Construction of the Pay 'n Pak, 1980

 Building a Thunderboat

Building a national champion unlimited hydroplane is a little like cooking up a good Irish stew. It takes a number of prime ingredients that must be prepared with tender loving care; it takes a chef to oversee the preparation and cooking of the ingredients and, finally, it takes time.

The first step in building an Unlimited Hydroplane sees the bottom laid out. After the bottom has been carefully laid out, the frames are attached to the bottom. Here Jim Lucero and John Walters confer during assembly of the boat.

If done properly the stew is an epicurean delight which far surpasses in taste that of a single ingredient. When all the pieces are put together properly, the unlimited hydroplane also far surpasses in speed, excitement and beauty that of a single piece of material that went into the construction of the hull.

John Walters cuts a piece of honeycomb which will be used as a frame on the hull. The honeycomb material offers a great savings in weight while giving up no loss in strength. The hull is then turned over at which time the non-trip frames and the non-trip are attached to the hull. Next the sponson frames are attached and the sponsons are constructed. Here John Walters works on attaching the non-trip to the non-trip frames. The sponson frames have yet to be attached to the hull.

Today there are only a handful of craftsmen in the world who can “cook up" a boat that large - a minimum of 28 feet long — and get it to “dance” across the water at a graceful 180 miles per hour.

The Pay ’n Pak team has campaigned hulls built by many of those builders, but the most success that the team has had was during 1973,1974 and 1975 seasons when the Pak virtually ruled the waters garnering consecutive national championships with a hull that was designed and built by crew chief and team manager Jim Lucero and the famous Jones family, Ron and father Ted.

Jim Lucero measures up a section of non-trip prior to fitting the final piece on to that section of the boat.

That boat was virtually the beginning of a new era in unlimited hull construction. The hull was not only the first boat to be constructed from space-age honeycomb aluminum, but was also the first boat to sport a rear horizontal stabilizer similar to Indy and Grand Prix cars. Since that time both have become standards in boat building.

Lucero has gone on to build the most successful unlimited hydroplane in the history of the sport, now campaigned as Bill Muncey's Atlas Van Lines.

When the boat is turned right-side up again it finally begins to look like a hydro is supposed to. At this time the battens are added to the top of the hull to make ready putting the deck down. Prior to the deck going on all internal hardware is installed and any "plumbing" that needs to be done is completed.

In 1980 the Lucero team launched another unlimited hydroplane and perhaps another era with the turbine-powered Pay 'n Pak, a refinement of the Atlas Van Lines hull with an all new power plant. Lucero, owner Dave Heerensperger and driver John Walters hope the craft will get the Pak team back into the winner’s circle after a five year hiatus from the sport.

The turbine-powered boat also utilizes honeycomb aluminum as an integral part of its skeletal frame. The advantage of this material, which can be described as two thin sheets of aluminum bonded to and separated by a honeycomb aluminum core, is that of light weight and extremely high strength.

John Walters works in securing battens to the hull of the newest Pay 'N Pak.

Of course this latest Pak, as do most unlimited hydroplanes, actually was conceived on Lucero's drawing table many months before the first piece of honeycomb was ordered for the boat.

Actual construction of the hull was done at the Pak shop by the Pay 'n Pak crew. In fact, the Pay 'n Pak racing team is unique among unlimited racing teams at this time in that it can do virtually 95% of all work on the boat right in its own shop.

The skin, which is fiberglass, if then laid on the deck. After the deck is on the motor mounts are installed, the cowling for the boat is added and the boat is painted.

Housed in the Pay 'n Pak shop are a complete machine shop, a fiberglass shop, a complete motor shop, and tools and floor space for the building maintenance of a hull. It is a great source of pride for both Lucero and the crew.

A most complete shop, members of the Pay 'n Pak crew can do virtually 95 percent of all work on the hull. Here we see a crew member working on some of the fiberglass parts of the boat.

The newest Lucero design to be raced weighs an amazingly light 5200 pounds, thanks to the honeycomb aluminum used in the boat and other Lucero building techniques, which coupled with the Pak’s turbine that is lighter than a Rolls Royce or Allison aircraft engine, should give the “whoosh” machine an advantage in the power-to-weight department.

The final look, the Pay 'N Pak U-25 Unlimited Hydroplane on the trailer.

While the new boat has all of the Lucero design concepts of previous boats, besides sporting a rear horizontal stabilizer the hull is designed to accept a pair of front stabilizers which will be used to help control the attitude of the boat at racing speed.

Ready to go racing.

Currently Lucero’s last hull, which is being run by Bill Muncey and the Atlas Van Lines team, is the winningest hydro in the history of unlimited hydroplane racing. But records are made to be broken, and when it is Jim Lucero that is doing the cooking, you know that the results have to spell winner.

1974 World Championship in the Tri-Cities

Reprinted from Facebook.

If there was ever a race that I would have wanted to attend back in my youth, it would have been the 1974 World Championship in the Tri. Unlike the disastrous Gold Cup two weeks later in Seattle, the race on the Columbia River was filled with many of the hulls in Seattle that never hit the water, burned up, blew up, sank, you name it! Seattle’s Gold Cup was only memorable for one particular heat 1C that became known as one of the greatest piston powered battles of all time between the Pak and the Bud. However, this is two weeks earlier now and we are in the Tri-Cities. 

There were 12 boats that qualified for this race with George Henley in the Pay 'n Pak at the top with a speed of 119.681mph, but close behind was the new U-55 Lincoln Thrift at 118.421 mph driven by Mickey Remund. The new U-2 Miss U.S. with Tom D’Eath and the U-74 Valu-Mart with Ron Armstrong were tied for third with 116.883mph followed by Howie Benns in the U-12 Miss Budweiser at 115.681 mph.

Photo by Randy Hall

The points structure had the slower boats in heats 1A and 2A, the faster boats were in heats 1B and 2B, and the fastest boats were in heats 1C and 2C with the winners in the fast heat getting 400 points while the winners in the middle heat getting only 300 points. The slow boat winners were given 225 points. The final heat point structure was even more bizarre in the final with the winner getting 600 points, 450 to 2nd, 338 to 3rd, 254 for 4th. 

The consolation winner, the U-4 Kirby Classic received 200 points and the U-22 Sunny Jim getting 150 for 2nd place. Wow! OK, the winners in the fast heats were the Pak in 1C and the U-95 in 2C. The winners in the middle of the road heat were the Bud in 1B and the Atlas in 2B. And finally, the slow heat winner was the U-44 Pizza Pete in both 1C and 2C. Not bad for one of the three Schoenith river sleds in attendance, driven by Fearless Fred Alter.

So, it came down to the all-important final heat. The top six points getters were the Pak, the U-95, the Bud, the Valu-Mart, the Pizza Pete and the U-76 Miss Cott Beverages. Sadly, three major contenders, the Atlas Van Lines, the Lincoln Thrift and the Miss U.S. did not have enough points to qualify for the final based on not being able to finish one of their heats. So, when the Bud went down during the final heat, the door was wide open for Henley in the Pak to cruise to victory, followed by Freddy Alter in the Pizza Pete, Ron Armstrong in the Valu-Mart and coming in 4th place, the turbine powered U-95 with Leif Borgersen. Son after 12 boats qualifying for the race, there were only six finishers between the final and the consolation. 

Hmmm maybe the disaster in Seattle was a bit better. Oh well. At least the fans got to see the Australian entry VS-41 Solo run a few laps during her failed qualifying attempt but I’m sure some of the sun-drenched fans cared very little about the boats on the water and paid more attention to the suntanned skin in the water and on the beach.

1983 Hull Rumors

Reprinted from Facebook.

Dale Fugier - Speaking of the Pay 'n Pak, here is the only color photo I've seen of the what-would-have-been '83 hull in its traditional white and orange livery. If anyone else has images, feel free to share - thanks!

Brad Haskin - So John Walters can pipe in here to make any corrections because I don't recall the details being included in his book...but the story as I recall it was thus: The boat in question was complete and ready to go for the 1982 season, but Jim Lucero insisted that the 1st turbine hull be the one that they raced. As the season went on and (in spite of the victory at Syracuse) the first hull had lots of teething problems, the team was getting frustrated that the 'new' boat was sitting unused. When confronted/asked about why, Jim Lucero's response was that he wanted to get the first hull running right so they could make more money when they sold it. That information was taken to Mr. Heerensberger who was upset enough that the plan after the '82 Seattle race was to let Lucero go from the team and run the 'new' boat for the remainder of the '82 season with Dixon Smith as crew chief. That obviously never came to pass because of the accident, and the only public appearance of the 2nd turbine Pak was when it was pulled through the 1982 Seafair Torchlight Parade on Friday night of Seafair weekend.

John Walters - Yes, this is accurate Brad. Sad, but true.