Episode 113: Bill Cantrell, An Audio Biography

Ever wonder how 'Wild Bill' Cantrell became a legend in the world of hydroplane and Indy car racing? Buckle up as we take a thrilling ride through the life and times of this remarkable athlete, from his adrenaline-filled jalopy races in the late 1920s to his daring attempts at the Indianapolis 500 in the following decades.  Courtesy of the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum, you can hear his voice from interviews produced by Taylor Thunder Tales back in 1993.  Bill shares unforgettable stories from a career that left a lasting impact on the sport.

As we navigate the twists and turns of Bill's life, we also cast light on his retirement days, spending them in the serene town of Madison, Indiana. Next week, we'll pick up the pace with the second part of Bill's riveting autobiography. You won't want to miss it!

Article on Bill Cantrell crashing the Rose Garden Party

Link to Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum Store

Transcript

Bill Cantrell

Speaker 1 0:24

Roochattel Talk , a podcast dedicated to everything related to the sport we all love . I'm your host , david Dutton , and it's time once again , to sit back , relax and welcome to Roochattel Talk . November 7th 2023 and this is episode 113 . Now , two weeks ago , we had our last interview . We talked to Greg Mansfield , our last episode . We talked with him and I promised we'd come back with some audio recordings provided by the Hydroplan and Raceboat Museum .

Speaker 1 1:03

Many things goes out to Dave Williams and Don Mock , for let me look through their archives and I found a classic here back from the 1990s and this was actually produced by Taylor Thunder Tails and I've never heard of this , this company before , but they presented a autobiography on Bill Cantrell and this was hosted and announced by Dave Taylor and it looks like it was out of Indiana . So maybe some of you out there know of some other audio recordings that he has done , because it looked like it was in the line of different tails that he was producing to get some interviews out of some history around hydropon racing . But it's a quite interesting audio biography . It's a two-parter , so you listen to the first part this week and the second part next week , and in this week we talk . He talks about Bill Cantrell and his background and he had some some good interviews that was done with him later in his life and was he reflected back on his early career in hydropon racing ? But as well as Indy car racing he was an Indy car racer , he was a wrestler . The guy had quite an interesting career in life . Sounds like he did what he wanted to in life and lived the right age of 87 years old , so quite quality of life there . Now Bill Cantrell probably not a name that many people really say much about anymore , but he had a really big influence in the sport back in the heyday and the golden age , I guess you'd say around Detroit with the Gale racing enterprises really heavily influenced in building boats , racing boats a lot . Just it did so much for the sport .

Speaker 1 2:51

Last summer I actually got a chance to read Pappy it's what some people called Bill Cantrell other than Wild Bill and this was a book written by the late Doug Ford and you can buy a copy of this now through the HydroPen and Racemount Museum . That also goes through his life and his accomplishments in hydropon racing and some of his past as well . I'll put a link for the book in the bio of this episode as well as another article . I thought was actually quite interesting because in this interview it doesn't really talk about his incident in Seattle . He has an infamous race in Seattle where he actually crashed his boat into a rose garden of some people that were picnicking and watching the Seafar race . So I'll include that in the bio as well . So if you want some more more reading about Bill Cantrell in his life , you can see it there . So again , big thanks to the HydroPen and Racemount Museum to make this happen , but digitalizing this , this audio recording , so enjoy the first part of the interview in autobiography of Bill Cantrell .

Speaker 2 4:01

Bill Cantrell an audio biography . I'm your host , dave Taylor . William Edward Cantrell departed this life on January 22nd 1996 , just nine days before the 88th anniversary of his birth . During the last 20 years of his life Bill had retired to Madison , indiana , to operate a machine shop with longtime racing friend , graham Heath . During those years I had numerous opportunities to spend time with Bill at the C&H machine shop . On several of these occasions Bill reminisced about his colorful career as I listened spellbound with my tape recorder . What you're about to hear are bits and pieces of those conversations about hydroplane racing , about the Indianapolis 500 . We opened this audio biography with my last public interview of Bill Cantrell , taped on the public address system during the 1993 Madison Regatta . I have with me now at the Madison Regatta Pit area Bill Cantrell , a name that's legendary and unlimited hydroplane racing . Bill raced here many years and was the winner almost 40 years ago 1954 , aboard the Gale 4 , and that was really a great day for you , bill .

Speaker 3 5:22

It was , it was a great day for the Gales , and it was about some of the first races that we had ever won .

Speaker 2 5:29

You raced here back in the 1920s aboard outboards . I guess what was racing like back then .

Speaker 3 5:36

Well , just about like it is now . It was refined then as it is today . At World War I aircraft engines , automotive engines , and I had a little Miller 151 class or racing engine that's used in the race cars and in the boats Madison has not really changed a whole lot , size-wise and everything Still a very historical town , like it looked probably back in the 20s and 30s when you first came here .

Speaker 3 6:06

Yes , it used to be a place where you have a three-day meet at the Mississippi Valley Power Boat Association so the Louisville Bunch would get to meet the Cincinnati Bunch here at Madison . There was three or four good boats in Cincinnati and there was three or four good boats in Louisville and it always meet here and look for a big deal , because it was a three-day meet and he used to house the boats up here in this tobacco warehouse which is poor down now you were quite the class of the field here at Madison back in the 1930s during the regattas .

Speaker 2 6:40

Then with several boats the Waewari and Fall City Baby , I don't know the Louisville kids Several boats that were competing back then . What were the boats that you won with in Madison ?

Speaker 3 6:50

Well , madison had the Lady Mary and I had the who Cares and I had the Waewari with my boat . It made life to who Cares and Waewari . That's a name of two boats with just a particular name that we put on them for no reason at all , just just kind of like a namesake or something .

Speaker 2 7:14

The sponsorship wasn't a big thing back then either was it .

Speaker 3 7:18

No , it was privately owned boats . If you're wealthy enough to own a Waewari boat and you had no sponsorships at all on it and the first time that we began to get any sponsorship in this area was from the tobacco companies in Gulf Hoare- and then you stepped up to the unlimited ranks driving a gold cup boat , I believe in 1948 , the my Sweetie , and that was a sweet boat for you . Yes , that was my favorite boat at the time at uh 22nd . I had one race at the time . She was out front .

Speaker 2 7:57

Then , at about the time that you got involved in gold cup racing , you also jumped into the big time at Indianapolis . You drove cars and raced in the Indianapolis 500 . That had to be a thrill .

Speaker 3 8:08

Well , it was after I got there . It wasn't a thrill that I thought it was , but the thought of going to Indianapolis and having the exotic raced cars and all that they had in those days was a big thrill to me because we ran our Model T's and V8's and stuff like that around the dirt tracks here and that's part of the country . But going to Indianapolis was the elite , just like going to the harmless race and boat racing .

Speaker 2 8:39

And while you were driving the Indianapolis cars , I believe you were a stunt man in a few movies right , and please the lady in the big wheel that we worked as extras in that and that was .

Speaker 3 8:50

That was quite a thrill too , and of course there's a lot of work for those directors . You had to be around on the same spot every time , remember your place and your parks and everything . It was quite a deal .

Speaker 2 9:03

Then with the Gale team . That was a great run for you over the years , winning here in Madison in the Gale 4 in 1954 and you drove the Gale 5 and several other Gale boats through the years and a lot of folks remember those years . That was a great team to race for .

Speaker 3 9:19

It was . It's a lot of pleasure and a lot of fun because Joe Shader , through the father of the company and all enjoyed boat racing and in fact the whole family did , jerry coming along one of the twins later on and drove for them . But it was a great thrill and I was looking for a long , long time . We had a lot of good racing .

Speaker 2 9:39

Was it especially a thrill for you , after racing here in the 20s , in the 30s , to come back and win an unlimited race here aboard the Gale 4 .

Speaker 3 9:49

Right it was . It was quite a thrill close to my hometown , which is Mobile , kentucky , and that made me feel real good . The Governor's Cup was most important and we didn't have that many races , and when it came to town and when a Governor's Cup race was really something .

Speaker 2 10:08

One of the last races that you drove here was in 1965 , and a lot of people remember that spectacular accident in which you got pitched out of the Miss Smirnoff here in Madison and I know that you remember that real well because it brought on another hospital stay .

Speaker 3 10:23

Yes , it did . It was quite an unusual accident where it happened . Colonel Gardner was a little late on starting for the race and he was over on the bank and just fired up . And we saw him coming out and I thought it was one of the patrol boats coming and they fired a one-minute gun when we were coming on to make the start . But he'd went on across the course and he had had a quill shaft busted in his boat and he couldn't get up on top . So he made a big hole , big swells that go on across the river and we come down on the start and hit that run at about 145 , 150 miles an hour and it dumped me out and took a big high leap and then threw me on the deck of one of the butt-wisers in and hit the deck and hit over in the water . It paralyzed me on my left side for about five months and finally worked that out . That's just one of the hazards of racing .

Speaker 2 11:22

It's amazing that you're still here . You're 84 now , 85? , 85 . 85 years old and a lot of people that you raced against are now gone and not a whole lot of the old timers around . But we're really tickled to death to see you here at the 1993 Regatta .

Speaker 3 11:41

Right , they're bearing Cooper and all . There's a lot of them that's gone , super-sigging that , and a lot of the guys you used to race with and all are gone and some of them took their own way and got away from boat racing . Some of them are still living , I suppose , but I try to keep in touch with most of them .

Speaker 2 12:00

We're pleased that you came down and touched base with everybody here at the Regatta pit area in 1993 , and we hope to see you many , many more Regattas to come .

Speaker 3 12:10

Well , I hope to . I don't know if your father's time is going to catch up with me one of these days , and I guess I'll have to cash me

Bill Cantrell

Speaker 3 12:17

in .

Speaker 2 12:17

Born in 1908 in West Point , Kentucky , Bill Cantrell , as a young man , moved to Louisville . It was there his racing career began in the late 1920s . It was at one of his earliest races that he earned the nickname Wild Bill . The story has been widely told by sports writers down through the years . Here is the story as Bill recalled it .

Speaker 3 12:43

Super Siggin' Ed gave me that name back in the late 20s . Well , we were racing outboards and ever something . We had to race somewhere and RT Duart was promoting down the Shawnee Park , down there Land park for subdivisions , you know and he put on a race down there and I went down there and then we didn't have steering wheels in the boat , we had a tiller that just stood without the board and didn't have a hand throttle . There was a throttle on the motor and you just fired it wide open and anywhere you went . So I fired it up . My hand was grazing , I got up on that stick and laid the nose down . When she got to going I was wobbling , hopping over swells . So I run over a canoe and run and jumped an anchor cable and out on the bank . I'm . Super Siggin' Ed said look at that wild Bill Go . So I've kept that name ever since .

Speaker 2 13:42

There were many facets to Bill Cantrell During the difficult years of the depression . Even into the 1940s Bill supplemented his livelihood as Wild Bill Cantrell professional wrestler .

Speaker 3 13:58

Well , I was a racin' amateur man in Kentucky Amateur racin' and we had different meets all over and I was a right heavyweight champion and I saw the name of John Cowboy John's they called him himself . He came out of Texas up here and he had a bunch of pinball machines all over the country . When they first started coming out and I worked out with him out at the YMCA , he said why don't you turn professional ? And I said well , I don't know about that . He said , well , you make some money out of it , you know good money and you can get a lot of work . So then we started working out together and of course he said you know a lot of . It shows that sometimes you have to go and earn what we call a shooting mat then to move a guy out to beat him . He won't do business while you're beating or he beats you . And that's how I come in to get started racin' .

Speaker 2 14:58

I was racing cars , then I was raffling the people racing , both going racing cars too , bill raced jalapes and open wheel race cars at dirt tracks all over the Midwest in the 1930s and 40s , earning quite a reputation as a hard charger . After a dirt track competitor qualified and raced in the 1947 Indianapolis 500 , bill decided that he too was ready to try out for the greatest spectacle in racing . In 1948 , bill was a 40-year-old rookie at the Brickyard .

Speaker 3 15:34

I really wasn't interested in it too much , I was more fond and better competition . I saw it in car racing on dirt and Frank Houser . You know , frank Houser bought an old Miller car , two-place Miller race cars and he was going in anapolis . Well , bill , he and I beat him every time he'd ever run anyplace in Indiana car racing . He'd come down from Ohio and move to Louisville and I said , well , if he can do it , I can do . And Lou Fagel , he had two cars . Bill Holland was driving the one , the good car , down in Texas . I didn't even want to drive it in the street way , he had another ride . So I called up Louis and said , yeah . I said , well , I don't belong to the APB area . I said , well , I don't belong to them . I said I'll have to join them and all of these . I guess they'll accept me . So we come on and we'll see them speedily . So I come on up there and talked a little about it and took my driver's test to Houser Bang in the first year and ran there .

Speaker 2 17:04

Bill qualified for the 500 twice in 1948 in the Fagel Twin Coach Special . He was running fifth when the steering failed on lap 162 and he finished 16th . He completed only 95 laps to finish 21st in the Kennedy Tank Special in 1949 . He also saw action in the rain , shortened 1950 race driving in relief of Bayless Leveret . He continued to race cars but his star dimmed at Indianapolis in the early 1950s .

Speaker 3 17:41

I just didn't want the kicking that . I thought it would be there . You enjoyed going fast down there , but I just didn't know I was the first guy that ever went 126 mile an hour to the corner . The only reason I did it was because I was running flat out all the way around the track and qualified 125 and a half . That was it . I thought I didn't have any more parking . There was a lot of good guys that I'd been running on . One was dirtin' all around all over the country , but I just I don't know it . Just it wasn't big enough and it was too big . I tried it five times but I only made it twice . In 1953 , I ran my last car race around in Milwaukee . I was the first to go to .

Speaker 2 18:29

Milwaukee . On Side 2 , we'll recap Bill's Gold Cup career as Bill Cantrell , and audiobiography continues .

Speaker 1 18:42

Well , that's all we have for this week . Come back next week , on the 14th of November , as we'll release the part two of the autobiography of Bill Cantrell , hosted by Dave Taylor . In that part two , he's gonna talk more about his Gold Cup years and more about his career in hydrogen-plane racing . It's a great listen . Hopefully enjoyed it . And before then , don't forget to check us out online . We have our own website at wwwrushateltalkcom . We're on Instagram , facebook and , don't forget , we also on that website . We have a feature where you can sign up for a fan newsletter where you can get early releases on all of our episodes as we release them the night before they go public for everyone else . Well , until next time . Hope to see you at the races .