Roostertail Talk
A show dedicated for preserving the history, breaking down the racing and looking to the future of the incredible sport of Unlimited Hydroplane racing. My name is David Newton, and I will be bringing you a weekly show in which we will discuss the boats, drivers, owners, crew members, legends, fans and anything that is involved with the sport that I love; hydroplane racing.
Fans you can now sign up for a subscription service for the podcast! As you can imagine, running a podcast can be pricey (from hosting fees, website fees, travel, equipment, etc.). You can help the podcast by subscribing to our new service, Roostertail Talk+. The podcast is still free to all on our website and through all major podcast platforms (such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, Castbox, etc) but with Roostertail Talk+ there is more you can enjoy ! With this service you will get early links to new episodes, enjoy access to extra content, raffle prizes and more. This is a new service that we will be adding to as we move along. As always your support to make this show grow is very appreciated! TOMORROW, there will be an announcement for the first prize for subscribing to Roostertail Talk+.
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Roostertail Talk
Episode 133: Mark and Mitch Evans, Part 1
Imagine growing up with the roar of hydroplane engines as your lullaby. Join me as I sit down with Mitch and Mark Evans, legendary figures in hydroplane racing, who share their exhilarating journey from childhood escapades around heavy machinery and boats to the adrenaline-pumping world of competitive racing. Their story is a testament to the influential guidance of their father, Norm, who set the stage for a life filled with adventure and mechanical challenges. This will be part 1 of a 4 part episode, which each episode releasing the next week.
*Photo from Mark Evans collection
Help the podcast by subscribing to our new service, Roostertail Talk+. The podcast is still free to all on our website and through all major podcast platforms (such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, Castbox, etc) but with Roostertail Talk+ there is more you can enjoy ! With this service you will get early links to new episodes, enjoy access to extra content, raffle prizes and more. This is a new service that we will be adding to as we move along. As always your support to make this show grow is very appreciated! https://www.buzzsprout.com/434851/supporters/new
We're Chatelle Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything about the sport that we all love. Hi, drifling Race, I am your host, david Newton, and it's time once again. So sit back, relax and welcome. Rooster Tail Talk Top. Welcome back, race fans. It's December 10th, 2024, and this is episode 133. Well, I know, race fans, I've been sitting on this interview for far too long.
Speaker 1:Back in September I called out sick for an extra day. I went over to Chelan, washington, where I was racing my radio-controlled scale hydroplanes, thanks to Don Mock races, 1984, atlas van lines. Beautiful, beautiful city over in Chelan had a wonderful time, beautiful weekend, and I stayed an extra day and I went down to the arena and I talked with Mark and Mitch Evans. Now they don't need any special introductions. Everyone in Hydroplane Racing Land knows the names Evans back from their father, norm. Both of their careers were very successful. Mitch and Mark both really put their name on the sport. They made their names known and were highly successful in their own rights. And a couple of the nicest guys, wildest characters in the sports, and I had such a fun afternoon talking with them down at the marina, the beautiful area in Chelan, and unfortunately this was supposed to go out back in October.
Speaker 1:But just life, as I posted, life gets in the way. I'm candid about what's going on in my life. I had some blood clots that had to get removed and that sidetracked me for a while and then I threw my back out shortly after that. So I've been this past month and a half or so. It's just been unreal with things happening and going on. So I'm moving forward and I don't want to sit on this interview anymore because it was so much fun talking with both of them. Like I said, they're great people, so nice, so inviting and welcoming and just appreciated their time that they had and they have such a wealth of stories. We sat down for a couple hours. This is going to be a four-part interview, so you're going to look forward to the next three parts. So this will be your christmas present from me to you until we get through the new years, and so hopefully you enjoy what we talk about.
Speaker 1:And, um, I, I knew a lot about the racing careers. I followed them. They were icons in the sport when I was little. Mitch and Mark both started in the late 70s, early 80s and just successful wins, all that. But I had some help.
Speaker 1:I want to give a special thanks and shout out to John Osterberg Now, john, he's author of Dragon Days and you've heard me say his name before because he is an unlimited hydroplane historian in his own right knows so much about the sport. He has spent a lot of his own time cataloging and journaling their career throughout their time for the newspaper in Washington, eastern Washington, and really got their celebrity fame out there. Because they're celebs in Eastern Washington and everyone, I think, knows their names in Chelan and many other parts in Eastern Washington. Everyone, I think, knows their names in Chelan and many other parts in Eastern Washington. I don't think they can go anywhere without being noticed, to say the least.
Speaker 1:Lots of great stories and we're going to start off this first episode and we're going to talk about some of the crazy characters that they've encountered Not crazy but fun characters that they've encountered in the sport, because they're two characters in their own rights. And we're going to talk about their early days, how their dad got them involved and just what was happening for the Evans brothers in the 1980s in Chelan. So we're sitting down here on a beautiful day in Chelan at Sunset Marina, and I'm sitting here with Mitch and Mark Evans, the two Evans brothers and the celebrities of Chelan Washington. How are we doing today, boys?
Speaker 2:Awesome, doing good, doing good. Got to go down and watch you guys race yesterday and the RC models.
Speaker 3:What a beautiful venue. There too, I've been thinking about that and I'm like wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's cool to see that all come together. Oh yeah, no, it's awesome. I appreciate the city letting us do that and your help with that, and it's probably a premier site to end the year on, and I think you saw some great racing and some great crashing as well. Yesterday they were going all out.
Speaker 2:The stuffs, the blow, blowovers, the spin house yeah, it was wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's fun. So thanks for coming out. You bet? Well, you're not. This isn't new to you, being in chelan, that you have a history of chelan in this area and a big history, I think, is due to your father with racing, and what did that mean to you and what was your experience growing up with your dad racing in hydroplanes and all that?
Speaker 2:Well, it was kind of it just was. You know, we just grew up at the marina there and he had his trophies and he talked about boat racing a lot and he was still messing around with the boats, nitrogen and that, and so it's just always been around and he was kind of bigger than life. So it made it interesting, to say the least, how about for you, Mitch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's a great history. So we were lucky to be raised here on the water, you know, in the marina, and then, like I say, all of a sudden, you know, to learn more about the history of dad's racing, and then him slowly dragging us, not dragging us, giving us the opportunity Boat would show up right.
Speaker 2:Oh boys here's.
Speaker 3:Bo, we need to go see if we can go to Tri-Cities and qualify. So it was never a dull moment around here, I'm sure yeah.
Speaker 2:A little bit of the problem was, though, he had the marina, and so we had to work at the marina, so weekends were the busiest, so it was really hard for us to get away and go boat racing until later on in life. We had to work too, so we squeezed it in the best we could, so that's why Tri-Cities in Seattle was the big highlight for us, really Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Did you feel like it was a normal life or did you feel like it was kind of a higher status growing up?
Speaker 2:Well, once I was getting into grade school and getting up through school, it dawned on me that a lot of the kids hadn't run a loader or a backhoe or a boat before. We'd already been doing all that stuff. Dad was into construction, you know, in the wintertime too. So I felt very fortunate. All of a sudden it dawned on me that, you know, it was a lot of work, you know, of course, but for us it was like play.
Speaker 3:So we were very fortunate and blessed to be exposed to that. It was a natural feeling for me, just because that's the environment we were in. We were just always something was going on and we're doing many things, but I realized how fortunate we were, you know, at the time so yeah it was fun yeah, well do you have a favorite dad story that either of you have, oh well, that you can share with us.
Speaker 1:There's numerous ones.
Speaker 2:So gosh, we had many for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know. Not too many people know that dad used to buy a piece of property and then buy a house that had to be moved and then move the house onto another piece of property. But, typical dad, he didn't really like to get a permit and wait for permits, so he was usually lifting houses up and moving them in the middle of the night. So Mitch and I got into a few of these excursions with him moving houses and so on, so that was always kind of a real gas. We later in life looked back on that and knew to pick up a house and move it with no permits. That's something Other than that. It was mainly around the marina helping out, and so on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was this house moving thing. Of course, the story that sticks in my mind is that we realized that the old bridge there is about three feet narrower on one end than the other. Well, we started in with the house. It was really tight and when we got almost to the end we were stuck it wedged in there. And I can still remember dad, get the chainsaw, get the chainsaw right. He has this poor guy that was with us, I don't recall his name. He gets out there and literally just saws off the eave of this building, you know, so that we could continue on through. And that's the building that's at the marina to this day. Oh, yeah, it's an old marina. Next door it's an old bank, and driving by the school and thinking this is pretty cool but not normal, that was just the beginning of many adventures.
Speaker 2:But he loved to go boating, so in the evenings usually one of us ended up driving all the adults up around the lake and getting back at wee hours and so on. So it was fun to help take care of the adults, All right.
Speaker 1:What was the first opportunity your dad gave you to run boats, to race boats?
Speaker 2:Let me see, wasn't it when I was up in Alaska, tad came over with the Breathless, was it?
Speaker 3:Well, I got to go for a ride. Really, the Green was my first unlimited ride. You know, that was kind of the beginning where we were all working together. So you know him bringing old Habdexter over to help mechanic and lived here and of course he also worked on the construction thing, but the Evergreen.
Speaker 3:Roofing was really the first, and along he was also doing you know the automotive boat with Bob Murphy and Steve Myers, so it was kind of happening together. Dad was working on this one, but the Green Bond was the first adventure I did get to now that is the Unlimiteds.
Speaker 2:I did get to run just a pleasure boat up in 1969, I think it was up at the Yacht Club. I remember little kids ran a race up there. Then later on Mitch got the Yahoo 2 at 280. 280, yeah, Ran that for a little bit Beautiful. I got a 145 from David Williams, called the Nightwind, Did a little of the inboard stuff first.
Speaker 3:And then Jim Corcoran has KW3 Radio won. He bought an old Jones conventional boat so that was my biggest inboard race. I got to run. I remember going to Green Lake and was there and ran in the early days so we kind of dabbled in that but we were basically blessed with an unlimited time. It was there there, no looking back after that, so you didn't have much experience before jumping in not a lot not a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just other locally here and some of these, and then a couple of inboard classes a couple of years yeah, that first year in 79, in fact in 1979, got the green bomb, which we affectionately call it the evergreen roofing, and I didn't even know until about a week or two before that I was going to drive it. We thought we were crewing for that. Then they had this other boat, you know, and I said, oh my gosh, okay. And then Dad drove the automotive boat and attempted to qualify it. And then the next year Mitch jumped in but we didn't even know at first, didn't even get to test. So I'll never forget Lee Shaneth and Harry. Oh, what's his name? Harry Woods. Harry Woods, yeah, I'm speaking. And yeah, lee Shaneth. He came up to me and he said, how much experience do you have? And I just thought, well, limited inwards. So I just went limited. How many times have you driven that boat? Well, not very many, I haven't even been in it yet.
Speaker 2:So, oh my gosh, to go get a qualified is pretty nerve-wracking. And then my time. Every time I got to go out, bill Muncy came out with blue blasters. It would scare the heck out of me. Come on, let me have the course to myself. So that was exciting. Next year, mitch got in there and ran that dual no. We switched to.
Speaker 3:Atlas, yes, ran, it Tried to qualify the one time, I think, at Seattle there was an auto engine in it, just barely got in. But then we had the fire. So we had a fire at the shop here and we had all that automotive stuff in there and lost most of it. And so here was, of course, the roofing sitting there, and by that time we decided we were going to combine forces, take the allicin out of that and put it in there, and that's when I started that little Evans Marine thing. So it was kind of a culmination of both of us at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, okay, and you tried to qualify that for a few years. Yeah, and eventually did in 83, with a joint effort with Rick Bowles. Yeah, island Security Systems, right, right, 83 in Seattle, mm-hmm. So talk me through that. Like what was, what was those early years?
Speaker 3:like that, you couldn't get it there but it was it was tough yeah, yeah, I think of all the time here we are, of course, early in life trying to work and come up with enough money, you know, to keep, keep the thing. Luckily, we had the shop space here at that time so we had a place to work on it. But, yeah, we kept throwing ourselves at it, just hoping that we could get to the next level. We accomplished a lot with very little, very, very little, so I was always proud of that and it was that stepping stone from there to go on. Obviously, we went two different directions, but that was the beginning of that and it was that stepping stone from there to go on. Obviously, we went two different directions, but that was the beginning of our real racing career.
Speaker 2:I just happened to run across the only picture we have of me riding on the deck with you what had happened when we put the Allison in the island security system we were testing here. It would start on the trailer, but it wouldn't start in the water. Every time we put it in the water it was too much load on the prop. So mitch got out there and he, so he's halfway out in the middle of the lake. So bruce and I jumped in the towboat we had called the african queen of all things and uh, we were towing him in. And uh, oh, actually no, we had a rental boat we were towing him in with the.
Speaker 2:Bruce was on the the towboat and I'm standing on a deck with Mitch trying to figure stuff out. And all of a sudden I thought, hey, mitch, go ahead and turn it over, maybe he'll take the load off the prow. And so he's chugging, chugging, chugging, and I was looking at Bruce going thumbs up, go faster, faster. And so he started towing us faster and faster. We started clearing out. Next thing, and I looked over and we're passing Bruce and his eyes were this big around, he thought we were going to spin him out and drag him down the lake at 100 miles an hour.
Speaker 2:And so I got the rope loose and I told Mitch, keep going, keep going. And all of a sudden I saw his helmet sitting on the deck. So I grabbed his helmet, slammed it on his head and I was going to jump off there. I didn't want him to stop because said 80, 90, and I'd fallen in the water scheme. I got back in the water so I jumped on the inside of him and we got three laps in and over.
Speaker 3:I kept going okay okay, yeah, just keep going, keep going.
Speaker 1:So you're just hanging on the cockpit on the deck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had an arm around him, his life jacket, but the faster he went, the more it was sucking the air out of my lungs, so I kept having to put my head in the cockpit. Oh my God, yeah, yeah, I was flopping on the deck.
Speaker 1:Well, I know I saw a picture at some point. I think my dad had a picture. You were towing it in and trying to start it, so I think someone took a picture of that. Yeah well, and he always wanted to know what were you going to do when it got on a plane. Well, we didn't even plan that out.
Speaker 2:Somehow it worked out. Story of my life. I got these ideas. Were you going to plan it all out? Well, I was just going to jump off, but then, like I said, when I saw the needle start to jump, you know, start working 90, 80, 90,. I had no life jacket or anything.
Speaker 3:In fact I thought I had a. It was really handy, obviously, to be born and raised here and have this lake where we could do that kind of stuff. Well, I think back now I'm like, oh my God, how lucky were we to survive some of those fallies. We'd always do New Year's or do a Christmas run, of course. In those days there was virtually nobody.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, You're just hanging on the back there. Yeah, that's just coming in. I think Roger Green had taken that picture.
Speaker 1:That's the only one. I just happened to find it the other day.
Speaker 2:You'll have to send that to me. Okay, sounds good, Golly. Meanwhile our mom's up there having a heart attack smoking cigarettes like they're going to have to have them.
Speaker 1:How many packs do you think she went through?
Speaker 2:I don't know she burned a lot of them, aren't you? Well, think about it later. There were some good pictures in our heyday when we really started doing good with the Unlimiteds. Mom came down. We had a shirt made, Half of it was American Spirit and the other half was the Obero. Yeah, and so for a mom to watch her two boys going out there beating up on each other at 200 miles an hour kind of a crazy deal, you know.
Speaker 1:Did you ever feel like she was rooting for one more?
Speaker 3:than the other. Not, really, not really. She always made sure it was both. Yeah, she did, she just didn't want to scratch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, she'd come back, no matter what.
Speaker 1:Back in that day I was talking to John Osterberg before the interview and he mentioned the name Hap Dexter. I think that he played a role in your team at that point. What was his role and what are some good Hap stories?
Speaker 3:you got he was from Detroit, basically, you know, worked back there with Gene Bennings and all those guys in the day and he was the mechanic. Right, he was the allosing guy.
Speaker 3:So somehow to this day I don't know how dad he got together, but anyway he brought him out to start working on the boat one winter, you know, to get the pieces apart, and then he got him a place to stay and then at the same time he was a good mechanic, so he helped out at the marina and on the construction site, you know with all that stuff.
Speaker 3:But anyway, he was brought here to be the head Allison mechanic and he was a character, an old know bachelor, and gruff, just as rough as they come, and he, if you got next to him when we were working on the motor or something, man, he would just light into you. You know I'm just be like, oh my god, what did I say? But he was just that way, he'd be really quiet or he was super explosive. I just remember so much of that about him and I think, the one story of many.
Speaker 3:We were building an engine the only engine, I think at that time. Anyway, there were some pieces and parts of another one and he had all these parts laid out in the back room there and we're kind of going through them and I'm seeing these bearings like smell some smoke, like he had a fire. Well in the back there was. We're kind of going through them and I'm seeing these bearings like smell, smell some smoke. I like it had fire. Well, in the back there was two sets of these old bearings and I and I at the day I didn't know, but I guess there was silver babbitt, right, actual silver, in there. He's got this fire going out there in this little pot. He's melting the silver out of this stuff and save it. He and he was, he was in these little, uh like coins. They were more like a necklace thing. Anyway, he melt these things down. He was making these little trickies working on the boat. You know just, I just always struck me so really, he was just that kind of God and would do anything for you.
Speaker 3:You know, and we learned a lot from over the years of course, but yeah, just one of those strange little guys that worked, worked tirelessly always, and from the old days of Pappy Cantrell and Shirley Mendelsohn and Notre Dame and all the Detroit boys.
Speaker 2:Like Mitch said, pretty gruff didn't have any front teeth.
Speaker 3:You know, he was pretty he had a tough life, you could just tell. But he was willing to teach and you know he was one of those guys. When he got here he was. I enjoyed being around him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's. It's the whole sport's full of characters, right oh?
Speaker 2:yes.
Speaker 1:And on that security team Seth Landau, he security team Seth Landau, he owned the business of security. I think he falls under one of those characters around the sport, right? I just wonder if you have a good Seth story to share.
Speaker 2:Which one do you think?
Speaker 3:I mean as we went top three. He just was those guys that wanted to be successful, was willing to do what he could to help us out to get the boat to the race and qualify and running. I just remember him as just he was always really hyper and he would just appear one minute and then be gone the next. He was just very supportive and and uh was, was was a great guy. I know now he's business has changed and I honestly haven't seen him um in in a long time.
Speaker 2:Mark mark stays in touch with him, son, uh, yeah but he's a very high strung guy, as you know, and and uh gosh, he'd come down to the pits and, in fact, the the one time Mitch was trying to get qualified and he conked out and Seth kept going what's wrong, what's wrong, what's wrong. We didn't have radios. Back then I said, seth, I don't know, we've got to get the boat. And he's pacing back and forth, he goes what's wrong? And I said, seth, I'm just for fun, the way you're doing, the way you're going here, buddy, what a character this guy still is actually.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh, he still is. Yeah, so my father-in-law actually was neighborhood friends, childhood friends, growing up with him.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask how they knew each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think they were in the same neighborhood and went to the same synagogue and all that. So they got in trouble together. Growing up, my father-in-law owned a company down in Pike Place, market Ace Jewelry and Loans, so he was a part sponsor on the boat and I think it was 83 when it sunk at the dock and he loved it because his logo was the only thing shown above the water. It was right on King 5 right there, so he got tickled out of that.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Yeah, geez, louise. Oh man, what else did Seth do? There's a couple of good ones. He just, like I said, very high strung but has a big heart, you know. Oh yeah, yeah, really wants to make sure you're all right, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we took, and I recall too, one of the couple times that we worked on the boat we took part of the deck off, so we took at that time it was just plywood basically. So he took those pieces and then he made buttons out of them, cut them out they were all hand-painted and then, of course, he handed them out to all of us. I still have one left I he handed them out to all of us.
Speaker 2:I still have one left. I think it was only about 10 or 12 of those. Yeah, I think those are collectible for sure. Yeah, oh, great guy. Yeah, he lived out there at Mercer Island next to Bill Muncy, will Muncy and them so kind of in that neighborhood too. So he's been around it for years. I'll tell you one good one that happened. He's got a house that overlooks the race course.
Speaker 2:There I'm down in the pits and I can't remember what boat I'm driving. But I get a call. It's Seth. I thought I'll take it just for fun. He goes hey, look up at my house. I looked up at his house and all of a sudden just flash, flash. He's out in the yard with a gigantous mirror and he's got the sun. And he goes hey, who do you want me to blind? I'll blind the Winston Eagle when he comes around the corner. I go no, don't be doing that, come on. I got to laughing. So I called him back and I says Listen, the commissioner is standing right here. I'm on the dock with a whole bunch of people and when I say this key word, I want you to flash this. And I don't remember what the key word was so I did. I talked to the commission. I says now watch over there, now watch this. And I said the word and it says flashed us. So to this day that was our little private joke to freak everybody out.
Speaker 3:It's just that's an example of his crazy stuff he likes.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I know that's funny. That's all the time we have for this week, knuckleheads, Remember, come back next week. This is part one of four for my interviews with Mitch and Mark Evans and I have to thank them again for their time, Really appreciate that. They took out hours of their day to come down and talk with me. They had a couple of emergencies going on with some of their projects that were going on at the time, so I really appreciate that they took time out of their busy day to come and talk to me down at Sunset Marina and if you go through Chelan you should check that place out. Beautiful marina, Just wonderful, wonderful place to be and with the cold weather here right now, I wish I was back to that nice summer day. It was a beautiful day on Lake Chelan.
Speaker 1:Also want to give another shout out and thanks to John Osterberg, author of Dragon Days. The owner of Pay a Point Publishing, Really helped me out and had a lot of great questions and you're going to hear some more questions that John gave to me for our next upcoming interviews, Because we're going to talk more about their career. We're going to talk to both Mitch and Mark about more about the crazy things they're involved in what could have happened, what did happen and what might happen. So many fun stories and I can't wait to share more with you. I've got a lot more editing to do. I'm going to be moving on to another interview here soon.
Speaker 1:Again, I apologize to you, the fans. We had some big breaks in my coverage with my interviews and my episodes. For some reason, my health just keeps getting in my way and I think it's time I really, really focus on my health and get better with that so we can get some more content out for you. Doing good. Now just got to get on a better track. Don't forget, we're on social media Facebook, Instagram.
Speaker 1:We have our website, RichardTelTalkcom, and on the website also, don't forget, we have a brand new service Richard Tel Talk Plus. Once you are a member, you get early access to all episodes. I'll send that to you the night before. We also have a monthly raffle drawing. I've given away race tickets. I've given away some fun prizes. I have a Christmas gift I just gave away. So lots of fun things. I try to give those away every month and just have some more fun with the podcast, but those donations that come back really help just cover all the different expenses that just pop up with doing a podcast. That's all I got for today, so until next time, I hope to see you at the Wreath.