Reprinted from Pay 'N Pak Racing News, Volume V, Issue 2
The building of a championship hydroplane is a long, pain staking process that requires the skills of a mastered boatsman. Designing, fabricating, and infinite structural detail upon which a hydro's delicate three-point water and air balance depends, all takes place within a big inland boat shop months before the craft gets near the water.
There is only a handful of American craftsmen who can build a boat that big and get it to "dance" on the water at a "graceful" 200 miles per hour. While Pay 'N Pak has campaigned hulls built by several of them, their greatest racing successes have been achieved in hydros built by the Jones family - Ron and father Ted.
The Jones hydroplane trademark is one of unconventional styling and daring experimentation. Trendsetters, they could be called. This is the type of hydro craft which attracts Dave Heerensperger and Pay 'N Pak Stores as a sponsor, and which had marked Dave as a hydroplane pioneer who tries the unusual in search of victory.
In 1973, the culmination of all new styling design and engineering has given birth to a radically new Jones' hydro for Pay 'N Pak, sporting several key features. This new U-25, Heerensperger's seventh in the last ten years, resembles no other boat on the circuit at this time. Besides its "pickle-fork" front, a recent change now gaining popularity with these boats, its skeletal frame is made of Hexcel honeycomb aluminum.
According to Ron Jones, this is actually two thin sheets of aluminum bonded to and separated by a honeycombed aluminum core. This cellular core structure forms lightweight supporting beams of great strength, without the extra weight of solid beams. The boat's only wood is in the deck and sponsons. With a racing weight of about 6500 pounds, the Pay 'N Pak has a tremendous weight and speed advantage over other boats, making it one of the lightest on the tour.
Another unique feature of the bold new Pak has been adapted from the world of formula sports car racing. It's the stabilizer concept, and it apparently helps the aerodynamics of these boats. At the rear, the Pak sports a dual tail fin topped by a horizontal stabilizer bar, which can be adjusted to racing conditions right up to race time.
Together, the efforts of Jones, Heerensperger and Jim Lucero, Crew Chief, appear to have brought forth the all-time winning formula in hydro construction since the beginning of this sports spectacle. Breaking new records with every race, the U-25 has the nation talking and hydro fans buzzing. By far the Pay 'N Pak is the most successful new hydro to hit the water in its maiden year. Its stiffest competition has come from Pay 'N Pak's old hull of the last two seasons, now carrying the Miss Budweiser banner after being sold to that camp last winter. If the new reoccurring mechanical problems, which have beset the Pak this year, can be eliminated, you can probably bank your money that Heerensperger, Remund, Lucero and the Pay 'N Pak will win the APBA National Championship in 1973 enabling it to wear the champion's special U-1 numerals next season.