Reprinted from The Madison Courier, February 6, 1987
To say Miller American Racing Team crew chief John Walters is something of a utility man in unlimited hydroplane racing would be something of an understatement. After all, Walters has been a boat owner, boat builder, crewman, driver, engine specialist, and crew chief during his boat racing career.
As an 11-year-old he began racing outboards with his father, graduated to the larger, limited inboard hydroplanes a few years later.
He took a bit step in 1974 by going to work for boat builder Ron Jones, who has crafted many top unlimited as well as other racing craft over the years.
Later, he became a member of the late Bill Muncey’s Atlas Van Lines crew. It was while he was working for Muncey that Walters gained invaluable experience in his driving career. Walters was having a good career in the late 1970s in the limited inboard ranks.
“I learned as much standing on the dock watching Bill drive a race boat as you can ever learn sitting behind the wheel of your own,” he said. “Bill kind of took me under his wing at several of my limited events. He came out and watched me and said, ‘Why did you do this?’ or ‘Next time you might want to do this,’ and just kind of pointed me in the right direction,” Walters notes.
“He was a real good critic and somebody who really knew what was going on, and I really had a lot of respect for his ideas and thoughts on things. There’s no question but what it helped me out a great deal,” Walters adds.
Because Muncey lived in San Diego, and Walters lived in Seattle where the Atlas boat was headquartered, Muncey sometimes let the youth drive in practice runs on Lake Washington. Walters even drive the “Blue Blaster” in two exhibition heats in Oregon.
It was while he worked with the Atlas crew that Walters came into a strong working relationship with former Atlas team manager/boat builder Jim Lucero. In fact, Walters worked with Lucero on the development and construction of the Pay ‘N Pak turbine craft.
When Dave Heerensperger and Pay ‘N Pak voiced an interest in getting back into racing again, they wanted to do it with Jim as the team manager,” Walters said. “We wanted to work on boats together and to build boats for other people and when Jim formed his own company, he asked me if I’d participate in helping build the boat and everything.”
Walters’ driving career in the limited class was going great guns in 1979. “At that point in time I was winning lots of races in lots of different classes and managed to put together a national championship that year,” he remembers. Heerensperger saw him race in one of the most prestigious limited events on the west coast and said, “It looks to me like you’re about ready to drive a big boat and if you’re interested in doing it, I’m interested in having you do it,” Heerensperger told him.
Walters and the Pak turbine experienced a spectacular blow-over flip on the Columbia River before the boat ever saw its first competition. The accident, at the 1980 Columbia Cup race, “is still very clear in my mind and I get to see it enough on television that it keeps bringing it back,” he says today. “I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes upside down and backwards over the Columbia River and I don’t have any control over that one.”
Walters recovered from his injuries, the boat was repaired and the Pak returned to competition in 1981. At the 1982 Syracuse race, he became the first driver to ever win an unlimited hydroplane race aboard a turbine-powered hydroplane. But later in the season his driving career was abruptly ended when he was seriously injured in a crash with George Johnson and the Executone.
Walters suffered “pretty substantial head injuries” and other problems as a result of the crash. “I was hurt pretty severely and had to go through a real long process of getting better and healing up. The physical trauma is one thing; the mental trauma is something different.”
Walters’ driving days were over. Pay ‘N Pak owner Dave Heerensperger retired from the sport because (in the wake of the Bill Muncey and Dean Chenoweth fatalities and then the crash of his own boat) he claimed it had become too dangerous. Walters, without a job, began the long recovery process.
“I kind of feel like the rug was pulled out from under me right when we were getting the boat to a point where we could go out and win races consistently and really fulfill a lot of goals that I had set for myself as a driver,” the 34-year-old reflects today. “I had that all taken away from me. Being able to say that I was the first driver in the history of the sport to win a boat race in a turbine certainly is a feather in our cap and makes me feel real good.”
Following Heerensperger’s second retirement from the sport, Lucero rejoined the Atlas Van Lines team in late 1982 as team manager and later as co-owner. His friend Walters would join the team a couple of years later, returning to contribute in yet another capacity to the sport he enjoys to much.
