Reprinted from The Seattle Times, June 30, 1975
The favorite to win Seattle Seafair's hydroplane race — again — is the little man who didn't expect to be here, George Henley.
Henley retired last year, remember — after driving Pay 'n Pak to a record seven victories, including the Gold Cup off the un-baked, cussed-out shores of Sand Point.
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| George Henley |
At 38, George flashed his infectious grin and said he was more interested in the jet boats he peddles in Tacoma than the snorting monsters he had piloted, with mounting success, since 1970.
"I had to access my future," said the 1974 national point champion when he retired. "I decided my future wasn't in hydroplanes. I'd come home from a race with a lot of publicity, but nobody was out getting orders for jet boats. I was 12 weeks off the job."
So, for the 1975 season, Dave Heerensperger, the Pak's owner, signed on another veteran thunderboat driver, Jim McCormick of Owensboro, Ky.
For one reason or another, McCormick and the Pak never really got on a first-name basis. In two races, Jim was unable to get the thing around corners pointed in the right direction.
The Pak's crew had experimented with a new horizontal stabilizer, but the boat reacted neither horizontally nor with stability.
"McCormick was in a spot," Henley said here yesterday.
"He told me the it wanted to swap ends on the corners. As a new driver of the boat, he didn't feel he ought to tell the owner the boat was no good."
Sensing a lack of rapport between boat and driver, Heerensperger sent out an S.O.S. for the return of Henley.
George loves his jet boats and his family life in Eatonville. His ears flapped reluctantly at Heerensperger's summons.
Whatever business loses — real or feared — Henley might suffer back in the cockpit, Heerensperger took care of it. The way he put it, after George agreed to back to the Pak, was:
"When you give a leg, an arm, the pen and the checkbook, I guess I know how Bill Russell feels."
That is the Bill Russell who has to negotiate contracts with instant millionaires of the Seattle SuperSonics.
Henley returned to the Pak in time for the Governor's Cup regatta in Owensboro. He told me about his reunion with his hydroplane.
"In the first lap, on a corner, she swapped ends. I caved in a sponson. Then she blew an engine," Henley said. "That was my first heat."
"We decided there MUST be something wrong with the boat."
A witness to all that was Jim McCormick.
Henley said McCormick came to commiserate with him. "He told me: 'I hate to see that happen George — but it made me feel good.'"
Since then, operating again with the stabilizer property horizontalized, the Pak was behaving more obediently. That is, Henley's Gold Cup recapture last week in Pasco was his third victory in a row.
At that race, George may retire again this year.