Reprinted from The Seattle Times, July 26, 1981
PASCO — One year ago today was meant to be the culmination of a revolutionary experiment. The turbine-powered Pay 'n Pak was to compete in its first unlimited race.
Even before race day, the Pak had created a splash here on the Columbia River. Radio stations interrupted regularly-scheduled programming for reports on sightings of the new boat on the highway. When the Pay 'n Pak finally pulled into the pits during qualifying week for the Columbia Cup, people cheered and clapped. When the craft finally hit the waters for a test run, drivers and crewmen on other boats halted activity to watch.
But on that ill-fated Sunday, the day of the regatta, John Walters, the Pak's rookie driver, took the boat for one last test run. Walters was traveling about 160 miles an hour on the front straightaway what the boat's rear stabilizer failed and the Pak went airborne. The double flip was one of the most spectacular ever in the sport. Walters suffered a fractured left hip socket and sprained his left shoulder, elbow, and knee. He was hospitalized for about two weeks.
But the Pak is back. The boat, its crew and driver have returned to the scene of that horrible nightmare — all in one piece and primed to continue the grand experiment.
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| John Walters takes the Pay 'n Pak onto the Columbia River yesterday in preparation for today's Columbia Cup. Walters survived a bad accident on the day of this race a year ago. |
Back too are the troubling memories. After completing his first qualifying run, at 126.923 m.p.h., Walters admitted that flashbacks to last year's accident had occurred.
"Leading up to racing her, I thought about the flip," said the 27-year-old Renton resident. "On the beach, waiting for my first time out, I thought about it again. When I reached the starting line, I had some flashbacks. But during the course of the run, my mind was occupied enough. I didn't have time to wander off and think about the accident. Plus, the ride was stable enough that I had no insecure feelings."
Rib contusions suffered as Walters was tossed against the driver's seat when the Pak hit two swells in the Ohio River during a preliminary heat in Evansville two weeks ago, added to the discomfort.
"I had some trouble on the turns," Walters said. "It did hurt trying to make the corners. It wasn't a constant pain. It shouldn't affect me in the race."
Experimentation with the turbine engines from Vietnam-era helicopters began but failed with the U-95 in 1973. The use of turbine engines is considered revolutionary because they are about one-third the weight of the Allison and Rolls-Royce engines used in most hydros today.
The Pak hull was built extra light so the boat's total racing weight is 5,200 pounds — 1,000 to 1,500 pounds lighter than most boats on the circuit.
Considered even more important than its weight is the engine's longer life expectancy and low maintenance. Though the use of turbines commands a larger startup cost than other power-plants, the cost of maintaining a set of them over a season will be considerably lower.
Jim Lucero Pak crew chief and designer, spend the off-season pouring over videotapes of the flip with Walters in an effort to determine the cause of the accident and methods to prevent its recurrence. What the Pak team discovered was that the head created by the engine's hot startup process caused the machinery to flex and deform. The pressure began loading up in the stabilizers and the wing folded up. Now, the engine is never started without the placement of a thermal blanket on the wing.
"I'll be the first to admit that our testing regimen was considerably slowed because of what happened," Walters said. "We were extremely cautious in our testing. Instead of increasing speeds by 5-10 mile an hour increments, we increased by 2-5.
"But I think we're benefiting by it. It took a little longer to get the kind of results we wanted. But we also got more time on the equipment and I got more time in the boat."
Lucero, for one, has put the past behind him.
"We are not consumed by the accident," he said. "We've come into a new season looking forward to new things. We have to get to the business of winning races."
This amounts to a hometown race for the Pak with hundreds of the chain's employees and longtime Pak fans on the shore. With such a winning tradition (three national championships in earlier boats), there are high expectations for the Pak here.
Those expectations were heightened by Walter's 2-mile world qualifying record set at Evansville.
"The record is kind of a compromise situation," said Walters. "It did raise expectations for us. But the fact that I went out and did it hopefully helps other drivers believe I'm qualified enough to handle the equipment. The very best thing that came from the record is that it boosted team morale considerably. We had put a lot of work into this boat, but we were thrashing about, suffering setback after setback. Not that anyone lost any confidence in the project but it gave us a chance to savor a moment of glory for a change."
A good showing in today's race will at least establish some consistency in the seemingly snake-bitten Pak program this year. The season began auspiciously enough for the team with a second-place finish in the circuit's opener in Miami. But the engine was doused with water in the first heat in the next race in Detroit and the Pak couldn't muster the points to make the final. In Madison, the next week, the Pak suffered the same kind of mishap in the final and Walters was forced to shut down in a preliminary heat due to an abnormally high reading on his exhaust-temperature gauge. Then where was the sponson damage and Walter's resulting injury in Evansville.