Heerensperger soon discovered that it was easier to find someone to help with George's business than it was to find someone to replace George in the cockpit of the PAY 'n PAK.
So, Heerensperger became Henley's partner and the rest is history. In Dave's words, "When you give an arm and a leg, a checkbook, and the pen, I guess I know how [Sonics coach] Bill Russell feels."
A veteran Limited pilot, Henley started his Thunderboat career as a crew member in the 1950s on the likes of MISS B & I and CORAL REEF.
George's first Unlimited ride was the BURIEN LADY, a former NOTRE DAME (built in 1962), and owned by Bob Murphy. A modest budget notwithstanding, Henley raised many eyebrows when he finished a strong second in the 1970 Seattle Seafair Regatta. He won the Final Heat and defeated the overall winner MISS BUDWEISER with Dean Chenoweth in the process.
Before being tapped for the PAY 'n PAK assignment, George saw action with Bob Fendler's LINCOLN THRIFT'S 7-1/4% SPECIAL and Jim McCormick's RED MAN II. His best finish was a second-place in the 1973 Champion Spark Plug Regatta at Miami with LINCOLN THRIFT.
Then came the historic 1974 racing season when Henley joined forces with nonpareil owner Heerensperger and crew chief Jim Lucero on the "Winged Wonder" PAY 'n PAK, which was the boat that had popularized the horizontal stabilizer wing in Unlimited racing.
After paying his dues with the budget teams, George finally had a ride that was truly commensurate with his ability.
The "Winged Wonder" had won four out of nine races and the National High Point Championship in 1973 with Mickey Remund as driver. It was up to Henley to do it all over again.
In his first appearance with the Rolls-Royce Merlin-powered PAY 'n PAK at Miami, George experienced mechanical difficulty after winning both of his preliminary heats.
But a week later, in Washington, D.C., Henley won the President's Cup on the Potomac River. He defeated the likes of Bill Muncey in ATLAS VAN LINES, Leif Borgersen in the turbine-powered U-95, and Howie Benns in MISS BUDWEISER. There could be no doubt about it. George had achieved the big-time.
He followed this with victories at Owensboro (Kentucky), the Tri-Cities (Washington), Seattle (Washington), Dayton (Ohio), San Diego (California), and Madison (Indiana). Henley thus became the first driver to win seven High Point races in a single season.
One particularly memorable contest was the APBA Gold Cup on Seattle's Lake Washington at Sand Point. All day long, George battled side-by-side with MISS BUDWEISER, sharing the same roostertail, on extremely rough water in perhaps the greatest performance of his career.
And through it all, Henley impressed one and all with his friendliness and cheerfulness. He was a "regular guy." It's no wonder that he acquired the nickname "Smiling George."
According to rumor, he also smiled at his fellow drivers out on the race course, especially when he passed them (which he did frequently)!
Following a brief retirement from the sport, Henley rejoined the PAY 'n PAK team at the third race of the 1975 season in Owensboro. In the short time that George had been away, the WEISFIELD'S, chauffeured by Billy Schumacher, had garnered most of the glory and appeared a likely bet to unseat PAY 'n PAK from its National Championship throne.
On the first lap of the First Heat at Owensboro, Henley's boat swapped ends and caved in a sponson. PAY 'n PAK was forced to withdraw, and the race went to WEISFIELD'S. All hope of retaining the High Points crown appeared lost.
Over the winter of 1974-75, the PAK had been rebuilt. The boat now performed better on the straightaways but had difficulty in the corners.
Despite a formidable points deficit, George sparked PAY 'n PAK to one of the great comebacks in sports history.
The "Winged Wonder" took third at the next race in Detroit, but the set-up still wasn't right. The team finally found the winning combination a week later at Madison, where Henley retained his title in the Indiana Governor's Cup and decisively defeated the WEISFIELD'S.
In the Second Heat at Madison, Billy Schumacher went all out after George Henley. As the two juggernauts thundered toward the finish line, Billy gave it everything he had and almost blew the boat over. PAY 'n PAK averaged 115.148; WEISFIELD'S did 114.855.
Back at the dock, Schumacher commented, "I never worked so hard for second-place in my life."
"Smiling George" followed this triumph with victories at Dayton, the Tri-Cities, Seattle, and San Diego.
The end result was a third straight season title for PAY 'n PAK, which scored 8864 points to 8213 for WEISFIELD'S. Never before or since has one boat's momentum been so effectively halted by the performance of another boat.
In the words of Dave Heerensperger, "We've accomplished everything we set out to do and more."
In his last season of Unlimited Class participation, Henley won more races than any other driver and averaged more points per race than anyone else.
As a boat racer, the pride of Eatonville had no worlds left to conquer. His legacy to the sport is a standard of competitive excellence that few drivers in any racing category have ever achieved.
Farewell, George Henley.
George Henley, one of the top drivers of the 1970s, passed away on December 14, 2009, following a recent heart attack. He was 72.
During an Unlimited career that lasted from 1970 to 1975, the Eatonville, Washington, resident won twelve out of thirty-four races entered.
Although short and stocky in build, "Smiling George" was a giant of a man behind the wheel of an Unlimited hydroplane.
Like very few drivers before or since, Henley could guarantee results. But his price was high, as Dave Heerensperger, the owner of PAY 'n PAK, will readily attest.
After a stellar 1974 campaign, George decided to concentrate on his Eatonville-based marina business and to retire from Unlimited racing.
Heerensperger soon discovered that it was easier to find someone to help with George's business than it was to find someone to replace George in the cockpit of the PAY 'n PAK.
So, Heerensperger became Henley's partner and the rest is history. In Dave's words, "When you give an arm and a leg, a checkbook, and the pen, I guess I know how [Sonics coach] Bill Russell feels."
A veteran Limited pilot, Henley started his Thunderboat career as a crew member in the 1950s on the likes of MISS B & I and CORAL REEF.
George's first Unlimited ride was the BURIEN LADY, a former NOTRE DAME (built in 1962), and owned by Bob Murphy. A modest budget notwithstanding, Henley raised many eyebrows when he finished a strong second in the 1970 Seattle Seafair Regatta. He won the Final Heat and defeated the overall winner MISS BUDWEISER with Dean Chenoweth in the process.
Before being tapped for the PAY 'n PAK assignment, George saw action with Bob Fendler's LINCOLN THRIFT'S 7-1/4% SPECIAL and Jim McCormick's RED MAN II. His best finish was a second-place in the 1973 Champion Spark Plug Regatta at Miami with LINCOLN THRIFT.
Then came the historic 1974 racing season when Henley joined forces with nonpareil owner Heerensperger and crew chief Jim Lucero on the "Winged Wonder" PAY 'n PAK, which was the boat that had popularized the horizontal stabilizer wing in Unlimited racing.
After paying his dues with the budget teams, George finally had a ride that was truly commensurate with his ability.
The "Winged Wonder" had won four out of nine races and the National High Point Championship in 1973 with Mickey Remund as driver. It was up to Henley to do it all over again.
In his first appearance with the Rolls-Royce Merlin-powered PAY 'n PAK at Miami, George experienced mechanical difficulty after winning both of his preliminary heats.
But a week later, in Washington, D.C., Henley won the President's Cup on the Potomac River. He defeated the likes of Bill Muncey in ATLAS VAN LINES, Leif Borgersen in the turbine-powered U-95, and Howie Benns in MISS BUDWEISER. There could be no doubt about it. George had achieved the big-time.
He followed this with victories at Owensboro (Kentucky), the Tri-Cities (Washington), Seattle (Washington), Dayton (Ohio), San Diego (California), and Madison (Indiana). Henley thus became the first driver to win seven High Point races in a single season.
One particularly memorable contest was the APBA Gold Cup on Seattle's Lake Washington at Sand Point. All day long, George battled side-by-side with MISS BUDWEISER, sharing the same roostertail, on extremely rough water in perhaps the greatest performance of his career.
And through it all, Henley impressed one and all with his friendliness and cheerfulness. He was a "regular guy." It's no wonder that he acquired the nickname "Smiling George."
According to rumor, he also smiled at his fellow drivers out on the race course, especially when he passed them (which he did frequently)!
Following a brief retirement from the sport, Henley rejoined the PAY 'n PAK team at the third race of the 1975 season in Owensboro. In the short time that George had been away, the WEISFIELD'S, chauffeured by Billy Schumacher, had garnered most of the glory and appeared a likely bet to unseat PAY 'n PAK from its National Championship throne.
On the first lap of the First Heat at Owensboro, Henley's boat swapped ends and caved in a sponson. PAY 'n PAK was forced to withdraw, and the race went to WEISFIELD'S. All hope of retaining the High Points crown appeared lost.
Over the winter of 1974-75, the PAK had been rebuilt. The boat now performed better on the straightaways but had difficulty in the corners.
Despite a formidable points deficit, George sparked PAY 'n PAK to one of the great comebacks in sports history.
The "Winged Wonder" took third at the next race in Detroit, but the set-up still wasn't right. The team finally found the winning combination a week later at Madison, where Henley retained his title in the Indiana Governor's Cup and decisively defeated the WEISFIELD'S.
In the Second Heat at Madison, Billy Schumacher went all out after George Henley. As the two juggernauts thundered toward the finish line, Billy gave it everything he had and almost blew the boat over. PAY 'n PAK averaged 115.148; WEISFIELD'S did 114.855.
Back at the dock, Schumacher commented, "I never worked so hard for second-place in my life."
"Smiling George" followed this triumph with victories at Dayton, the Tri-Cities, Seattle, and San Diego.
The end result was a third straight season title for PAY 'n PAK, which scored 8864 points to 8213 for WEISFIELD'S. Never before or since has one boat's momentum been so effectively halted by the performance of another boat.
In the words of Dave Heerensperger, "We've accomplished everything we set out to do and more."
In his last season of Unlimited Class participation, Henley won more races than any other driver and averaged more points per race than anyone else.
As a boat racer, the pride of Eatonville had no worlds left to conquer. His legacy to the sport is a standard of competitive excellence that few drivers in any racing category have ever achieved.
Farewell, George Henley.
Hydroplane legend George Henley dead at 73
By Mike Archbold
Reprinted from The News Tribune, December 14, 2009
Reprinted from The News Tribune, December 14, 2009
Before the Seattle Seahawks and Mariners, hydroplane racing was the big sport to follow in the Puget Sound region.
Among its heroes was Eatonville resident George “Smiling George” Henley.
Henley’s magical year was 1974. At the helm of the unlimited hydroplane Pay ‘n Pak, he won the Gold Cup on Lake Washington when the race returned to Seafair after a seven-year hiatus.
That same season he won seven total races and the national points championship. He beat all comers, including the “Thunderboat King,” Bill Muncey.
Henley, who retired from racing in 1976 and went on to own Henley’s Silver Lake Resort near Eatonville, died Monday morning at Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup. He was 73.
“It was sudden,” his wife, Mary Henley, said. “It was just one of those things.”
Born in Ketchikan, Alaska, Henley was 13 when he came to Silver Lake in 1950 after his parents bought the Silver Lake Resort..
He used to sneak off to watch the boat races on Spanaway Lake and fell in love with the sport, his wife said.
“He always had something to do with the water,” she said. “He had webbed feet.”
Marc Blau, president of the Tacoma-Pierce County Sports Hall of Fame, recalled Henley as a very unassuming man with a constant smile. Henley was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005.
Henley began building his reputation as a boat racer in 1955 when he started racing outboards. He then moved up to inboards and made the jump to unlimited hydroplanes in 1970. He won 12 out of 34 races he entered over the next five years.
In 1974, he joined forces with Dave Heerensperger on the Pay ‘n Pak. The previous year the boat won a National High Point Championship with a different driver at the controls.
Henley was up to the challenge and drove the boat to its second straight championship, which earned him an invitation to the White House to meet President Ford.
Henley retired but came back the next season as partial owner of the Pay ‘n Pak and won another national points championship.
In 1976, Henley left unlimited racing for good.
“He said it was a dangerous sport and why put your life on the line all the time with a family when you have fulfilled all your goals,” said his wife, who recalled that his 1954 Eatonville High School prophecy was that he’d win the Gold Cup.
Legendary hydroplane racing designer Ron Jones, Sr., of Renton, called Henley “my most favorite boat racer.”
“He got boats around the racecourse others could not,” Jones wrote in an online memorial set up for Henley.
Carol Parsons of Harts Lake Resort and Deli in southeast Pierce County remembered Henley as a businessman who “loved that resort and was so devoted to it.”
Henley also is survived by two sons, a daughter and grandchildren.
Among its heroes was Eatonville resident George “Smiling George” Henley.
Henley’s magical year was 1974. At the helm of the unlimited hydroplane Pay ‘n Pak, he won the Gold Cup on Lake Washington when the race returned to Seafair after a seven-year hiatus.
That same season he won seven total races and the national points championship. He beat all comers, including the “Thunderboat King,” Bill Muncey.
Henley, who retired from racing in 1976 and went on to own Henley’s Silver Lake Resort near Eatonville, died Monday morning at Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup. He was 73.
“It was sudden,” his wife, Mary Henley, said. “It was just one of those things.”
Born in Ketchikan, Alaska, Henley was 13 when he came to Silver Lake in 1950 after his parents bought the Silver Lake Resort..
He used to sneak off to watch the boat races on Spanaway Lake and fell in love with the sport, his wife said.
“He always had something to do with the water,” she said. “He had webbed feet.”
Marc Blau, president of the Tacoma-Pierce County Sports Hall of Fame, recalled Henley as a very unassuming man with a constant smile. Henley was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005.
Henley began building his reputation as a boat racer in 1955 when he started racing outboards. He then moved up to inboards and made the jump to unlimited hydroplanes in 1970. He won 12 out of 34 races he entered over the next five years.
In 1974, he joined forces with Dave Heerensperger on the Pay ‘n Pak. The previous year the boat won a National High Point Championship with a different driver at the controls.
Henley was up to the challenge and drove the boat to its second straight championship, which earned him an invitation to the White House to meet President Ford.
Henley retired but came back the next season as partial owner of the Pay ‘n Pak and won another national points championship.
In 1976, Henley left unlimited racing for good.
“He said it was a dangerous sport and why put your life on the line all the time with a family when you have fulfilled all your goals,” said his wife, who recalled that his 1954 Eatonville High School prophecy was that he’d win the Gold Cup.
Legendary hydroplane racing designer Ron Jones, Sr., of Renton, called Henley “my most favorite boat racer.”
“He got boats around the racecourse others could not,” Jones wrote in an online memorial set up for Henley.
Carol Parsons of Harts Lake Resort and Deli in southeast Pierce County remembered Henley as a businessman who “loved that resort and was so devoted to it.”
Henley also is survived by two sons, a daughter and grandchildren.
...and Bombers Hit The River
Reprinted from Sports Illustrated, July 17, 1972
In one of the most unexpected upsets—and thrilling races—unlimited hydroplanes have known, a man who had never won before seized the President's Cup on the Potomac from the sport's last hero.
Sunday on the Potomac. The thought of it seems to travel with a picture of a tranquil glade, a promise of stillness. A place where you can lie back on a blanket and ponder the birth of a nation, try to imagine old Tom Jefferson over there in his study dipping his quill pen. Ah, the Potomac: a river of the gods. Long ago, that is. For the Potomac today is a nastier place, a place where you can be poisoned, perturbed and—this since 1926—have your meatus acusticus externus and your ductus cochlearis torn apart.
These are parts of the ear, and last Sunday on the banks of the Potomac they were assaulted once more as 53,000 persons audited the 41st annual President's Cup unlimited hydroplane race. In a way it was an unusual race as far as hydroplanes are concerned; nobody got killed. It was even more unusual for other reasons. Bill Muncey, the overwhelming favorite, did not win, and it was perhaps the best and most dramatic race in the history of the sport.
It became that when Bill Sterett Jr., driving a boat called Pride of Pay 'N Pak, tore into a six-lap final-heat thriller with Muncey, who was at the wheel of Atlas Van Lines. They had come out of the preliminary heats dead even, and as they roostertailed upstream and down, sometimes side by side, one wondered how Cal Coolidge, for whom the cup was named, could have taken a fancy to the sport. The Silent One abhorred noise, even the sound of his own voice. It was a stubborn riddle that would not dissolve as Muncey and Sterett turned loose their enormous, bellowing hogs on the rain-swollen river.
Nobody had given Sterett much of a chance. He was a substitute driver who had never won a race. He replaced Bill Schumacher, the ace who had quit a few days earlier, deriding the boat and damning the river as a harbor of debris. Like, say, a refrigerator that once floated down to a point smack in the middle of the course. "Call it the river you can walk across," said Schumacher. There was also one other hard fact not in the substitute's favor: Bill Muncey and the thunder under him.
No matter how you cut it, no matter how repellent his ego is to some, Muncey is hydroplane racing, this year more than ever. No one had been able to come close to him this season, even though he and the Atlas had suffered a disappointing campaign last year. "We just couldn't seem to come up with the right combination of equipment for him then," said one of his aides, dwelling on things like proper spark plugs, gearboxes, propeller sizes. "It's all machinery," he said. "That's what this sport is about. Add Muncey to the right machinery, and you're almost unbeatable."
Going into this President's Cup—second in hydroplane prestige only to the Gold Cup—Muncey was after his fifth straight victory and his sixth on the Potomac. He is the last of the big name drivers, so many of whom have been killed off—three in a President's Cup race one grisly year.
None of this seems to bother Muncey, but his career does not enthrall his wife. "He can quit anytime," she says. "I'm ready, that's for sure." Says Muncey: "I guess I stay on because it's an ego trip for me now. I need it. The money surely isn't worth the risk, and there must be a hundred easier ways to gain fame."
The wave you cannot avoid, the sudden mechanical failure that can blow you to the sky, the memories of friends ripped apart internally and not a scratch on them—all of this moves through his mind. "I have a low pain level, a low fear level," he says. Twice he has been blown out of a boat, "but I can't even tell you what it felt like." No longer young—he's 43—and never a thrill freak or a roughneck on the course, Muncey drives mostly with his head now as he gets on toward the 20th year of a dazzling career.
So it figured that with the Atlas under him—plus his complete grasp of what he does—Muncey could play the flute or clarinet in the cockpit (he has sat in with the Gene Krupa band and the Seattle Symphony) and still obliterate the kid Sterett, leave him so far back that he would have his hands full just trying to fight the massive wash from the Atlas. Anyway, that was the talk among the more informed on the Potomac banks as the afternoon wore away, helped along by Guy Lombardo—good old Guy, once a hydroplane owner himself, climbing up on the bandstand and directing his way through, yeah, you guessed it, Auld Lang Syne. Moved, the announcer then delivered a verse about a grocer: "My, how his business prospered/Folks were always in his store/For he'd give an honest measure/Then he'd add just a little bit more."
The message of the verse was as elusive as the lead in the final heat for the cup. Sterett and Muncey went into it with 800 points apiece. They battled on each other's hip for the first three laps, with neither boat gaining a substantial advantage. Then Sterett seemed to fall behind for a lap. But he quickly moved back up alongside Muncey on the fifth lap, and they stayed that way until the first turn on the sixth, when Sterett drew ahead. Then Muncey and the Atlas ran into traffic in the form of a boat named Pizza Pete. Sterett seized the moment and gunned into the lead to stay, flashing across the finish line just 3 seconds ahead. Sterett's fastest heat of 109.090 mph came near the 1962 record of 109.157 clocked by Muncey. The entire race, and especially the finish, left the crowd buzzing and hydroplane officials ecstatic.
"It's the best race I've ever seen in 25 years of watching," said O.H. Frisbie, president of the company that sponsors the Muncey team.
"Hey, boys," an official shouted to the press. "Great balls of fire! You'll never overwrite this one."
The officials had a right to be jubilant. A race such as this gives them something to talk about, like back in the grand old days when the only time you ever saw a hydro was in the newsreels, and there were good old Guy and Horace Dodge, with ascots around their necks, waving jauntily to the cameras.
Why, maybe even Calvin Coolidge, too.
In one of the most unexpected upsets—and thrilling races—unlimited hydroplanes have known, a man who had never won before seized the President's Cup on the Potomac from the sport's last hero.
Sunday on the Potomac. The thought of it seems to travel with a picture of a tranquil glade, a promise of stillness. A place where you can lie back on a blanket and ponder the birth of a nation, try to imagine old Tom Jefferson over there in his study dipping his quill pen. Ah, the Potomac: a river of the gods. Long ago, that is. For the Potomac today is a nastier place, a place where you can be poisoned, perturbed and—this since 1926—have your meatus acusticus externus and your ductus cochlearis torn apart.
 |
| Winner Bill Sterett Jr. bounces a few decibels off the Capital on the way to victory. |
It became that when Bill Sterett Jr., driving a boat called Pride of Pay 'N Pak, tore into a six-lap final-heat thriller with Muncey, who was at the wheel of Atlas Van Lines. They had come out of the preliminary heats dead even, and as they roostertailed upstream and down, sometimes side by side, one wondered how Cal Coolidge, for whom the cup was named, could have taken a fancy to the sport. The Silent One abhorred noise, even the sound of his own voice. It was a stubborn riddle that would not dissolve as Muncey and Sterett turned loose their enormous, bellowing hogs on the rain-swollen river.
Nobody had given Sterett much of a chance. He was a substitute driver who had never won a race. He replaced Bill Schumacher, the ace who had quit a few days earlier, deriding the boat and damning the river as a harbor of debris. Like, say, a refrigerator that once floated down to a point smack in the middle of the course. "Call it the river you can walk across," said Schumacher. There was also one other hard fact not in the substitute's favor: Bill Muncey and the thunder under him.
No matter how you cut it, no matter how repellent his ego is to some, Muncey is hydroplane racing, this year more than ever. No one had been able to come close to him this season, even though he and the Atlas had suffered a disappointing campaign last year. "We just couldn't seem to come up with the right combination of equipment for him then," said one of his aides, dwelling on things like proper spark plugs, gearboxes, propeller sizes. "It's all machinery," he said. "That's what this sport is about. Add Muncey to the right machinery, and you're almost unbeatable."
Going into this President's Cup—second in hydroplane prestige only to the Gold Cup—Muncey was after his fifth straight victory and his sixth on the Potomac. He is the last of the big name drivers, so many of whom have been killed off—three in a President's Cup race one grisly year.
None of this seems to bother Muncey, but his career does not enthrall his wife. "He can quit anytime," she says. "I'm ready, that's for sure." Says Muncey: "I guess I stay on because it's an ego trip for me now. I need it. The money surely isn't worth the risk, and there must be a hundred easier ways to gain fame."
The wave you cannot avoid, the sudden mechanical failure that can blow you to the sky, the memories of friends ripped apart internally and not a scratch on them—all of this moves through his mind. "I have a low pain level, a low fear level," he says. Twice he has been blown out of a boat, "but I can't even tell you what it felt like." No longer young—he's 43—and never a thrill freak or a roughneck on the course, Muncey drives mostly with his head now as he gets on toward the 20th year of a dazzling career.
So it figured that with the Atlas under him—plus his complete grasp of what he does—Muncey could play the flute or clarinet in the cockpit (he has sat in with the Gene Krupa band and the Seattle Symphony) and still obliterate the kid Sterett, leave him so far back that he would have his hands full just trying to fight the massive wash from the Atlas. Anyway, that was the talk among the more informed on the Potomac banks as the afternoon wore away, helped along by Guy Lombardo—good old Guy, once a hydroplane owner himself, climbing up on the bandstand and directing his way through, yeah, you guessed it, Auld Lang Syne. Moved, the announcer then delivered a verse about a grocer: "My, how his business prospered/Folks were always in his store/For he'd give an honest measure/Then he'd add just a little bit more."
The message of the verse was as elusive as the lead in the final heat for the cup. Sterett and Muncey went into it with 800 points apiece. They battled on each other's hip for the first three laps, with neither boat gaining a substantial advantage. Then Sterett seemed to fall behind for a lap. But he quickly moved back up alongside Muncey on the fifth lap, and they stayed that way until the first turn on the sixth, when Sterett drew ahead. Then Muncey and the Atlas ran into traffic in the form of a boat named Pizza Pete. Sterett seized the moment and gunned into the lead to stay, flashing across the finish line just 3 seconds ahead. Sterett's fastest heat of 109.090 mph came near the 1962 record of 109.157 clocked by Muncey. The entire race, and especially the finish, left the crowd buzzing and hydroplane officials ecstatic.
"It's the best race I've ever seen in 25 years of watching," said O.H. Frisbie, president of the company that sponsors the Muncey team.
"Hey, boys," an official shouted to the press. "Great balls of fire! You'll never overwrite this one."
The officials had a right to be jubilant. A race such as this gives them something to talk about, like back in the grand old days when the only time you ever saw a hydro was in the newsreels, and there were good old Guy and Horace Dodge, with ascots around their necks, waving jauntily to the cameras.
Why, maybe even Calvin Coolidge, too.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Henley Steers Pak To Gold Cup Win
By Chuck Ashmun
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, July 28, 1975
TRI-CITIES — George Henley lost his shirt, but he certainly had enough money today to pay for a new one.
"This made coming out of retirement well worthwhile," Henley said after he won his second straight Gold Cup race yesterday. "The point thing was a bonus we didn’t even count on."
Henley steered the Pay ‘n Pak into the lead in the race for the national point championship, and that title quite likely will be decided Sunday when the unlimited hydroplanes go at it again in Seattle’s Seafair Trophy Race.
Genial George took it easy in the final heat, cruising to a third-place finish in what turned into more of a parade than a race. He had piled up all the points he needed in earlier heats.
"I’m going to go out and do the Eatonville stomp," Henley said when asked about his celebration plans. Many of the Pak supporters in Henley’s home town probably were doing similar dance steps last night.
"It just goes to show you that the throttle works two ways — you’ve got to back off once in a while, too," said Dave Heerensperger, Pay ‘n Pak owner, in obvious reference to the Weisfield’s performance here.
The Weisfield’s, considered by many the boat to beat, let the point lead and the Gold Cup slip away in a deluge of mechanical misfortunes that erased any edge its driver, Billy Schumacher, had in speed.
As is usual in Gold Cup races , the unusual happened. For example:
— One heat race was halted early by red flares as the damaged Miss Budweiser headed for the bottom of the Columbia River.
— The Lincoln Thrift, obviously en route to a wide win in another heat, went 1ead in the water with less than a lap to go.
— The anticipated bow-to-bow clashes between Pay ‘n Pak and Weisfield’s never materialized, but Miss U.S. hooked up in a pair of dandy duels with the Lincoln Thrift and the Pay ‘n Pak.
— The "great beer bust," a threat of mass arrests if spectators showed up in Columbia River Park with sudsy stuff, never happened — even though alcohol consumption was obvious along the waterfront.
— And the only boat to set a record was neither the Pay ‘n Pak nor the Weisfield’s. Miller Irvin got it, establishing course and Gold Cup records for a 15-mile heat when he averaged 113.084 miles an hour in Heat 3B.
Henley lost his shirt, or his driving outfit to be more exact, sometime during the night before the race. Both of his suits were stolen from the pit area, but one was found beneath a truck, outside the pits, the next morning.
The 39-year-old driver, who rejoined the Pak team three races into the season, did so with a more lucrative agreement that gives him, among other benefits, a percentage of the $13,920 first-place prize here.
Heerensperger, whose boat earlier this season trailed Weisfield’s by 2,355 points, admitted he is surprised by the Pak’s swift ascent to the top.
In reference to their new financial arrangement, he told Henley: "It looks like the kid from Eatonville outwitted the fox."
George has won three straight races — and the cash that comes with winning.
Schumacher, speeding into the lead in the opening race, Heat 1A, failed to pick up a point when the Weisfield’s supercharger blew. He lost two later races, plagued by a faulty nitrous-oxide system.
The Budweiser started sinking during Heat 1B after Mickey Remund, the driver, was washed down and cut into the infield early in the race. He resumed racing before discovering the boat was taking on water through a damaged left sponson.
"I was running in a wall of water in that south turn and didn’t have any idea where I was for three or four seconds," Remund said. "I finally noticed something was wrong, because the boat became uncontrollable."
The Budweiser crew will be busy this week, but Remund insisted "the boat will be ready for Seattle." In addition to patching a section of sponson about 12 inches wide and 48 inches long, the crew will have to replace water-damaged equipment inside the boat.
Lincoln Thrift lost its huge advantage near the end of Heat 2B when wiring came loose from the distributor. In that same heat, Atlas Van Lines limped back to the pits before the start with a thrown engine rod.
Tom D’eath, who drove the Miss U.S. to first place in the last heat and an over-a 11 second-place finish, hooked up with the Pay ‘n Pak in Heat 2A and the Thrift in 2B. On both occasions, D’Eath lost the duel, but not before giving the sun-broiled fans lining both shores something to shout about.
D’Eath pushed Irvin to his record run in a side-by-side set-to which stretched through all six laps of the best race of the day.
But those hot heats meant little when it came time to hand out the awards.
Henley, beaming over his, said: "The crew did it. They kept the son-of-a-gun running for the whole race."
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, July 28, 1975
TRI-CITIES — George Henley lost his shirt, but he certainly had enough money today to pay for a new one.
"This made coming out of retirement well worthwhile," Henley said after he won his second straight Gold Cup race yesterday. "The point thing was a bonus we didn’t even count on."
Henley steered the Pay ‘n Pak into the lead in the race for the national point championship, and that title quite likely will be decided Sunday when the unlimited hydroplanes go at it again in Seattle’s Seafair Trophy Race.
Genial George took it easy in the final heat, cruising to a third-place finish in what turned into more of a parade than a race. He had piled up all the points he needed in earlier heats.
"I’m going to go out and do the Eatonville stomp," Henley said when asked about his celebration plans. Many of the Pak supporters in Henley’s home town probably were doing similar dance steps last night.
"It just goes to show you that the throttle works two ways — you’ve got to back off once in a while, too," said Dave Heerensperger, Pay ‘n Pak owner, in obvious reference to the Weisfield’s performance here.
The Weisfield’s, considered by many the boat to beat, let the point lead and the Gold Cup slip away in a deluge of mechanical misfortunes that erased any edge its driver, Billy Schumacher, had in speed.
As is usual in Gold Cup races , the unusual happened. For example:
— One heat race was halted early by red flares as the damaged Miss Budweiser headed for the bottom of the Columbia River.
— The Lincoln Thrift, obviously en route to a wide win in another heat, went 1ead in the water with less than a lap to go.
— The anticipated bow-to-bow clashes between Pay ‘n Pak and Weisfield’s never materialized, but Miss U.S. hooked up in a pair of dandy duels with the Lincoln Thrift and the Pay ‘n Pak.
— The "great beer bust," a threat of mass arrests if spectators showed up in Columbia River Park with sudsy stuff, never happened — even though alcohol consumption was obvious along the waterfront.
— And the only boat to set a record was neither the Pay ‘n Pak nor the Weisfield’s. Miller Irvin got it, establishing course and Gold Cup records for a 15-mile heat when he averaged 113.084 miles an hour in Heat 3B.
Henley lost his shirt, or his driving outfit to be more exact, sometime during the night before the race. Both of his suits were stolen from the pit area, but one was found beneath a truck, outside the pits, the next morning.
The 39-year-old driver, who rejoined the Pak team three races into the season, did so with a more lucrative agreement that gives him, among other benefits, a percentage of the $13,920 first-place prize here.
Heerensperger, whose boat earlier this season trailed Weisfield’s by 2,355 points, admitted he is surprised by the Pak’s swift ascent to the top.
In reference to their new financial arrangement, he told Henley: "It looks like the kid from Eatonville outwitted the fox."
George has won three straight races — and the cash that comes with winning.
Schumacher, speeding into the lead in the opening race, Heat 1A, failed to pick up a point when the Weisfield’s supercharger blew. He lost two later races, plagued by a faulty nitrous-oxide system.
The Budweiser started sinking during Heat 1B after Mickey Remund, the driver, was washed down and cut into the infield early in the race. He resumed racing before discovering the boat was taking on water through a damaged left sponson.
"I was running in a wall of water in that south turn and didn’t have any idea where I was for three or four seconds," Remund said. "I finally noticed something was wrong, because the boat became uncontrollable."
The Budweiser crew will be busy this week, but Remund insisted "the boat will be ready for Seattle." In addition to patching a section of sponson about 12 inches wide and 48 inches long, the crew will have to replace water-damaged equipment inside the boat.
Lincoln Thrift lost its huge advantage near the end of Heat 2B when wiring came loose from the distributor. In that same heat, Atlas Van Lines limped back to the pits before the start with a thrown engine rod.
Tom D’eath, who drove the Miss U.S. to first place in the last heat and an over-a 11 second-place finish, hooked up with the Pay ‘n Pak in Heat 2A and the Thrift in 2B. On both occasions, D’Eath lost the duel, but not before giving the sun-broiled fans lining both shores something to shout about.
D’Eath pushed Irvin to his record run in a side-by-side set-to which stretched through all six laps of the best race of the day.
But those hot heats meant little when it came time to hand out the awards.
Henley, beaming over his, said: "The crew did it. They kept the son-of-a-gun running for the whole race."
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