Monday, February 20, 2012

The Master Speaks - An Interview with Ron Jones Sr.

By Anne McRayde
Reprinted from Skid Fin Magazine, 2003, Vol 1, No. 1

Ron Jones in 2010.
How did you first begin building boats?

You could say I was born with it. My father was Ted Jones, who invented the three-point hydroplane, as we know it today. As a little boy, I was able to go with Dad, and my three sisters, and Mom to the lake and watch Dad test. When he was out testing my three sisters, who are marvelous people, screamed and hollered. I stood there very stoically and quietly. At the end of the dad my Mother would tell my Father, “I don’t think Ron’s interested in those boats, you know the girls just scream, but Ron just stands there.” Well I was just dying inside to be a part of it, but didn’t know how to say it. My Dad was insistent that I not do this that he locked the basement door where he kept his hydroplanes and wouldn’t let me in there. Of course I figured out a way to get in on my own. When he was at work I would go in and study what was going on. I was born with it and made it a part of my life ever since. This is my 53rd year; I’ve been building hydroplanes a long time.

Did your father encourage you once he saw how interested you were?

Actually no. He did his best to stop me from getting involved. My Dad had a lot of heart-breaking experiences in the business realm of hydroplane racing. He warned me that if I did this there would be a lot of heartbreak and little pay. He believed that when all was said and done I would look back and say, “Why did I do that?” Well, mostly he was right, but I am very thankful that I did it. I have lots and lots of wonderful friends and family as a result of hydroplane racing. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

You mentioned that your father discouraged you from building hydroplanes. Your son, Ron Jones, Jr., is a boat builder as well. Did you encourage your son or take the same approach as your father?

I did what I hoped was right. I encouraged him in the sense that when he was very young, we made sure that he and his two sisters went with us to the races. I noticed at the races a lot of times Ron, Jr., was over on the swings or on the slide. I wasn’t sure about his interest, just as my Mom wasn’t sure about mine because I didn’t yell and scream. But, Ron Jr., did have an interest, which he developed throughout his high school years. When he was in high school he worked in my shop a few hours. He developed into a marvelous boat builder. Today he has his own facility where he builds things out of composite. He builds airplane parts and hydroplanes. To be very honest, business-wise he’s far more successful than I. He’s constructed a wonderful business that’s very profitable and growing. Not only does he build great hydroplanes, but he has a contract to build doors for airplane cockpits. I admire him greatly; he has wonderful abilities and he is a very, very bright young man.

Can you explain the process you take when building a boat?

I usually start with a piece of blank white paper. I draw one line and that’s the baseline. From there I construct the hydroplane in my head as I am drawing. As I begin to draw the boat all the things I’ve done in the past go through my mind. I remember the things that did and didn’t work. I try to think of new things that will be better. Eventually I have a drawing on a piece of paper. I let the paper sit for three or four days. I come back, look at it and say, “Oh no, that can’t be right.” It takes quite a while just to draw it. Then the actual construction begins. We build hydroplanes today of composite material, which is very much like aerospace material. Due to that, we have a lot of molds and tooling already prepared. Even so, with two good men working hard, it takes about six months to prepare an Unlimited Light from start to finish and get it ready to go into the water.

If you recall the days of the Slo-mo-shun and the old boats powered by airplane engines, we think of those as the “glory days.” The Unlimited Lights, that are built today, run with much smaller engines. As a result, the Unlimited Light is a very complex, fast, difficult piece of equipment. It’s easy to build a hydroplane; lots of people do it. The secret is to keep the propeller hooked up to the water and the boat stable on the water so bad things won’t happen and ruin your afternoon.

What inspiration do you have as you begin to design a boat?

When I sit down with that white piece of paper, before I draw the baseline, I pray. Because I know the extent of what’s going to happen, so I ask the Lord to help me put down the right lines and not the wrong ones. I would say that it’s the grace of God, if there is any success, it would be because of him. Now people obviously say, if every boat builder asked him for help, how can one boat win and not the other? I didn’t say that I ask him to win, I don’t. I ask him to let me do my best and to have the safest boat that I can possibly produce. I’m thankful for that because he has been faithful to help me.

Is each component specialized for every hydroplane you build?

Yes that is the secret for not making money. Don’t ever build the same boat twice, build everything differently. I have been criticized for that a good deal. But you see for me, after I build a boat, I am very proud of it. For example, after building Barbara Michael’s 5-Liter boat, I went to the races and watched it. I was very excited about it. In my mind I was thinking of all the things I would do to make the next boat better.

Every boat is a custom boat in the most intense sense of the word. Rudder shapes, propellers, shafts, skid fins, all the components of a boat are each unique. Eventually, the parts become unique to that boat. You don’t call up the hydroplane store and order parts. There is no hydroplane store, you’re it. Therefore you get to design all the pieces and build them one at a time. Because you had something fail ten years ago, this sticks in your mind and you never want to do it again, so you make this part a little better than you have ever made it before. Automatically you become a metallurgist because you have to learn what this metal will or won’t do. Then you have to learn about heat treatment of metal. You learn about paint, sub-painting, sanding, and wood.

In the old days we learned all about wood and what it could and could not do. Then once I decided that hydroplanes should be made out of composites we had to learn a whole new discipline. That was a whole new world to learn. We love composite because in the old days with the wood boats, if it crashed it was usually finished for the season. With the composite boat, they turn it upside down and sometimes race in the next heat. The structure is wonderful so you learn composite. You learn how to make the boat comfortable and user-friendly for the driver.

All the parts of a boat then, work together as one.

That is absolutely right. It takes a lot of pieces, a lot of thought. I love the sport, but I get the biggest kick out of designing a boat with this blank piece of paper and seeing it come to life. The boat becomes this living entity. Then I get to go see it run and I tell myself, “ I am going to make the next one better.” That’s what keeps me going.

You mentioned boats moved from being built with wood to composite materials. What do you see as the future material for boats?

Right now everybody is familiar with Tupperware, which is a wonderfully modern plastic, but you surely could not build a boat out of it; it wouldn’t take the abuse. However, there are people in the plastics industry working on a material like Tupperware. They take a big sheet of flat plastic, already made, put it on a form and place it in an oven in a vacuum. As the heat rises the sheet of plastic takes the shape it was around. You pull it and the end result is the final shape. That sounds far-fetched, but it is being worked on right now. That would be marvelous because you could mold a boat in a few hours, instead of a few weeks. Maybe in two or three days you would have a bare hull. That is a goal, which will hopefully be achieved.

There are many other wonderful products available to improve even on our composite structure, but composites generally take a long time to put together. Let’s say that Unlimited Light racing became so popular that 20 people came to me and all wanted a boat for next season. Short of a miracle, that won’t happen. But in the method I previously described, it’s possible that production could be set up to do something that well.

From the time you built your first hull to now, technology has dramatically advanced. Was it more fun back in the old days when you were building boats in your garage out of wood?

Not really, I have just as much fun today, 53 years later, as I did in my Dad’s basement at home. I built my first hydroplane based on some little drawings and a few numbers my Dad sketched on the back of an old envelope. I was 16 years old when I looked at that envelope; I didn’t have a clue what was going on. My Dad left then to go to Detroit and race the Slo-mo-shun. He was gone for a number of months. In that basement I built a little 48 c.i. hydroplane or what we call today a 1.5-Litre. I built that little boat all by myself out of wood. I was nearly done when a local fellow racing in that class heard about it and came to see it. The fellow looked and the boat and said, “I’d like to buy that.” I replied that I was building the boat for myself and was naming it Pop’s Chip, for chip off the old block. He said he would give me $300 for it. As a 16-year-old in 1948 this sounded like a really good idea.

I had a lot of fun with that boat, but it launched me into building other boats for people. I am 69 years old and having a ball building Barbara Michael’s Unlimited Light hull. I started with a piece of white paper. I put a baseline on it and all the lines are new, not like ones I’ve built before. It’s not radically different and most people won’t notice a difference, but I notice. There is a lot of difference. It’s a lot of fun and I can’t wait to get the boat in the water and have Barbara drive it.

How did you keep up with the rapidly changing technology?

I learned to build the first few boats by observing through a peephole in the basement while my Dad was working. While I wasn’t able to look firsthand, he did, like I said, drew a little boat on the back of an envelope. He did that a number of times.

I built the 1958 Miss Bardahl Unlimited hydroplane, my first Unlimited, under those exact circumstances. My Dad had a contract with Mercury Marine; he was a close friend of the owner. My Dad got a big contract to go back east for a number of months. He was just getting ready to go to the airport, I was driving him, when the phone rang. It was Ole Bardahl and he said, “Mr. Jones, I’d like you to build me a boat.” My father replied that he was just leaving to go back east on a big contract. Ole persisted; he wanted an Unlimited hydroplane. My Dad said he would fix him up. Meanwhile, I was standing outside waiting and becoming worried because we were late. On the way to the airport I drove and on an envelope he pulled from his pocket, my Dad drew some lines and numbers that became the Miss Bardahl.

You either learn or you aren’t going to make it. I learned technology by doing. My education is limited; I’m a high-school graduate. For a time, I attended Seattle Pacific University during the day, and because I had a family I also worked nights at Boeing. On my way to school after working all night at Boeing I woke up driving down Rainier Avenue. I was driving down the avenue and cars were honking and swerving on both sides of me. I realized this was not the way to live. I chose boats rather than education.

While I’m not formally educated I made it a goal of mine to study aerodynamics and hydrodynamics. I am layman when it comes to those topics. I understand pretty well what goes on in the water and the air. That turns out to be the most difficult technological discipline on the face of this planet.

For instance, the Russians when it was the Soviet Union, spent billions of dollars and years of testing technology and wind tunneling trying to build a boat that would fly and thus reduce the cost of transportation. After the Cold War was over they invited Americans of a similar discipline to come and see what they had done. Seven Americans went over and got a ride in this boat. It was a 325 mph part boat and part airplane. The pilot of this boat/airplane seated the American and Russian passengers and away they went. Once they hit 250 mph, the pilot took his hands off the wheel, turned around and said, “What do you think boys?” As he had turned around, the boat suddenly ran over a big wave and it pitched them up into the air. The pilot panicked, turned around and shoved the yoke forward as you would with an airplane. The boat/airplane nosed in at 250 mph. Fortunately, only one person died and several others had injuries. I say fortunately because it could have been much worse. The Russians lost this multi-million dollar craft. Why did I tell this story?

Because the discipline of building a boat that’s really an airplane and having it maintain both hydrodynamic and aerodynamic contact in one phase, is the most difficult thing to learn. We have a long way to go, but we’ve learned a lot. I suspect the next leap forward in technology will be a hydroplane that goes very fast, does all the things we want it to do and cannot blow over. One of my goals before I die is to make that happen.

When you build a boat for somebody, how closely do you work with the customer?

We try to make that a valid part of every boat. First of all, in boat racing my customer’s end up being my friends. Immediately, I am concerned about them. I become concerned about the owner if they should not happen to be the driver, because obviously he is invested a great deal of money. He chose me because he thinks I can do what it is that he wants done. If he has a driver or even if he is the driver, I become doubly concerned about their safety.

In the case of Gary and Barbara Michael, they have placed their confidence in me, which I appreciate more than anyone would ever know, but I want to reciprocate. I want to a part of that boat. As I said, I want that boat to become a living entity. I want to be a part of that entity all the time. Occasionally, I do get a customer who will buy a boat and then disappear and not consult with me. Usually what ends up happening is that they are not successful and sell the boat. The new owner calls me and says, “What should I do?” They become successful, set world records or whatever. Consequently, we like to be part of the boat all the time.

You were a major force behind developing safety concepts in hydroplane racing. Can you explain some of the concepts you developed?

The sport, unfortunately, has had a dangerous and difficult path. Many people lost their lives in hydroplanes. I did not want to attend any more funerals; it was too tragic. There was one day when three drivers died in Unlimited hydroplane racing. I made up my mind that somehow there has to be a better way. At the moment, I didn’t know what that was, but I kept looking into things that could work better.

It was safety that drove me my whole life to change things the way I do. I have been pushing the canopy idea since the mid-or-late ‘60s. It was hard for that to be accepted. People thought they would be like a marble in a glass jar, and when the boat crashed they would be rattled around and pulverized. They didn’t want any part of it. They assumed that they would drown in a canopy. I received all kinds of resistance, but I become so concerned for the people, that we developed things we think are better and safer, and make the sport better for everyone.

I have tried to make the boats safer, aerodynamically, which is a big problem. These boats like to be airplanes and fly away at unspoken moments. We have made safety features to prevent that from happening. But I think the biggest thing we have done is develop an environment in which the driver can survive a vicious crash. We chose to call it the enclosed safety canopy. It looks very much like a fighter plane canopy, which is where I got the idea. I bought a book on all the world’s fighter planes and I looked at every one carefully to see which one had something that we could utilize in the race boats. At that time I was doing this for Unlimited hydroplanes. I saw the F-16 fighter plane; the Air Force calls it the “Flying Falcon.”

The F-16’s canopy was a marvelous shape for us because it had a one-piece all plastic canopy with no structure. I knew that was what we had to have. I used that idea as my basis for developing the Unlimited canopy. Originally, I put F-16 canopies directly onto Unlimiteds. I made a structure that would hold it on the boat.

It was a while before we learned how it worked. We learned accidentally in a boat called the 7-Eleven. Steve Reynolds, a local driver, was testing in Pasco. He made a hard turn as he was supposed to do. The skid fin, which is a big piece of steel that hangs down on the left side of the boat preventing slides in the turns, broke off. The boat did an inside roll. It went clean over and lit right side up. The crew had radio contact with Steve and once it settled down he said to them, “Hey fellas I think I just spun out, I saw a lot of water.” He didn’t even realize what had happened. Meanwhile, the crew told him to sit there and they came right over.

That event started it, it set the program in motion. Everybody realized that the canopy was a good concept and we had better do it. I’ve graduated from putting a one-piece F-16 canopy to building an all-composite structure. I don’t put F-16 canopies directly on boats anymore because they are subject to deterioration by ultraviolet rays. We build a composite canopy with a minimum number of windows in it and they have been very successful. The windows are made like the F-16 itself, but these windows, the windshield and two side windows, are just large enough to see out of.

For once in my life, after building canopies I can attend a race and semi-relax instead of standing there with my fists clenched wondering if someone is going to be hurt. It’s a good feeling to know that the canopies have saved a number of lives.

Throughout your career, approximately how many boats have you built?

I don’t have an exact number, but it is over 500. Maybe 65 to 70 percent of those were built in the “old days” when we used wood. I love working with wood. It is a marvelous material and it has wonderful qualities. However, wood won’t take the constant abuse that hydroplanes give it. If you crash one it’s usually kindling. These days, by graduating to composite material, the boats last indefinitely. We really don’t know how long they will last, some of them have been around for 15 years and are still running. They can take crashes and be re-built very quickly. The most important aspect is that the structure is safe. Drivers can live through horrible crashes. The composite material is very wonderful for what we do.

So even though we have built many boats, we haven’t built that many composite boats yet. In 1974 I realized composite was the way we must go. It was 1984 before I could convince anyone and even then people called it the “Tupperware boat.” But the Tupperware boats are now the boats of today’s standards.

Out of the 500 boats or so you have built, do you have one in particular that is your favorite?

I knew you would ask that! You know, every year I have a favorite boat and then next year I have a new favorite boat. I will say this, there was a time when the Unlimited hydroplane, Miss US, stood out in my mind as on of my all-time favorites. For many years, it remained a favorite.

Then I built a boat called the Miss Madison. It was a piston-engine boat when the turbines became popular. In its first race it beat the turbines and the Miss Madison became a real favorite. My little girl, who is 21 months old, is named Madison; perhaps there is some connection there.

When I built the Wildflower Unlimited Light, I thought I had achieved everything; then we built one that was better. They are all my favorites. All the people are lovely people and my friends. I admire the owners and sponsors for putting up the money, but most of all I admire all the drivers. I wish I could do what they do, but I am happy and content to do the part I do.

I do have many favorites. Unfortunately, I can’t really stop at one, there are so many.

How many world records have the boats you’ve built held?

Well, I haven’t kept score. My father died just two years ago in January. At his memorial service the Hydroplane Museum presented part of the program. In a beautiful video they presented, they said between Ted Jones and his son they hold over 3,000 world records. I know my Dad was somewhere in the 700 to 800 figure, which means mine is between 2,200 to 3,000.

I am probably the only boat builder that I know who builds such a variety boats. For example, I have built inboard and outboard drag boats. I built the first outboard drag boat to ever go over 100 mph in a quarter-mile. I built the first successful tunnel boat in the world and the first ocean-racing tunnel hull. Besides Unlimiteds, Unlimited Lights and hydroplanes like the 5-Litre, I built boats in many other classes. Consequently, this allowed me the opportunity to hold many world records.

Can you talk about a special moment that stands out in your mind?

I would have to say that the day the Miss Madison Unlimited boat ran for the first time was a memorable moment. The reason is the Miss Madison team is poorly funded. The citizens of Madison, Ind., love their hydroplane, but they have to scrape to keep the boat together. Well, they came to me to buy a new boat and I knew that was a tough nut to crack. I was very enthusiastic about doing a good job for them, but the lighter turbine boats were already successful and the Miss Madison was stuck with an old airplane engine, which weighed 2,500 pounds (a turbine engine weighs just 600 pounds), so right away we had a big disadvantage.

When I sat down with a white piece of paper and drew the baseline all these thoughts passed through my mind. This little town, the owner was a businessman himself, but I knew it was costing him dearly to build this, and the team couldn’t really afford to pay a driver. So while I was building the boat I had all these thoughts in my mind. I’ll tell you we worked hard to make that boat come out as light as it could possibly be, because that was the only chance we had. Of course, I had a deal with them. They agreed not to race the boat until we tested it, because no matter how much experience you’ve had building boats you wonder if it’s even going to float. Well guess what? They didn’t follow through on their end of the bargain. The first time it was ever shown to the public was at the Pasco Race Event. I was a wreck. I shook for three days waiting for race day wondering what this boat was going to do. I didn’t even know if it would get up into a plane. Well the Miss Madison not only got up into a plane on its first heat, it beat the turbines and this old man broke down into lots of tears. So I’d have to say that was a real memorable moment, which I’ll remember for a long time.

Did you ever want to drive?

I used to drive almost every boat I built. I wonder how in the world, except for the grace of God, I am even here today. I would build a boat, put the engine in it, and take it to Lake Washington alone to ran and test it. Then I would call the customer and tell him his boat was ready to go. Today you wouldn’t dare test a hydroplane without a bunch a support crew including a rescue team and boat.

I used to do that all the time however and thought nothing of it, but I’ll be honest and say I discovered very soon that driving wasn’t my bag. I watched other people drive and they were much better than I was. I wrestled with myself for quite a while before I decided I didn’t want to be a driver. I wanted to build the boat and learn from the driver. I used to drive the boats on purpose so I could feel with the seat of my pants what was going on. I’ll have to say, without the seat of your pants; it’s pretty hard to know what’s going on. Now I can watch a boat and observe it and see what’s happening. The seat of the pants had much to do with my success, if there is any, and what I am doing today.

Do you have more aspirations to build and develop?

I have thought about hydroplanes so much that they consume a majority of my thinking time. The concept of blowing over wears so heavily on me it’s hard to explain. I want to build a boat that’s even faster, yet safer and no matter what the driver does, the boat won’t blow over. Now that’s asking a lot, but if you were to have asked me when I built Pop’s Chip would I see what I do today, I would have said no way. But we’ve gotten here, so I believe it’s going happen.

What are your hopes for the future of hydroplane racing?

Honestly, hydroplane racing in general, is on a decline. There are a number of reasons for that. In the ’50s when my Dad was popular and hydroplanes were “the thing” in Seattle, there were no Sonics, nor Mariners, or Seahawks. There were very few, if any, professional sports to attend. As a result, hydroplane racing became a very big, important event. They were big worldwide.

Now we have a lot of competition for entertainment dollars. We have people who say the boats are too noisy. We have all kinds of problems with hydroplanes.

My hope for the future is that the public will see what I see. They will be excited, as I am excited. They will realize, yes this is a sport. It has been said by some vindictive sports writers in newspapers, “Oh hydroplane racing isn’t a sport, it’s just a big promotion event.” When you put a driver in the boat, place the seatbelt around them, close the canopy lid, and push them away; they are all alone. If the fans could learn how much of a sport this really is and how much depends on the driver’s ability that would help. If we as a sport begin to promote our drivers as entities and let the public know who they are, I think we will improve.

The Unlimited Light class to me is the most exciting things I have seen and this is my 53rd year. The Unlimited Light class shows me that it can be done. The people behind it are doing the right thing. The people involved as participants are so excited they can’t wait to get to the races. That excitement is going to pay-off. The little light boats have small Chevrolet engines, but they are going 150 mph; that’s exciting! I believe the future is in Unlimited Light hydroplane racing.

What type of legacy, do you think, you will have on hydroplane racing?

That is difficult for me to answer, but I hope that people will remember me as someone that was not only serious about his work, but sincere, and when I talked about safety, I mean I am really concerned about safety. When I talk about advancing hull design, it’s usually with the driver in mind, to make the boat easier and safer to handle. Obviously boats have to go through all types of difficulties. I want to be remembered as one who planned each one of those difficulties, tried to plan the boat around them, and make the boat get through things that other boats couldn’t. That makes the boat more successful. I would like to be remembered as one who built quality boats, that were meant to last, meant to be safe, handle well and meant to do the job they were called upon to do.

How do you feel when you hear people call you a master builder?

Obviously, it’s a wonderful thing to hear, but being the person that I am, I immediately think of all the other boat builders who are very good. There are some fellows who are just excellent. My son is a boat builder and he is really, really good at it. There are many other folks around that build boats and do it well. So when you say, “He’s the master,” maybe, but I have trouble with that. I can’t even answer your question.

A Century of Gold Cup Racing

By Ron Jones, Sr.
Preface to A Century of Gold Cup Racing, by Fred Farley and Ron Harsin.


I gratefully acknowledge the privilege to contribute a few lines in preface to a book which reveals the drama, thrill, excitement, heartache and joy felt by those participants competing for hydroplane racing’s pinnacle of achievement, the American Power Boat Association Gold Cup. My thanks also goes to Fred Farley, the unlimited hydroplane historian and co-author of this book, for his unflagging loyalty to the truth and his uncanny memory for the details and events covering many years of unlimited racing. Without Fred, a lot of our past would fade away, soon to be forgotten.

Remembering back as a young boy, my dad was always either designing, building or driving a race boat ~ or helping a friend get their boat going to make sure the race to be held on the following weekend would have enough participants. Hydroplane racing became his whole life, his dream, and most of his energy was spent building a better boat or fixing the one he had. He might be building a new engine or somehow figuring out how it would go faster.

Pre-WW2, he started a Seattle hydro club to establish and promote race sites and boat racing, and in so doing – helping his favorite sport to take hold in the Pacific Northwest. The reason I can remember the racing club meetings is because they were held in our home. My mom served homemade chili, doughnuts, ice cream and coffee to the members. Of course, when they left, my sisters and I got the remaining ice cream. Dad often spoke of the “Gold Cup” in those days, but at that time I didn’t understand its meaning.

By 1946, WW2 was past and life began to return to normal. Not long after my 14th birthday, Dad called me into his bedroom and I could tell by the look on his face that whatever it was that I was about to hear, it was serious. From a drawer full of t-shirts, he pulled out a drawing, which by that time was a number of years old and he handled it almost reverently. He looked me in the eye and laid a real trip on me. “Son, you are now at an age where you may have to become the man of the family.” Gulp! “Something may happen to me and if it does, your mom and three sisters are going to need direction, help and money.” Gulp again! “I want you to know that this drawing is for an unlimited hydroplane that I believe can win the Gold Cup, the Harmsworth (British International Challenge Cup Trophy) and set a new prop-driven straightaway record. You will have to find the right person, but it will be worth a great deal of money to someone ~ enough to keep the family going.”

I didn’t know whether to salute, pass out or run! But I did know he was serious and meant every word because his entire life was on that drawing. Those three events were what had driven him on for all those years – building, designing, racing, starting clubs – all directed towards winning the Gold Cup, bring the world’s water speed record back to America from England and win the British Harmsworth Trophy.

Why the Gold Cup? Because it was the oldest water sports racing trophy on the planet and it was the top event of the hydroplane world. It’s the Indy 500, the Kentucky Derby, Daytona 500 or whatever turns your crank. There is nothing higher, more challenging or more noteworthy to the hydro racer than the Gold Cup!

It would take another book to recite all the events that had to fall into place for Dad to meet another man to whom boat racing meant enough to put his money where his mouth was. Suffice it is to say, that a chance meeting between Mr. Stanley S. Sayres and Ted Jones ended up rewriting all the hydroplane record books. Moreover, it was paramount in establishing an entire new era for hydroplane racing.

That drawing Dad showed me when I was 14 became the design of a 3-point hydroplane for Mr. Sayres, and it was built at the facility of Anchor Jensen of Jensen Motor Boat Co. in Seattle. In early June of 1950, “Slo-mo-shun IV” established a world straightaway mark for propeller driven boats of 160+ mph, eclipsing the former record by nearly 20 mph. Subsequently, Mr. Sayres filed an entry to challenge for the Gold Cup, which had been held in Detroit, Michigan for many years.

Upon arrival in Detroit, the local newspapers began their evaluation of this boat, which “supposedly” had established a straightaway record. They seemed to feel their local “armada” would have no difficulty dispatching this backyard creation from somewhere out west. They even admitted it may have been fast in the straightaway, but would be a “worm in the turns.”

In the 1940’s and ‘50’s, a winning God Cup driver became an instant hero, a folk-hero of sorts and Dad finally realized his dream. He not only won the God Cup, he won all three 30 mile heats, settting heat and race records. In one heat, he lapped the entire field. The winning driver also received the privilege of determining the location of the next race, and of course, he chose Seattle.

For a man who had to drop out of high school to get a job to help support his family, this was the fulfillment of a lifetime of effort and dreams. It had all become worthwhile as he received the Gold Cup, a symbol of boat racing’s very best.

In my own case, you would think such a successful father would encourage his young son to continue on in the family tradition. But that was not to be the case here. In fact, during all those years he spent building boats in our basement, he used to lock the basement door and take the key with him to keep me out. When I graduated from high school, he made a final attempt to discourage me from building boats with another of those past feelings – should I salute, pass out or run speeches. I recall him saying that I would be better off in real estate or some business that offered a good living. He warned me that if I did become successful, people would copy my designs, while others would take credit for all my efforts and I would end up not making a dime out of it.

I did it anyway an! d even though he was painfully accurate, I can look back and be thankf ul for a lifetime of friends won, a lot of successful ‘firsts,’ inventions and designs. I can truly say that it was worth it all. Although I didn’t have Dad’s lifetime dream of winning the Gold Cup, I had thought to myself that if I could just be one-half as good as he, I could probably make it.

But reality has a way of bringing you up short In 1963, I redesigned and rebuilt one of Dad’s boats and really got it to go. The ’63, ’64, and ’65 “Miss Bardahl” was virtually unbeatable, winning three Gold Cups, establishing numerous records and winning the points championship three years in a row. So for the 1966 season, Mr. Bardahl and driver Ron Musson had enough confidence in me to enable me to build them a new boat which at that time was termed “radical.”

In 1966, I came close to abandoning it all when my new rear-engine low profile wide transom “Miss Bardahl” sheared off a propeller during the second heat of the Presidents’ Cup on the Potomac River and crashed, destroying the boat and costing Ron Musson his life. I was devastated, and it took a long time to decide to keep going.

So during those following years, the Gold Cup was far away from my mind. I turned my attention to drag boats, world record holders, Mercury factory racing tunnel hulls, ocean racing tunnels and a lot of limited inboard hulls. From 1966 on, most unlimited people wouldn’t even speak to me.

But in late 1969, Seattle business tycoon Dave Heerensperger came to my shop with world renown engine builder Keith Black in tow. Together, they convinced me that I should build him a rear-engine boat for two KB Chryslers. We built the boat and unfortunately it didn’t do well. I had designed it after many of my very successful limiteds of that day and I had anticipated that it would be run with a three-blade propeller. But someone told Mr. Heerensperger that a three-blade prop was a Jones crutch for a bad design so it never raced with a three-blade. However one time, after much carping from me, Mr. Heerensperger allowed a t est run at the San Diego race with a borrowed three-blade from Bill Muncey. On that one run, the boat ran extremely well, making a timing lap faster than Muncey had gone, and riding very well. But Muncey wanted his prop back, so it was all over.

The boat was sold and even though it won the gold cup in 1973 and it had the driver in back with the engine in front ~ a Rolls Merlin, the Gold Cup ‘shine’ was gone for me. Apparently, Dave Heerensperger had enough confidence in me to try it again. So in 1973, the “Pride of Pay ‘n Pak,” unlimited hydroplane’s first winged boat came out smoking. It won races in 1973, but not the Gold Cup. That was for 1974 and 1975 when my brother-in-law at the time George Henley won back to back Gold Cups, and those cups really had a lot of ‘shine.’

Perhaps the most meaningful Gold Cup for me was in 1980 at Madison, Indiana. I had built a rear-engine boat in 1979 for Bernie Little and the “Miss Budweiser” team, but although it won some heats, they did not have a really successful year. In an attempt to set a new straightaway record late in 1979, the propeller broke, causing a crash which destroyed the boat and hurt driver Dean Chenoweth quite badly. It is likely the boat was in the 220 mph range when the accident happened.

So we built a new hull for 1980 and it was a winner, big time. “Miss Budweiser” won the first 20 heats of the season, including the Gold Cup in Madison. I was able to get Jerry Schoenith on the telephone after each heat at Madison. Jerry, who was from a family of hydro racers, gave me a blow by blow account of “Budweiser” winning all four heats of the Gold Cup. I must admit that after hearing the results, I really lost it. There is no way to describe the happiness one experiences at a moment like that. All the years of heartache and frustration melt away with the energy of such great news. A boat you designed and built actually won the Gold Cup!

I hope you have been able to realize as you read these stories that the Gold Cup is difficult to attain. You may have the right boat at the right time but somehow that beautiful trophy can slip away so easily! I am the first to admit that a winning boat has to be the result of a winning team. It takes an owner willing to pay the expense, a dedicated, really talented crew, a heads up driver, hull, engine, propeller, support equipment and so on. If any of those items are out of sync, success may slip away. I just feel fortunate to have been a part of a number of winning teams.

Well, Dad passed away early in 2000, at age 90. But even in his final years, he was always good for another race boat story. Oh yes, some of the stories got better and better each time but you didn’t care because you knew he did it – he was there! He designed the boat and he drove it to win the Gold Cup. Writing these few pages has caused me to think a great deal about Dad, and I look forward to seeing him some day in heaven. No, it’s not because he won the Gold Cup or was a really great guy who deserved heaven, that I believe I’ll see him ~ but because before he passed away, he established a personal relationship with God by accepting His Son, Jesus, as his Savior and received eternal life. I’ll see him because I’ve done the same thing and I trust my reader will also.

Who knows – maybe we will compare Gold Cup stories together!

The Saga of Ron Jones

By Fred Farley - Unlimited Hydroplane Historian

Unlimited hydroplane racing owes a lot to Ron Jones, the Seattle area boat builder, who has revolutionized the sport so dramatically over the years.

If anyone has any doubts about the contribution of Ron Jones, Sr., to big-time boat racing, the outward appearance of the hydroplanes themselves should suffice. The boats of yesteryear were, for the most part, rather narrow, quite box-shaped, and less streamlined. They had forward engines and rear cockpits and rode awfully rough through the turns. Today, thanks to Ron, the boats are generally wider, flatter, have forward-mounted (or cabover) cockpits, and corner a whole lot better.

"I went through fifteen years of rejection on that particular design," Jones recalls. "But the cabover, I feel, is safer. The weight placement is more helpful in getting the boat around the corner."

Ron grew up in a racing-oriented family. His equally renowned father, Ted Jones, designed such famous contenders as SLO-MO-SHUN IV, SHANTY I, MAVERICK, HAWAII KAI III, MISS WAHOO, and MISS THRIFTWAY. The younger Jones started building Limited hydroplanes in 1950 while still in high school.

His first race boat was a 48 Cubic Inch Class rig, which he sold for a few hundred dollars. The 48s were the smallest of the APBA inboard hydro classes.

Ron attempted his first 7-Litre boat in 1956. This was the WHIZSKI, powered by a Packard V-8. WHIZSKI is the craft that owner Wally Pannebaker tried to pass off as an Unlimited by extending the tailfin 4 feet 2 inches in order to meet the minimum Unlimited hull length of 25 feet. Ron had nothing to do with the tailfin extension and didn't want to have anything to do with it. WHIZSKI entered the 1957 Gold Cup at Seattle but couldn't reach the qualification minimum of 95 miles per hour.

Jones made a few starts in the late fifties as a 280 Cubic Inch Class pilot. But he gave that up rather quickly, because "I found that I was a rotten driver."

Ron built his first Unlimited, the MISS BARDAHL, which his dad had designed, in 1958. The boat won its first race, the Lake Chelan Apple Cup, and went on to win the Season High Point Championship with Norm Evans and Mira Slovak as drivers.

Five years later, Ron was called in to perform modifications on another MISS BARDAHL that the elder Jones had designed and built. Ron installed an entirely new set of sponsons and changed the length of the afterplane among other things. In 1963-64-65, the rebuilt boat won three straight Gold Cups and National Championships with Ron Musson driving.

"I like to feel that I was responsible for helping my Dad in that it was basically a good boat, an excellent boat, that needed a little help in the sponson department."

After having worked with the BARDAHL people on two previous hulls, Ron accepted his first major Unlimited Class assignment: the design and construction of a new and innovative MISS BARDAHL for the 1966 campaign.

Jones had built a popular 225 Cubic Inch Class hydroplane, the TIGER TOO, in 1961. The boat was a cabover, and Ron could hardly give it away. But once it entered competition, TIGER TOO was highly successful. Jones was anxious to try the cabover concept on an Unlimited hydroplane.

"We knew that Unlimiteds basically were not as aerodynamically supported as many perhaps thought. They were really kind of careening around on two sponsons, reacting to the water. We attempted to build a boat that would be more aerodynamically supported than previously. That was our first consideration.

"Second, we moved the weight aft in an effort to help the handling and cornering of the boat. We made the transom wide which, today, is very well accepted. At the time, it was not accepted at all. We also did some things in the area of the strut and the sponsons which, perhaps, were ahead of their time.

"All these things put together were in an effort toward making the boat go faster with the same horsepower as before. Or, if the driver didn't care to go faster, he could work the engine--in this instance, a Rolls-Royce Merlin--a lot less and go into the corner much faster. This would increase lap times because of less elapsed time in the turn.

"So, the whole effort of the 1966 Miss Bardahl was to support the boat aerodynamically and, through improved hydrodynamics and weight placement, make it corner and accelerate faster."

Ron's brainchild created quite a sensation when it appeared on the Unlimited scene at Tampa, Florida. Not since Ted Jones introduced THRIFTWAY TOO, which raced between 1957 and 1960, had a Thunderboat cockpit been located ahead of the engine.

After withdrawing from the Tampa event with a gearbox problem, MISS BARDAHL made her competitive debut a week later at the ill-fated 1966 President's Cup in Washington, D.C. Pilot Musson waxed the field in the first heat. In so doing, MISS BARDAHL posted the fastest heat speed of the race and dramatically served notice that she had what it took to be competitive. The much-maligned cabover concept of Ron Jones suddenly had credibility.

Then, disaster struck. While dueling for the lead in Heat Two with Rex Manchester in NOTRE DAME, MISS BARDAHL lost her propeller. The craft became airborne and took a nosedive to the bottom of the Potomac River, shattering the hull and fatally injuring the driver.

Jones was shaken to the core by the tragedy, even though his design and construction could not be faulted. Ron Musson was a close personal friend. And the accident served to perpetuate the now-debunked myth about forward-cockpit hulls being unduly hazardous.

"There were accidents that had nothing to do with the fact that the boats were cabovers," Ron recalls, "but they were associated with cabovers. And, therefore, it was difficult to sell the concept."

Not for four years did Jones attempt another Unlimited. In the mean time, Ron introduced RECORD-7, which dominated the 7-Litre Class in 1969 with his good friend George Babcock driving. RECORD-7 was the first Limited inboard to average better than 100 miles per hour in a heat of competition.

Jones is quick to point out, however, that a lot of factors contributed to RECORD-7's phenomenal success and no one thing was responsible for clearing 100 MPH. Wide afterplanes, pickleforks, and cabovers were all ideas that he had been exploring for over a decade.

"Although we did a lot of new tricks to that boat, including a few that perhaps went unnoticed. And we had a much better shaped deck aerodynamically."

RECORD-7's performance proved to be a wake-up call for the Unlimited fraternity. "Up until that point, we had been successful with a lot of Limited classes. But, for some reason, the Unlimited hydroplane owner is not impressed by the so-called 'little boats.' Yet, RECORD-7 was impressive enough to get their attention."

The first Unlimited boat to follow RECORD-7's lead was the 1970 vintage PRIDE OF PAY 'n PAK that Ron built for Seattle's Dave Heerensperger. The PRIDE used a pair of hemispherical engines built up by the highly regarded Keith Black.

"I was 90 percent right with many of the concepts of that boat. It did show some bursts of straightaway speed on occasion. But the boat was a little too heavy for two Chryslers. We didn't have the propeller technology that we have today. I wish that I had had the propeller and gear ratio combinations in 1970 that we are able to enjoy today. We might have been a great deal more successful."

PRIDE OF PAY 'n PAK nevertheless emerged, the following year, as an enormously competitive machine. Repowered with a single Rolls-Royce Merlin, prepared by crew chief Jim Lucero, and with the cockpit relocated from forward to aft, she dominated the second half of the 1971 season and handed Ron his first three Unlimited Class victories (at Seattle, Eugene, and Dallas). With Billy Schumacher driving, the PRIDE also became the first boat to qualify at 121 miles per hour around a 3-mile course (on Lake Washington).

Although not significantly faster on the straightaway than the traditional post-1950 Ted Jones-style hulls, PRIDE OF PAY 'n PAK could outcorner anything on the water.

By 1974, Ron Jones boats were finally recognized as the state-of-the-art. Between 1971 and 1974, Ron constructed a staggering total of eight Unlimited hulls: the 1971 COUNTRY BOY, the 1972 NOTRE DAME, the 1973 PAY 'n PAK and the U-95 turbine entry, and the 1974 COUNTRY BOY, VALU-MART, MISS U.S., and LINCOLN THRIFT.

By far the most successful of these was the famed "Winged Wonder" PAY 'n PAK, which ranks among the all-time great Thunderboats with 22 race victories. It stands with Ron's other big winner, the 1980 Rolls-Royce Griffon-powered MISS BUDWEISER, which likewise captured 22 first-place trophies.

The 1973 PAY 'n PAK, which became Bill Muncey's ATLAS VAN LINES in 1976, was the first hydroplane of any shape or size to be built of aluminum honeycomb, rather than marine plywood.

"I had originally thought that I would use a honeycomb bottom. But after talking with the people from the Hexcel Company, I was very impressed and decided to use it everywhere in the boat that I possibly could for a weight saving of about a thousand pounds."

In planning the new PAK, Jones wanted very much to build a cabover. But Heerensperger insisted on a rear-cockpit hull and won out. Ron nevertheless utilized many of the cabover hull characteristics while still seating the driver behind the engine.

"But I did insist on the use of a horizontal stabilizer. Heerensperger agreed because it would give him a lot of publicity. And it did. Perhaps, by today's standards, the stabilizer was not everything it could have been. It was, however, a good running start on the widespread use of the concept.

"And in all fairness to Jim Lucero, he certainly added to the boat's ultimate performance by preparing excellent engines, good gearbox/propeller combinations, and probably some fine-tuning on the sponsons."

Perhaps the most eloquent showcase of the talents of Ron Jones occurred at the 1973 World's Championship Race in Seattle. Despite mist and rain, the competition was superb and unforgettable.

The honeycomb PAY 'n PAK and its 1970 predecessor (renamed MISS BUDWEISER) ran side-by-side. Drivers Mickey Remund and Dean Chenoweth shared the same roostertail en route to becoming the first boats in history to average better than 120 miles per hour in a heat of competition. A local newspaper labeled the PAK and the BUD as "the champion fogcutters of the world."

That 1973 campaign was the first season in which hulls designed by Ron won the majority of Unlimited races (eight out of nine). PAY 'n PAK and MISS BUDWEISER both had four wins and finished one-two in National High Points.

In spite of being three years older and a thousand pounds heavier than PAY 'n PAK, MISS BUDWEISER was able to achieve parity with the PAK. This was due to driver Chenoweth consistently securing the inside lane in heat confrontations between the two entries.

The famous PAK/BUD rivalry continued into 1974. PAY 'n PAK won seven races and MISS BUDWEISER won four to sweep the eleven-race campaign.

The 1975 season was another banner year for the Ron Jones hulls. That's when the Billy Schumacher-chauffeured WEISFIELD'S (former VALU-MART) had the defending National Champion PAY 'n PAK on the ropes in the first three races. But PAY 'n PAK driver George Henley overcame an almost insurmountable point lead by winning five of the last six races of the season to retain the championship. Never before or since has the momentum of one boat been so surely halted by the performance of another challenger.

And in 1976, Jones had the satisfaction of seeing his MISS U.S. win the APBA Gold Cup at Detroit for owner George Simon and driver Tom D'Eath. This was the first time that a cabover three-pointer had ever won the sport's most coveted trophy. Since 1976, every Gold Cup winner has steered from the front.

In assessing the total contribution of Ron Jones to Unlimited hydroplane racing, the many race victories, speed records, and forward-thinking innovations speak for themselves. He was the first to install an F-16 safety canopy on an Unlimited, starting with the MISS BUDWEISER and the MISS 7-ELEVEN in 1986.

His main concern has always been the safety factor for the drivers. This concern shows in all of his work, because Ron is more than just a talented boat designer and builder. He's also a good friend.

Walters back in racing without the pressure of driving

By Hec Hancock
Reprinted from the Tri-City Herald, July 26, 1986

We don't know who the winner of this year’s Columbia Cup is until late Sunday afternoon.

But if the Water Follies offered a trophy for the comeback of the year, there wouldn’t be any question about the choice.

John Walters would win hands down.

Three years ago, driving the Pay ‘N Pak turbine boat, Walters was badly injured in a crash during the Seafair race on Lake Washington in Seattle. He was more dead than alive when his body was lifted from the water and flown to the hospital. For a long time it was touch and go. It took 11 operations, a year-and-a-half in the hospital, and a few truck loads of tender loving care, but he made it.

Actually, it was Walters’ second brush with death. Two years earlier he survived a spectacular, blowover accident just prior to the Columbia Cup here in the Tri-Cities.

Now Walters is a sight for sore eyes. He’s tanned, relaxed and back to doing what he likes best – going boat racing.

“I had this inner feeling that this was where I wanted to be,” he explained. “I was accomplishing some things, but I wasn’t having fun. I was in a Pay ‘N Pak management program but I talked to Dave Heerensperger and he was very supportive of what I wanted to do.

As a result, when a position with the Miller American crew opened up he grabbed it. Walters was no stranger to the working side of thunderboat racing. He served his apprenticeship in the sport as a member of Bill Muncey’s Atlas Van Lines crew. He also helped build the Pay ‘N Pak turbine boat.

“I’m really enjoying this,” he said. “It’s great to be able to go boat racing without the pressure of driving.”

But there are times, he admits, when, for a minute or two, his thoughts turn to what-might-have-been.

Sometimes, when he climbs in the cockpit, starts the engine and hears the mighty roar of the Miller American’s turbine engine, he remembers what it was like to drive a big boat 160 miles per hour down the straightaway. He watches Chip Hanauer and the memory of roaring into a turn at 140 mph comes flashing back.

“That’s the most difficult time for me,” said Walters. “I really have mixed feelings about ever driving again.”

The pain from the injuries is still there, but so is the allure that attracted him to driving in the first place.

“I had more bones broken than I can count on my fingers and my elbow is more man-made than otherwise. But other than a limp because of my hip there’s no problem.”

He can even play the drums, one of this first loves. “I really pay for it the next day but it’s worth it. I really love music.”

His present arrangement allows him more time with his wife Arlene and their daughters Katrina and Maciva.

“I miss the physical aspects of driving, the sensation of the speed and I miss the mental part, the head-to-head competition with the other drivers. It would be a lot of fun to take the boat out and qualify it,” he said. “However, for the time being, that’s only a dream.”

For now, the Miller American’s turbine engines are this responsibility. “When increases in power or adjustments are needed it’s up to me. For example, we’ve come to a two-mile course where the water was rough and now we’ll be racing on a fast, two-and-a-half mile course. That calls for some adjustment in the engines,” he said.

As he and the rest of the crew go about their chores in getting the Miller American ready for Sunday’s Columbia Cup, he insists no special attempt will be made to break a speed record.

“A lot of people don’t believe us, but it isn’t our intention to set a record every time we put the boat in the water. We want to go as fast as Chip feels comfortable with, fast enough that if problems are going to happen they happen now when we can fix them and not during the race,” he said.

As the second person to drive turbine powered boats, he’s convinced that jets are the way to go.

“The thing that people don’t realize is that piston boats are going as fast as they did five years ago. The speeds I qualified at in 1982 are faster than any of the speeds being run today. There’s a pretty good spread between turbine and piston engines – but part of it is the piston engines are going slower by seven or eight miles than they did then.”

It’s different now. Walters isn’t driving turbines, he’s fixing them.

But in the meantime, he can still dream.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

It's Speed

Reprinted from Sea and Pacific Motor Boat, April 1969

Can new designing solve the problem of the big hydroplane racing boats becoming unduly airborne at high speeds? In what Dave Heerensperger calls "the flying problem," he does think he has the answer. APBA officials say that his new Miss Eagle Electric out of Spokane, Wash., is a definite threat to the field this year. They call his design "a dramatic departure." It will be recalled that driver Warner Gardner lost his life at Detroit last December when the aging Miss Eagle Electric crashed.

The owner and Spokane businessman Heerensperger, who has nearly twice as many "e's" in his name as there is in his boat's name, says this, "It was before the fatal accident that Warner and I had decided to build this new boat. She has outrigger sponsons and other design changes. Now it is a memorial to my good friend, the late Warner Gardner.

"She is shorter than 30 feet and a foot wider than most of the others. She is made up of three structural members in one.

"The hull itself is about four feet wide. Extending from each side are struts which connect to outrigger sponsons upon which the boat rides at competitive speeds. These outriggers are about two feet across and are built to withstand high speed stress and load.

"When we first tested the boat, Tommy experienced so much torque that it actually ran lopsided. Since that time, the crew changed the angle of attack to correct that problem," Heerensperger said.

He cited as another riddle, having water spray into the engine well from the left outrigger when the boat was turned. A deflection device ended that worry.

"It's hard to tell how you're doing without competition, but the new boat has tremendous straightaway speeds. It turns tighter than any boat I've owned, and I've had three. Tommy Fults takes the boat into the turns and just walks it around. The engine doesn't have that overworked, `boring out' sound, but boat speed stays up. On straightaways, the negative lift factors resulting from the lack of trapped air cause the hull to run flat and with no kiting. Of course, we have a lot of testing to do before the start of the season, but right now we are happily anticipating the first race at Guntersville, Ala., June 8," Heerensperger concluded.

They are calling the new one Spreadwing Eagle and attempts were being made in late February, amid ice floes, to test her out on the Columbia River, near Pasco.

New Hydro Will Try for World Record

Reprinted from The Seattle Times, March. 30, 1969.

SPOKANE -- Tommy Fults, driving Dave Heerensperger's new, revolutionary unlimited hydroplane, Pride of Pay 'N Pak, will shoot for a mile straightaway speed record this spring on Lake Guntersville, Alabama.

The record is 200.419 miles an hour for a propeller-driven hydro. It was set on Lake Guntersville, April 7, 1962, by Roy Duby driving George Simon's Miss U.S. A new Miss U.S. presently is based in Seattle and driven by Bill Muncey.

The sanction period for the record attempts is May 19- 24.

The Spokane owner of the Pride of Pay 'N Pak, who has expanded his electrical-and-plumbing supply holdings to Denver and Seattle during the winter, plans to send the boat to Kawkawlin, Mich., for last-minute modifications and refinements by the builder, Les Staudacher, before the record runs in Alabama.

The new hydro, a replacement for Heerensperger's Miss Eagle Electric, was designed for straightaway-record attempts. The hydro, except for test runs this winter on the Columbia River in Tri-Cities, is untested, however, in competition.

"We're not going to Alabama simply to break the record," Heerensperger said. "We're determined to put the record out of reach for the next ten years."

Heerensperger purchased the unconventional hydro -- outrigger sponsons jutting out from the hull -- when the Eagle Electric was destroyed and Col. Warner Gardner killed in last summer's Gold Cup race on the Detroit River.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Hydro Happiness Is a Special Italian Propeller

By Don Fair
Reprinted from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 6, 1973

The difference between victory and defeat yesterday on Lake Washington was as simple as the difference between a borrowed propeller and a faulty nitrous button.

And it all happened on a day when, many drivers agreed, the Seafair World Championship Race never should have been run.

Pay ’n Pak owner Dave Heerensperger, driver Mickey Remund and crew were the recipients of the propeller — from yet-to-race U-95.

It’s a special Italian model, costing somewhere between $1,200 and $1,500. The Pak and its very own Italian prop parted company as it was losing by an eyeblink to the Budweiser in Heat 1-C.

"We had asked Jim Clapp (U-95 owner) about borrowing his propeller beforehand," Heerensperger recounted. "We started this season with six such models and the last one went in that first heat.

"I don’t think Jim really knows what he did for us. Without that prop, we would have had to use a type made in Southern California. It’s OK, but the boat doesn’t handle nearly as smooth in the corners."

"The California model is even shaped differently," Pak crew chief Jim Lucero confirmed. "We could have used it, but the boat doesn’t handle nearly as well."

To which Clapp could only add, "Well, I know that I won’t need to test that propeller." Everything else about the turbine U-95 does need testing. It was in the pits for viewing, but correcting the bugs is still ahead.

Heerensperger, Remund & Co. are happy it was within borrowing distance — which in this case happened to be right next to the Pak pit area.

As for that faulty nitrous button, Bud chauffeur Dean Chenoweth told that tale:

"In that final heat, my nitrous didn’t work at all for the first turn or the final two laps."

For the uninitiated, nitrous is the hydro equivalent to Kickapoo Joy Juice. A shot here and there puts more speed in the supercharger, and therefore could have erased that narrow Pak victory margin.

"When he (Remund) took the lead on the first turn of the first lap, I pushed the nitrous and nothing happened," Chenoweth explained. "I didn’t have any the last two laps either. The system just wasn’t working.

"We had to change engines pretty quick to get ready for the final heat, and I don’t know what happened. I gained on the Pak on the final straightaway just by applying the accellerator.

"Skip that as an alibi, however. I knew I would have one shot and one shot only to catch Mickey. I figured it was on the final lap and I just missed."

Remund admitted, "I didn’t know if I had won until I came back to the pit and everybody was sure I was first until then. "I kind of puckered up a little when I realized how close Dean came. I had no idea he was that close. I thought he was three-four boat lengths away.

"We had no chance to test the borrowed prop and it had a tendency to force the nose up. So the Pak was sort of flying. If I’d had to run 8-10 m.p.h. faster, I’d have had a real problem."

Heat 1-C, featuring the same duel with a different finish, proved just as dramatic, perhaps more so because of record speeds and a closer duel from start to finish.

The Chenoweth-Remund camaraderie was evident when it ended, and the latter made a trip to the Bud camp to offer congratulations.

"You’re beautiful." Remund said as he embraced Chenoweth. "Gawd damn, you, you’re great. We were close enough to touch out there. If I have to run second, that’s the way I want, fast and second to you."

Remund added. "When you race Dean, you have to go fast. Yup, a couple times a yardstick would have touched both our boats. We were that close and yet I felt safe because of Dean. Some drivers I wouldn’t want within 100 feet of me at those speeds."

Chenoweth said of that first duel, "I had my foot clear down to the wood. The boat wouldn’t go any faster. I didn’t think we would go out that quick, but that’s the way Mickey wanted it. I felt he’d let up a little bit, but he never did.

"I can’t go any faster. We were only 100 season points apart going into that race, and the competition is what made it. I accepted the challenge and Mickey did a fine job."

The Bud driver also admitted that for the first time in his unlimited experience he switched from a blue-tinted helmet visor to a clear visor "to help my visibility."

Visibility was a worry almost from the start on the dank, dark, dreary, foggy, wet day.

Winner of the day’s first heat, Bob Gilliam, sounded a warning, which fortunately, never happened, when he said, "The only way I could see was to follow another roostertail. I would say they should postpone this race. I like to race but this is the worst I’ve ever run in, and somebody can get hurt."

Miss U.S. driver Tommy D’Eath admitted the rain felt like B-B’s on my face. I couldn’t even see the judges stand. I went by it twice with my thumbs down (supposed to stop a race according to announcements), but the officials did nothing. Instead they fired the one-minute warning signal."

Still later, when the mist turned into a steadier rain, D‘Eath added, "Damn right they should stop this."

After his first heat, Chuck Hickling of the Ms. Greenfield Galleries had no complaints. Later, he pronounced, "I can’t see anything. It’s really dangerous. The water works behind your goggles. I was really lost out there off the exit on the south turn once. I didn’t know where I was and went inside a couple buoys before I got my bearings."

"In 11 years of driving unlimiteds, this is the worst — although the water isn’t bad. When you can’t see, you'll hurt somebody or yourself."

Bill Muncey, Jim McCormick and even Remund and Chenoweth agreed visibility was not great. None however said the race should be halted.

Tom Kaufman, pilot of Mr. Fabricator, best put the plight of the drivers when he said, "The people came to see a race . . . so we’re racing."

Muncey added, "You don’t want to disappoint all the fans who have come to watch, although I’m not sure they can see the race under these conditions."

McCormick labeled driving conditions "poor to horrible."

Last year’s champ, Muncey, was a forgotten man, despite two heat victories. He was away-back third in the showdown, and when asked if he was aware of Muncey at all, the victorious Remund snapped, "Oh, yeah, I knew he was there because I waved to Bill before the last race."

As Heerensperger savored his first Seafair title, he mused, "Ron Jones (Pak designer) told me three years ago to get Remund as my driver. Well, I got him this year after three months of convincing."

That salesmanship feat ranks right up there with the one Heerensperger used to obtain that Italian propeller.

A hydro champion is only as good as his equipment — new, used or borrowed.

Consistency: Pit Crew Key To Pak’s Success

By Steve Ellis
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, August 4, 1975

Imagine waves lapping on a sandy shore rather than asphalt, a palm grove spreading cool shadows rather than a tractor-trailer rig.

In that pleasant setting, George Henley, sitting in a lawn chair on the edge of Lake Washington, appeared more like a Wall Street businessman vacationing in Tahiti than a boat driver who only a short time before had outlasted eight other entries to win his fourth straight unlimited-hydroplane race in the Pay ‘n Pak.

"Every time I push the starter button, the boat runs," Henley said, emphasizing the key to his success.

As other boats fell apart, the Pak cruised to two preliminary-heat victories. It then finished a necessary second to the Weisfield’s and Billy Schumacher in the final heat of the Seafair Trophy Race yesterday on Lake Washington.

"Consistency is what these guys do," said Henley, referring to his crew.

Despite the apparent ease of the victory, Henley and the Pak overcame several obstacles.

Just before Heat 1A began, Henley and the Hamm’s Bear, driven by Jerry Bangs, bumped.

"It went crunch, crunch," Henley said. "I knew we were hit pretty hard. It was just one of those things in no-man’s land.

"I went way outside and quit fighting for position."

The Pak’s left sponson and left rear side of the hull were damaged.

"I couldn’t believe they got it fixed." Henley said of the crew. "It wasn’t a patch job."

Jim Lucero, the crew chief, said drawing Heat 2B gave his men helpful time.

"If we’d not gotten the draws that we did, it would have been a patch job," Lucero said.

Henley said he had an oil leak during the final heat.

"Billy got his boat going pretty good," Henley said of the Weisfield’s. "If I’d have had to do it (win the heat), I probably would have gone kaput."

Schumacher said he was satisfied with his boat’s final heat.

"We looked good, anyway," said Schumacher. He trails Henley by 131 points, in the national standings with the Phoenix and San Diego races tentatively remaining.

"It surprised me that we didn’t burn another piston," Schumacher said. A burned piston in the second heat resulted in a third-place finish, giving the Pak the necessary edge in the finale.

Unlimited Hydroplanes ‘73: A Period of Experimentation

Turbines, turbo-charging, space-age materials, wing stabilizers — it’s an interesting year for the unlimited hydroplanes.

For the past 20 years, no one has been able to find a better power plant for unlimited hydroplanes than World War II aircraft engines. Perhaps this will be changing?

The supply of the big 12-cylinder V-type aircraft engines which gave the free world air superiority in World War II is still surprisingly good. One of the major problems is finding enough mechanics and crew members who are skilled at working on the engines. After all, there aren’t too many other calls these days for people to work on World War II aircraft engines!

Even putting an aircraft engine into a hydro isn’t simple; major changes are necessary to adapt an engine to water usage. First, the engine as it was set up for airplane use, is reversed. The front becomes the rear, and vice versa. Second, the supercharger is turned upside down, so that carburetor sits on top of the engine instead of on the bottom. (Fighter planes had air intakes on the bottom of the fuselage and the carburetor was mounted upside down). Third, the propeller gears are removed and a special gear box manufactured especially for racing is installed. This gearbox delivers three times the speed of the engine to the propeller—when the engine is turning 4,000 RPM’s the propeller is turning over 12,000 RPM’s.

The mortality rate among engines is fearsome. In fighter aircraft, these engines were overhauled every 300-400 hours. In hydroplanes, an engine cannot be operated for more than one hour without being completely disassembled. Many engines last less than one 15-mile heat due to the terrific strain.

Turbo-charging akin to that of the Indianapolis 500 cars is an innovation in the Lincoln Thrift and Miss U.S. boats.

Most boats use a gear-driven fan to compress air for faster engine operation. Since the fans operate at supersonic speeds above 35,000 RPM’s they can be a source of constant problems.

In turbo-charging, exhaust gases are pumped back through the engine to turn the fan. The exhaust is recycled with new fuel and the result is greater acceleration off the turns.

The two Schoenith-owned boats, Atlas and Gales’s Roostertail, are using a new fuel injection system that "sprays" fuel directly into the cylinder in a search of greater fuel efficiency and better acceleration.

The exotic metals and materials of today are being utilized in at least two of the unlimited hydros to keep the weight down.

George Simon’s new Miss U.S. tips the scales at just under 5,000 in racing trim compared to 6,500 to over 7,000 pounds for some boats. Miss U.S., utilizing lightweight titanium and magnesium in hull construction to keep the weight down, is probably the lightest boat in the ‘73 fleet.

The new Pay ‘N Pak weighs in at about 6,000 pounds, also considerably lighter than most boats. The new Pak utilizes honeycombed aluminum that is actually two sheets of aluminum bonded and separated by a honeycombed aluminum core.

Boat owners seemed to be satisfied that they are reaching maximum safe speeds on the straightaways. Their challenge now is to develop a boat design and power source that can make better time around the corners.

Hydroplane hulls are designed so that air pressure on the top of the curved front deck keeps the boat down, while air pressure in a tunnel between the sponsons lifts it up. One compensates for the other in a properly balanced boat.

As the boat rises on a column of air, it "walks" on its two sponsons, spilling out air, keeping the boat from becoming airborne, but just barely touching the water. Obviously, the delicate balance is a hard thing to achieve.

The "wing" or horizontal stabilizer on the tail fin of Pay ‘N Pak is adjustable. If the boat is not riding quite right because of water conditions, the pitch of the stabilizer can be adjusted to improve the riding characteristics of the boat.

The Pay ‘N Pak crew uses a video tape machine to record the performance of their boat for "playback at a more convenient time" for study. The driver also has a radio receiver in his helmet to pick up information relayed from the beach.

Somehow, the use of automotive power for the unlimiteds is not being mentioned very much during the ‘73 season. For one thing, the hydro people have been reluctant to drop the length and weight restrictions that would be necessary for auto engines to be competitive. Now a boat must be at least 28 feet long and weigh over 4,000 pounds—and most designers say that’s too long and too heavy for efficient use of automotive power.

And now, the biggest news is a turbine-powered boat that hopefully will make its first racing appearance in the Gold Cup.

Lighter boats? New power plants? What changes will be forthcoming in the 1974 unlimited fleet?

Should Pak Have Been Disqualified?

By Bill Knight
Reprinted from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 6, 1973

The Pride of Pay ’n Pak’s Seafair victory on rain-drenched Lake Washington yesterday carried international, national and local overtones . . . and one murmur of protest.

Unlimited referee Bill Newton last night revealed a possible rules violation — one which might have disqualified the Pak — had gone unreported to Newton.

Newton said the outcome of the race, with the Pak barely surviving a late charge by Miss Budweiser at the wire in the final heat, will not be changed.

Newton said, though, as a result of the incident, he has suspended indefinitely assistant referee Arnold Green of Seattle.

Newton said four different course referees reported to Tom Winter, operating the telephone unit on the official barge, that the Pay ’n Pak had violated the unlimited right of way rule on the second lap of the final heat.

Newton said Green received the reports from Winter but didn’t pass them along to Newton. Green told him he did not feel the reports to be serious enough to relay to Newton and therefore he disregarded them, Newton went on.

On the north turn of the second lap, the Pak, leading the Budweiser, cut close to the turn buoys and forced the Bud to go through his wake.

Bud driver Dean Chenoweth offered no protest of the incident when he talked to reporters at length following the race.

Newton said the race finish is final once the checkered flag goes down but said he "feels strong sympathy for all parties involved."

Green is being suspended, Newton said, "not because of any lack of confidence in him but to reinforce the concept that the assistant referee must report all transmissions from course referees to him at once."

Two weeks ago at the Gold Cup in Tri-Cities, there had been reports of a Pak lane-change violation but the boat fell out of the race with propeller problems. Newton said later he hadn’t learned of the course judge’s report until after the heat ended.

The Pak won the world championship, took the national point lead and captured the hearts of soggy Seafair fans.

Victory in the final heat gave the Seattle-based Pak the top prize in the $50,000 Seafair World Championship Regatta and it was a popular win here. The drizzle, which never let up all afternoon, sent the vast majority of the fans who arrived for the noon start scurrying for cover before the final heat.

The win here boosted the Pak into a 350-point lead over Budweiser in the national point standings.

The Pak-Bud rivalry totally dominated the action of an otherwise lackluster program of racing, Chenoweth and Remund played a hydro version of Me and My Shadow for three heats and the Pak pilot came out on top twice, including the critical finale.

The deck-to-deck duel of the Pak and Bud in heat 1-C went five laps, wire to wire — one of the finest races ever seen here, and the fastest anywhere.

Chenoweth was clocked in a scorching 122.504 miles per hour for the 15-mile heat. Yet Remund’s third lap, 124.424 mph, was the fastest single turn of the course and also smashed the world record.

Yet the co-favorites had their anxious moments, too.

Just as he crossed the finish line in 1-C, the Pak settled into the water with what was later diagnosed as a broken shaft. The Pak’s best prop went to the bottom of the lake.

In their second clash, the Bud threw a rod, flames came spewing from the stacks and the boat stopped nearing the end of the third lap.

But the Pak crew borrowed a propeller from the U-95 crew and the Budweiser gang put in a new engine going into the final.

Both moves were decisive in the final outcome. The borrowed prop worked perfectly while the engine changeover in the Bud left the nitrous system functioning only spasmodically.

"I hit the nitro button coming out of the first turn and nothing happened," Chenoweth said later. "It worked on the second and third laps but not on the fourth or fifth." The Bud driver still figured he’d come close in the belated charge at the finish.

"I thought possibly we might have got him," he grinned.

For Pak owner Dave Heerensperger, who watched in frustration as his boat failed to finish a heat a year ago here, it was a satisfying win.

"After last year this is fantastic," he said. "It looked like Mickey was losing power at the end there. I thought Bud might catch him."

Remund explained later that the new prop caused the boat to ride slightly different, "I had to concentrate on keeping the nose up," he explained.

There was a drizzle when the first heat of the afternoon got under way 15 minutes late — thanks to the bad visibility from the haze. It was a slow-poke heat and the race matched the caliber of boats. George Henley in the cabover Red Man II led for two laps, then fizzled. So did Miss U.S.

That left it open to Bob Gilliam’s Valu-Mart with Ms. Greenfield Galleries second. The others didn’t even start.

Bill Muncey‘s Atlas breezed to a no-contest win in 1-B as the crowd yawned again.

All was forgiven, though, in 1-C. In the charge to the starting line, Budweiser got the inside lane with Pak running on the adjacent track. Coming out of the first turn the Bud and Pak were deck to deck and it was that way for five torrid laps.

The Pak took the lead coming out of the north turn a couple of times, leading at the end of laps No. 2 and No. 3. The Bud regained command each time, though, coming out of the south turn and at the end of the fourth lap held a five-length lead.

Chenoweth never let up and won as both broke the 15-mile heat record of 116.079 m.p.h. set by the late Ron Musson in Miss Bardahl in 1965. The Pak’s 45-mile race average of 117 m.p.h. plus also broke a Bardahl record.

Back to the slowpokes for 2-A, Ms. Greenfield was the lone finisher — thus the Chuck Hickling boat made it to the finals having not beaten a single hydro in two heats. Muncey coasted again in 2-B and Jim McCormick’s Red Man also advanced to the final.

When Bud and the Pak got together again in 2-C, Chenoweth had the lead for almost three laps when the Bud’s engine broke.

"All of a sudden it let go with a loud explosion," Chenoweth said later. "I shut off both fuel pumps and shut off all the fuel in the carburetor. I thought it would burn itself out. I didn’t want to make a big mess with the fire extinguisher."

Heerensperger looked on that mishap as something of an omen.

"Maybe we’re going to get a break or two," he said. "We were lucky. We backed into that one."

The mortality rate, by the way, was one of the worst ever here with only 20 of a possible 34 finishers making it across the line. Five of the 14 boats went pointless.

Not All Drivers Were In Favor Of Racing in Rain

By Chuck Ashmun
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, August 6, 1973

The show-must-go-on opinion prevailed on Lake Washington yesterday. But if a couple of unlimited-hydroplane drivers had their way, the soggy Seafair saga would have been stopped long before the final heat.

"I went by the stand twice with my thumb down and pointed at my eyes," said Tom D’Eath, rookie driver of the Miss U. S.

The drivers had been told before the initial heat of the World Championship regatta that a thumbs-down signal to the official barge would mean to stop the race because of the rain.

"The third time around, I went by on the inside with my thumb down," continued D’Eath, "and they went ahead and fired the one-minute gun anyway.

"That rain felt like being shot in the face with a BB gun. The visibility couldn’t have been more than a couple of feet. You couldn’t see down the course at all."

Asked if he had seen the driver’s down-turned thumb, the race referee, Bill Newton, responded affirmatively.

"But there are other drivers out there, too," said Newton. "I have to go with the majority, don’t I?"

Chuck Hickling and. Bob Gilliam, two veteran North-west drivers who were in that first heat, displayed no thumbs-down signals. But both later indicated the course was unsafe for racing.

Bill Muncey, Atlas Van Lines driver, described the visibility as "virtually nil." But he thought officials were right in keeping the boats going.

"There’s an awful lot of people who came out here to see a race," Muncey said. "These drivers are professionals, smart men. As long as they drive within the limitations..."

Dean Chenoweth, who made his world-record run in the Miss Budweiser in Heat 1C, credited a blue-tinted mask with helping him see.

"It’s the first time I’ve ever used it," he said. "We were afraid the clear one would fog up. With the blue one, I didn’t have too much trouble reading the water."

"This is the worst I’ve ever raced in," Gilliam said after winning the heat in the Valu-Mart I and returning to the pits. "When that water gets on your visor and gets mixed with a drop of oil, all you can see is a smear. The only way I could tell where I was by following the roostertail in front of me."

Hickling, who followed Gilliam’s roostertail across the finish line, seemed unconcerned about the visibility after that first heat.

"I don’t think it was that bad," he said. "I had trouble seeing the clock, but I got a glimpse of the green flag."

However, the Ms. Greenfield Galleries driver was singing a decidedly different tune after his second heat.

"It’s really dangerous," Hickling said. "Somebody’s going to get hurt out there. They should hold up the race."

Hickling missed two buoys but was awarded the heat win anyway, since no other boat finished the heat.

"I was really lost out there," he said. "I couldn’t see a thing. I had no idea which way to steer, and that’s scary."

Hickling said he planned to send word to the barge that further racing should be delayed, if not canceled.

Newton said if such a message was sent, it never reached him.

Other drivers voiced complaints about the poor visibility but made no objections beyond the pit area.

"One thing about this ‘sport," said Mickey Remund, the eventual winner in the Pay ‘n Pak, "is that you never can see really well. You have only about 80 per cent visibility on a clear day.

"In my first heat, it seemed like the raindrops were bigger, and the wind would blow them right off your facemask. Later on, it was more like a mist and I had trouble seeing."

"About the limit," said George Henley, driver of the Red Man II.

"Poor to horrible," echoed Jim McCormick, the Red Man I pilot.

So the comments went, while the racing continued.

Tom Kaufman, owner-driver of the Mister Fabricator, said his speed was slow enough that the rain presented no problem in Heat 1B.

In 2B, Kaufman caught a sponson in the north turn and spun out. But the problem was inside the boat and had nothing to do with poor visibility.

"I went into it a little fast," Kaufman said, "and then the seat popped loose. It threw me off balance, and my foot went down on the accelerator. It lifted the back end up and hooked the boat around.

"That’s as close a call as I ever want to have. I had 9,000 gallons of water coming up right under my armpit."

Kaufman had no trouble seeing those "9,000 gallons."