Reprinted from Detroit Free Press, June 28, 1982
John Walters with his turbine-powered hydro Pay 'n Pak had high hopes of claiming his first Gold Cup Sunday. He had good reason to be optimistic. After all, Walters had driven Pay 'n Pak to an impressive victory earlier this month on Lake Seneca in New York, beating a field that included the queen of unlimited hydroplanes, Miss Budweiser.
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| John Walters with his turbine-powered hydro Pay 'n Pak. |
But Walters didn't get a shot at the coveted trophy Sunday. He was out of the race before it began. During an early qualifying heat, his orange, black and white boat, designed by Pay 'n Pak crew chief Jim Lucero, was damaged when the rough waters of the Detroit River course and a hard turn combined to open a two-foot hole in the front of the left sponson. "I was on my first turn just before the start when I saw that damage was done," Walters said. "I came down hard on the nose; I thought I could finish, but I knew that every lap it would get worse and worse."
He did finish the five-lap heat, placing second behind eventual Gold Cup winner Chip Hanauer and his Atlas Van Lines boat. Walters' average speed was 115.669 m.p.h.; his fastest lap was 121.649 m.p.h. But the damage was too severe to be repaired in time for the next heat. Walters and Pay 'n Pak had to withdraw.
"When you try to do a hurry-up repair job for this kind of course and race, you're asking for trouble," Walters said. He said his crew will take about six weeks to repair the boat and "make other modifications, including repair work on some engines."
Sunday, he had to watch the race from an unfamiliar and uncomfortable place; the river bank. "I knew that if we got through the preliminaries without boat damage, we'd be very competitive," Walters said. "There's no way to tell now, but I feel comfortable saying we'd have been competitive. Everybody on the crew has worked extremely hard to get where we are now. It's frustrating. This basically eliminates us from any chance at the national championship. Realizing that kind of shocks you."