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Episode 138: Mike Hall, Part 1

• David Newton • Season 7 • Episode 2

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Join us for an exhilarating ride into the world of unlimited hydroplane racing as we sit down with Mike Hall, a passionate crew member hailing from Indiana. With stories that date back to building RC models in his uncle's garage, Mike shares a heartfelt narrative of nostalgia and technical prowess, offering a rare glimpse into the evolution of the sport and the behind-the-scenes challenges faced by dedicated crew members. This is part 1 of a 2 part interview. Check for part 2 to stream next week in episode 139.  

Heat 3A of the 2007 Gold Cup (Referenced in the episode)

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Speaker 1:

Ruchetel Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything about the sport that we all love. Hi, dreamland Racing. I am your host, david Newton, and it's time once again. So sit back, relax, and this is episode 138. Now, before I get started on talking about this interview, I want to say this was one of the more fun talks I had, because I had a lot of good banter with this gentleman and without really knowing him too well.

Speaker 1:

But my interview today is with Mike Hall, and he is what I call one of the unsung heroes of the sport, because when you think about unlimited hydroplane racing, you think about greats like Chip Hanauer. Think about unlimited hydroplane racing, you think about greats like chip hanover, jim lacero, bernie little. These are the, the people that that gave their all to the sport in driving as owner or as a crew chief, and those people get the credit and they get the stardom and hero status. We'll all say that of the sport, but there's so many talented people that work behind the scenes and don't get the credit, and I think crew members fit the bill, because without a talented crew, you're not going to have success on the water. My call is that he's a lifetime fan of the sport and he's really given his life and dedicated his life to working on hydroplanes and that's why I say it's unsung, because when you get those race victories you get the driver's name, the owner's name, on the trophy but you don't have those crew members' names, so that's why I mean they don't get their credit.

Speaker 1:

Fan of the sport from Indiana and has a different background in racing growing up because I just feel like there is West Coast growing up in the Seattle area is different than other areas of the sport and it's I'm always fascinated to hear how people entered into the sport. But specifically it's just interesting for me not being in this region and hearing from someone who's a lifetime fan and getting that background information and how they enter the sport is just fascinating to me. But he is a lifetime fan and he crewed for cooper's express in the late 80s and he worked crude for cooper's up until they stopped racing. He's still crewing for for other teams in the hrl series but just a wealth of knowledge and I think you'll find it fascinating how his collegiate career and schooling career is just intertwined with hydroplane racing and I'm excited for you to hear that story and we're going to talk about his background and crewing for Cooper and just all the different things that he did for the team.

Speaker 1:

I think you'll enjoy the interview, as it's really a fun walk down nostalgic lane but also talks about a lot of technical aspects of the sport. That's enough about me talking about the interview. Let's listen to it and join my talk with Mike Hall as we talk about what else but hydroplanes? Well, I'm sitting down here on Zoom talking almost coast to coast, talking to Mike Hall out of Indiana. How are you doing, mike?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing good, doing really well. Well, I'm kind of lying. I just got done with a bevy of surgeries. I had hip surgeries, but I'm in recovery now and doing pretty well, all right.

Speaker 1:

Well, are you going to be done with recovery by summertime?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the goal is that I will be up and walking without assistance. I just talked or kind of texted with Pyro Scott Rainey last night, so I'll be up and walking without assistance about a month before Guntersville. Okay, so that's the plan at least.

Speaker 1:

And they bumped up Guntersville this year a little bit earlier. I think it's the first weekend in June now Is that what it is Okay?

Speaker 2:

I was wondering why? Because I looked at that schedule and I was wondering what it was different, because it seems like it was always a little bit maybe. When was it usually?

Speaker 1:

I feel like it was the last, or close to the last, weekend in June, but now it's the first weekend in June. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. Well, you've been around the sport for a few years. I feel like a lifetime fan. Yeah, absolutely, and you've been crewing for most of your life. I would say, but what got you interested? Because I always talk to guys in the Seattle area and they always talk about towing boats behind their bikes, going down to Lake Washington and whatnot. So it's a little bit here from your side of things, coming up from a different area.

Speaker 2:

On the East Coast it's probably a little bit different just because it's not ingrained. Like you know, I've heard Chip tell me before. You know, when he was younger they had no other pro sports. They didn't have anything that was fighter planes. That was the big time sport. You know, around here we've always had IU basketball, things like that, so you know kids around, you know Indiana's big basketball and high school sports and so that's really big. But I had an uncle who was really into RC planes, cars, anything RC planes, cars, boats, anything that you could do, and we started building these little airboats first and then we'd go to the hobby shop and you know you'd buy the motors and the servos and all that stuff. And I saw a Dumas Atlas Van Lines I think it was a U71, which I think is the one Cantrell built.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if that's right, I believe.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, so that was the first I saw that and I just begged my uncle to get it and we got it and we put a little 049 engine in it and we tethered it and that was really cool. And then I think they came out with the U76. Duma's had one of those and it was also a tether. We built that one with Atlas van lines being here. You know, we, you know we had kind of access to the graphics and stuff. We could just pull out in front of the building and look at it and take a Polaroid back then and see it. So that was pretty cool. And then I bought a Sport 40. I think that was another Dumas kit. So I guess the hobby shop had to deal with Dumas and everything was Atlas fan lines back then. So I bought a Dumas Sport 40. I think I put a K&B engine I can't remember, you probably know that stuff better than me but yeah, had a good K&B engine in that one. So that was pretty cool. And then I think the last thing I built was there was a plastic 1977, miss Budweiser, that I still wish I had.

Speaker 2:

I didn't finish it, it was always in the box and I remember Ron Snyder was driving and this was before I knew what the hydroplanes were. I'd never been to a hydroplane race. This was before any of that and, like Owensboro was an hour away from me and I never knew it was going on. Because, you know, we didn't have, uh, you know, social media and I live pretty far out in the country and you know I played baseball in the summer and my summers were taken up and, man, had I known that, that that would have been a life changer for me because I could have been seeing that for a long time.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, so, uh, so I guess it really, you know, started as far as the racing portion of it. There was a guy named Dick Swanson they called him Doc Swanson and he was a URC medical, chief medical doctor, you know, chief medical person or whatever. And I guess when he was in the military he was stationed up near Seattle. So he got this big love for hydroplanes and he lived in my hometown, he was a hospital, he was a doctor at the local hospital, welborn hospital, and, um, he started this thing called river city racing club and we had a race that started.

Speaker 2:

Uh, it was called little thunder on ohio and they still have that. I think they still have little thunder um well, that club name is familiar. I'm pretty sure that club's still around yes, it is river city racing club yeah, so I was like the first one of the first members, first 10 or 15 members of that even though I was like seven years old or eight years old or whatever.

Speaker 2:

Uh, but yeah, that's kind of where I got the start for that. And you know, when Thunder on Ohio came I think it was in 78, I was there, my neighbor, which this was really cool my neighbor was the head of safety for his landline, so they used to rent the museum out for their employees and actually, uh, give them everybody pit passes too. So well, I would be there on thursday and not leave till sunday night, like I just was there around the clock. I couldn't get enough of it then it was just really cool. Uh, just never seen anything like that before. How big they were. Uh got to meet you know all those people and I'm sure they don't remember me, but uh, uh, probably the biggest memory from there and is seeing bob, was it bob miller?

Speaker 2:

yeah, he brought the rock boat out one year and I'll never forget like he pulled his helmet off and I guess he wore a toupee and when he pulled his helmet off, like his toupee come off and his crew guys were yelling at him like hey, your hair came off. So he just reached in and put it back on and it was like completely sideways and it was so funny. I was a little guy, I was probably eight or nine years old, but anyway, just so many memories from down there. It was, it was really cool. And then just the.

Speaker 2:

The last part of that was, I guess one year for the river city racing club they had little thunder, like the week before thunder on the Ohio, and chip Hanauer came down, which is huge for me as huge Japan our fan I was. You know, for me it was for at least for me it was like I was a chip Hanauer Jim Lucero fan. So I don't know if people on the West Coast saw it that way, like if you rooted for Ron Jones designs over Jim Lucero designs, but for me, since we had IndyCar here, they always had the March chassis versus the lotus chassis and all those different things. So maybe I saw it a little bit differently but like I rooted for anything jim lucero, bill, that was, that was my thing, you know.

Speaker 2:

And then getting to meet chip, I just thought chip was great and uh, saw him just absolutely destroy some guys, atlas van lines, so they had all atlas van lines race and we put little different flags on the so they could, everybody could tell which was their boat, and chip just absolutely just annihilated this boat. I never seen one torn up that bad and I thought I thought he was gonna cry, like you could tell. He was just the sweetest, nicest guy at that point of my life because he, like he destroyed this guy's boat and the guy didn't care. You know, that's just part of it and yeah, so that was pretty cool. So anyway, yeah, so that's kind of how I got my start into it.

Speaker 1:

And did you continue racing RCs for long or did that switch for you?

Speaker 2:

And did you continue racing RCs for long or did that switch for you? You know I pretty much when I turned 14, got into high school and kind of sports took over and you know I still didn't miss any Thunder on Ohio. I missed one Thunder on Ohio. It was the first year of the Atlas Turbine and I remember if we won on Saturday we didn't have to come back Sunday and we got beat and I was crying. I mean I know that's not a way for probably for a 14 year old, but that's how important my whole year revolved around the Ohio and I was so upset and I just didn't want to go the next day and kind of my dad made me go and the Atlas van lines ran terrible that day so it was kind of it probably good I didn't go. But you know, at about age 14, I stopped racing those but I do think I want to get back into it. A buddy of mine, mike McIntosh, races the 110th scale. Do you guys have 110th?

Speaker 1:

scale. Yeah, I race with him. He races, I think, all 1 all one seventh scale now, but he used to race 110 scale. Yeah, and he's.

Speaker 2:

He's building quite a few boats, yeah oh my gosh, you know he, he worked on a number of the crews when I was just starting. We got to be good friends. Uh, he built some beautiful boats and I love, I love to see the pictures of the stuff that he, he sends it's. It's really cool, the electric boats. You guys turn left in those things, don't you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and the scale 110th and 17th scale they turn left like the real boats. There's still the 1-8 scale, Like in your area, I think. They race 1-8 scale and they race the opposite direction. They turn right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they still do. But we still what my son and I will every year, we'll go out to that um, a good friend of mine, carl graff. Um is kind of the really good racer around here and uh, we go out to see his boats. He paints boats for a lot of guys, uh, even out on the west coast. So I'm still a little bit involved, kind of on the fringe, but I, I still like it, like I I probably will get back into it someday. I don't know. I'm still kind of racing now with the other one and I've got three kids in school, so it's it's a little bit tough right now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah well after after the interview. If you want to talk more, I can. I can help you out. Yeah, absolutely see, if I can help you out? Yeah, absolutely See if I can help you out.

Speaker 2:

Well, and I've kind of talked to Mike a little bit about I'm going to probably come out to Tri-Cities this year and get some more information on some boats and stuff.

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah Well, I usually race over on Saturday at the pond, so you'll have to come over and check it it out only been over there once like and it was so cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a fun race.

Speaker 1:

It just gets so hot over there and there's no wind because well, the only wind really comes off the river and it's.

Speaker 2:

It's just really hot in the pond well, that's the problem, is any chance you get to get rest there, you got to take it. So, especially all right.

Speaker 1:

Well, you got out of rc, rc, hydroplanes, and you got into sports, but you have the love of hydroplanes still. How did you connect the dots to make a jump into being involved with hydroplane racing?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a great question. So actually, so Ed Cooper was my seventh and eighth grade of US history and world history, or vice versa. I think we did world historyth grade, us history and world history or vice versa. I think we did world history then US history. Anyway, ed was my teacher. He always had pictures of boats hanging, just not hydroplane boats. Ed's into all kinds of boats.

Speaker 2:

I didn't really put it all together but I guess back when I was younger I had saw him. I had seen him down there with I think it was yeah, it was with Bill and Graham's boat, the Kentuckiana Pave, and I looked down there I was like, oh my God, that's Mr Cooper and I was probably nine, ten years old and he didn't know who I was then. But I knew who he was, obviously because he was a schoolteacher. And when I got into school I was just so happy that I got in for a teacher because I was like you know, I could somebody else that was into this and yeah, so that's kind of you know, I made that connection and we talked about you know the boats a lot.

Speaker 2:

I guess when they built the Chet's Music Shop in 84, I think he would bring pictures and show me. I couldn't believe that they had a chance to have Ron Jones build a boat and they had Stoddaker build a boat for them. That was like unbelievable to me. And they had Stoddaker build a boat for them. That was unbelievable to me. They could have had this latest state of the art and I think Jim Sadam said he felt that Les Stoddaker was due.

Speaker 1:

He said he's due to come up with something good.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, Ed was shaking his head about that, but it was a cool-looking boat and it ran okay. But it really would have been cool if they could have got a nice jones boat and seen what they could have done with that right, but yeah, so yeah, that's uh, that's how it started, uh, as far as knowing him.

Speaker 2:

And then in 88, when he had bought the uh prodelco and I'm really not sure who he bought that from If he bought it from Mark Evans or Wumer, I don't know. I get different stories. So, but whatever, two of my friends, dennis and Daniel Wright, lived closer to Ed and they said, hey, he pulled this boat down into his driveway we need to go down and see it. And I had just graduated from high school and pulled in the driveway and I never left. Like I just never left. I just completely fell in love with it, uh, and just did whatever. I was, you know, first week there, I was just sweeping up. Then we built that thing outside uh, he didn't have the big shop and oh, yeah, I didn't realize that.

Speaker 2:

We built that thing outside underneath some tarps and two a frames and it we just had the best luck.

Speaker 2:

It was like 45 straight days of like decent weather, wasn't too hot, it was, I mean, it was just perfect. It rained a few days, but for the most part, yeah, we built that thing out there, you know, and it's something I've heard other guys talk about. So I was like sweeping up parts and you know, by the second week I was actually using hand tools because I had that ability. You know, from just being in a shop building RC boats, a lot of that does translate, and you probably know that too, A lot of the skills translate.

Speaker 2:

To the fourth week I was mixing high saw. I was right next to Mitch putting stuff in and they trusted me to, you know, start building stuff on my own. So, just, you know, my parents were great and they let me do it and they, you know, they obviously knew ed from him being my teacher, so they trusted him, you know, so I would be. I was there day and night. For you know, I forget how many days. It was 45, 50 days. I've got a vc. I need to watch the vhs tape like some, some guy come by and did a vhs tape of every day that it was there and how it really dressed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, wow that'd be cool to see yeah, if I get that, I'll send it out to you.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, I'd love to see that I'm gonna make a copy of it and I'll send it to you. But yeah, it was cool, you know, um, but you know, like, like I said, we just I he brought it there and I just I never left. And know, still to this day I go see Ed, you know, at least probably once a month. But yeah, you know, we've just become lifelong friends. It's been one of the greatest things that ever happened to me.

Speaker 1:

So did a majority of his crew come from his classroom then, or did anyone else come from his classroom?

Speaker 2:

There is my childhood friend, aaron Farr. Yeah, he came from there. There was a guy named Dennis Wright, daniel Wright, I don't know if you know Dennis Wright or Daniel Wright, but Dennis he races a 2.5 now and he still is pretty active in the models. His brother, daniel, was a very, I guess, very good programmer and he got hired right out of high school to do programming so he was busy with that and he didn't really do it. But yeah, and there was another you know just a few guys. There wasn't really a lot of students. There was a couple teachers. There was a teacher, mike Andrew, that did almost the woodwork for us, and a guy, rick LaGrange, who was actually my basketball, my JV basketball coach and actually offensive coordinator at my high school. He was, he helped us. So there was a little bit of that, but most of it was friends that he had made from Madison and you know things like that and you know later guys he met like Bill Fritz. He brought on later, you know, on the circuit.

Speaker 2:

But you know, there was a good mix of just kind of local guys that I maybe was a friend of that I brought in, like Aaron Farr and guys that he knew, gary Turner, guys like that, and his father, obviously a senior, and a combination of just I don don't know, just a mix of mix. Mix of mix of people. Yeah, they kind of wandered in and if they fit in with us, well, they stayed, if they didn't, they just kind of wandered off.

Speaker 1:

so yeah, well, that's a fun sense of community that he had there. Then he had he had a group of you know from his school area and then his friends and whatnot come together. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know, and that's the first thing is like, cause you're a school teacher. It's like the first thing is like seeing a teacher in a pair of shorts. I was like, wow, that was weird. And then you're hearing a school teacher cuss, you know. And then you know just different things that you're not used to seeing school teachers. Do you know? My wife's a school teacher and uh, yeah, so it's. You know, you see them in a different light and especially back then, you know, back in the 70s, you, you know, they were like way up on a pedestal, you know. And then, um, yeah, so it was just a cool deal to get to meet, you know, and actually become friends with like ed cooper is my teacher and mike andre and yeah, and become like really close friends with those guys.

Speaker 1:

It was really a really a neat deal well, maybe you can help me out with this, because, you mentioned, I am a school teacher and I've been this for a while. How the hell did he afford a hydroplane as a school teacher?

Speaker 2:

I can't't figure this out yeah, first off, ed is very intelligent, you know, and I think that's that's a given and that's a good question, because I've asked him that you know and the answer that I get is and I and I believe him, is that you know, when he bought the Tempest from Chuck Hickling, he bought that at a time when actually the money was pretty good in the sport and he had some Allisons and stuff that he had bought and his father had put in a little bit of money and I don't know the exact, you know. Let's just say the initial investment was $50,000 to $80,000. I don't know what it was and I'm sure Bill and Graham probably helped him out a little bit but knowing how tight Graham was, he probably didn't help him out a whole lot. But he was very good at knowing what he could do and he got some good help from Ron Snyder. Ron Snyder came down and helped him with the boat and getting it lined out. But he brought that boat here and again did it in his driveway. I guess it ran when Chuck had it. It had a Merlin in it and he changed it to an Allison which everybody told him it won't work. The motor spins the wrong way, it'll never turn blah, blah, blah. Well, kind of disproved that.

Speaker 2:

And you know, in that in that era when he had that, like it paid if you were consistent and you started and finished, like he said, that thing was a money-making machine because it just started and finished. They didn't try to do things that they couldn't do. They had no intentions of winning races, they just needed to qualify, start and finish and they made quite a few finals. Uh, they picked up you know little sponsors here and there. Uh, they had a really, uh, you know, a bare bones crew. I think it was probably joe lunsford, ed and, uh, his father.

Speaker 2:

I mean I don't know of anybody else that helped Davey. Oh, he puts on the race in Madison. I can't remember David's last name. Anyway, he puts on the vintage event in Madison. They called him Pigpen back then, but now I know his name, his name's David, but I can't remember his last name. Anyway, so he had a pretty bare-bones crew and they went to races that made sense for them and he just built his program up over time. But yeah, I mean he just said that thing was a moneymaker that.

Speaker 2:

Tempest boat. Okay, and when we built the 88 boat he had invested in, obviously the biggest investment was the boat. But then we bought three sets of injections and Bill Cantrell had made a lot of that stuff, bill bought the.

Speaker 2:

Hilburn injection for the Allison and he made some. Probably the biggest thing is he had a lot of free help, like a lot of, but you know, you know what. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, but no, yeah, I mean. But you know, you get that free help and a lot. You know, and I see this in other teams and I hear other crew guys because, you know, I talked to the other crew guys and they complained about the owners, this, that and the other.

Speaker 2:

Um, and ed wasn't perfect by any means, but, uh, he was pretty darn close to it, uh, but he made the environment there conducive to like people wanted to be there. You know we weren't getting paid, even though, like, he took care of me because I was a kid. Uh, you know, he would give me some extra money here and there and make sure I wasn't starving. And you know, and he was really good with the per diem and everything like that, the hotels we always stayed in nice places, but he was really good at hanging on to talent, knowing, you know, finding out about a person, knowing what they were good at. So when you went to the shop, you were working on something that you wanted to work on. And yeah, he just made it a fun environment, like we always, you know, usually here, I know, I think back on the West Coast the teams tend to work through the week, you know, and nights, so they'll have crew nights and things like that, but on the East Coast it it's really it's crew weekend. You know, we most of the guys would would show up on the weekends and he was always really good about having jobs lined out for everybody, having a goal. We would all eat together, whether that would be barb would make sandwiches, his wife would make sandwiches and bring him down the hill, or we would, uh, you know, go to the local tavern or whatever and have.

Speaker 2:

But, like he just made it a really fun environment and he, you know, to his credit, he was, we hung on to the same people for 30 years and by the time we built that boat we had one of the top two or three crews in the circuit. As far as experience, I mean, we were, we were really good. But yeah, you know, I would say he was able to do it just from. You know, he kind of got lucky in the sense that he didn't really hurt that Tempest boat and it start and finished and he made a lot of money you know, pretty decent money with it.

Speaker 2:

When he decided to jump up to the 88 boat we call it the Mitch boat he just made some good decisions. We had good sponsors, we went to races that we knew we could make money at. Uh, you know, by the time 2000,. 2003 rolled around like we knew how much it costs per lap. So, yeah, we took a lot of grief for not going to races and everything, but there was a lot of. You know, he just couldn't go to races that he couldn't make money at that's really.

Speaker 1:

It's really impressive to me. I didn't think much of it as a kid but now that I am in a teacher role, I mean just makes me really think about what you've said. There's finding the talent and nurturing that talent to grow. Uh, makes me think about talks I've had with coaches at schools about, you know, finding that talent, nurturing that to develop that talent. So interesting to see that teacher mindset in that team from what Ed did and where he started.

Speaker 2:

I mean even just like the truck. Like he taught me how to drive a truck and I'm a terrible truck driver but like he taught me how to do it and he did it in a way that wasn't like he never demeaned anybody, like if you did something wrong. It was that teacher mentality, like he didn't demean you, he would like find a positive and turn it around and you know, and I'm just so grateful to him Like he taught me so much growing up and just outside of the boat racing, just being a man and being a father and everything you know. He just just an absolutely great human being. Yeah, and even though I don't race with the team anymore, like we're still best, like best of friends, like we you know, I can't, I can't say enough nice things about it. He's just a great guy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. Well, all the stories I've heard definitely, definitely told me that same. My dad had a lot of great things to say about him. He loved your father.

Speaker 2:

Anytime, anything your dad was working on came to Evansville. They came to our shop. They needed to work there. They were coming there. Your dad was just such a cool guy. Thank you, like you was just such a cool guy and thank you, yeah. So yeah, just like you said, just a great person.

Speaker 1:

Well let's get back to that mitch boat and I know you helped out a lot when building that boat in 88 and then did and you started on the crew then with the team yeah.

Speaker 2:

So in 88 I uh that now this is crazy, because this is crazy how the sport has changed. So in 88, like I built a lot of that. You know what that helped and I was there every day, sweeping up, holding till, doing whatever you know, all day, all night, spent many overnighters there and everything. And I got a pit pass for it. Right, got a pit pass to the first race and that was it.

Speaker 2:

I think the only thing I did was go down and help put the wing on, and then I was up in the stands with my girlfriend now my wife and we watched the race and then, when it was done, I went right back down to the shop and worked on it, because you kind of had to earn your way onto the team. And then in 89, I did all the east coast races. Uh, I'll never forget. When I fixed my lap, they were waiting for me to do the last fiberglass work so I could pull out of the driveway to go to tri-cities in 89 and they went there and ed just didn't have the money to bring me out because it didn't make sense.

Speaker 1:

And uh, well, he didn't have a money to bring me out because it didn't make sense. Well, he didn't even have a sponsor for the Tri-Cities race, I don't think.

Speaker 2:

No, they had this company called. Well, it was two things. So Seco Aviation. He kept begging them just like, give me an extra couple thousand, I'll put the name on it, yeah, and they wouldn't do it. And then even they approached was it the circus? Lost a rudder there, right right. He went to Mr Bennett and said hey, just give me a couple thousand, I'll put the circus name on there, you can get the points or whatever. How are they ever going to work it out? And they didn't want to do it and wound up winning the race. And what's crazy about that is I didn't know they want it till he got home. Like I had no idea that we had won that race until he had gotten home. That's crazy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's such a different world back then than it is today. You would have been streaming it at home, you would have known instantly today what happened, but back then, no internet, not as much coverage, I think my I think my brother might have told me like, hey, ed won the race.

Speaker 2:

And I was like, yeah, you know, we were actually on a little bit of a heater there, like we had gotten third madison, second in syracuse right before that. So the race before we left was syracuse and we, the boat was running really well and the other guys were doing a lot of stupid stuff and like we got on a heater there. So we yeah, it was really cool, just real quick. So I do remember Ed Sr at the Madison, I think we had gotten a third or second, I can't remember.

Speaker 2:

Anyway, we had done really well, it was podium finish and so, you know, he was giving up and giving the giving the talk to everything and you know, ed was, you know everybody wasn't a dry eye in the place because everybody, you know, was so happy for ed and was talking, you know, and he had I'll never forget he said some nice things about me which I was like hey, man, this is really cool, is that a urc banquet? And they got my name mentioned. I thought that was really cool. And then, uh, ed senior got up and he gave he used to do the best speeches and he looked at bernie little. And he said uh, bernie, there's no. Uh, let me see exactly how he said he goes. There's no shame in finishing behind the Cooper's Express, or something to that effect.

Speaker 2:

Like Bernie used to always tell you know, because like, hey, you know there's no shame getting second to the Miss Budweiser, well, we had beaten the Miss Budweiser that day and he goes, or anyway he goes. Yeah, you know, there's no shame finishing behind the Cooper's Express. That was pretty funny. But yeah, ed Sr was just a character.

Speaker 1:

Alright, well then, you didn't go on West Coast in 89. Did they bring you on full-time after that?

Speaker 2:

Full-time in 90,.

Speaker 2:

Ed came back. He's like hey, I really need help Full-time. We had built a big shop and sponsors were getting better, we picked up DLC and some other things, and he actually probably shouldn't tell people this but like he had paid me a little bit of money on the side every week, you know, because I was there basically full-time at that time. I actually played football in college, so if I didn't have football workouts or whatever, I was at the shop doing stuff I wasn't supposed to do. I probably wasn't doing my workouts and wasn't eating right and everything. I was at the shop every day.

Speaker 2:

I was a full-time crew member in 1990. That was when you had to get a CDL. I think it was in 90. You had to get a commercial driver's license, okay, and so I got grandfathered in because I had a chauffeur's license, and so Ed and I studied for the test together and we went down and took the test and got our CDLs. So I was a CDL truck driver horrible truck driver, I mean. But I was a CDL truck driver, horrible truck driver, I mean. But I was like I had my hazmat rating and all these different ratings and everything. So I thought that was cool. So I actually hadn't even really driven the truck and I was a professional truck driver and yeah, I drove cross country with him in 90 to. Every race went everywhere. Wow, amazing, yeah.

Speaker 1:

To every race, went everywhere. Wow, amazing. Yeah, that just seems wild to me to be driving one of those rigs, pulling the boat behind you.

Speaker 2:

At 20. I was 20 years old. I was actually, yeah, 20 years old. But the coolest thing, as a geography teacher too, was, like I learned all about the geography of the United States, how everything slopes and what this did and what all that. And, yeah, it was amazing. You know, he was just always teaching, you know, and I didn't realize that until I got older, but like, and still to this day. So Ed would take my son, like even at races when they got older, my son Mitch, he would like to sit up front with Ed when he drove and Ed would be. You know, here's these mountains. This is why they look like that. I was like man, that is so cool that, like I've heard this before and like now he's telling my son that's pretty neat, that's cool.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is cool, that's fun, yeah, yeah. Well, I talked to you earlier and you went to college and you got an engineering degree. Is that correct? Yeah, and how did that come into play?

Speaker 2:

How did you help the team out with your knowledge on your engineering degree? So as I went through my classes in school, you know I always had to find for me learning was I had to find something relative that made sense to me. And so, just like, when I got to thermodynamics in college in engineering, well, the ADI system, that's thermodynamics, so that made sense to me, so I could kind of correspond Just all the different things involved with thermodynamics and engines and things like that, when we got to the systems, my systems classes, that's race pack stuff, that's data acquisition, I get that Okay, so I can parallel that. When we got the fluids, that's, you know, bodies and ground effect, that's stuff flowing through the air and and that made sense and and and, even like the flows of the pumps and the flows of the, you know, the fuel and the bypasses, that really helped me understand how that was, uh, strength materials, mechanics of solids, that was all about, uh, the different materials, just like and especially the propellers, knowing that, you know, when we first started we used the cast mercury wheels, and then understanding why those weren't as good as the you know the Ronnie Brown wheels that were made from a forging, that were absolutely works of art and beautiful.

Speaker 2:

And you know, one of the biggest things, that I had a class called Finite Element Analysis which is basically taking a computer and it solves structural simulation, so like you put loads on propellers and things like that. It really used that a lot, especially in the new boat. It has used a lot of that. But probably the biggest thing that sticks out to me was and Dave Vilwock had told me this a long time ago was that the biggest load on a propeller is just the inertial loading of it going 10,000 RPMs, which that doesn't make, you know, and I thought about that and I'm like, well, that kind of makes sense. But you know, propellers always seem to break for us at at the apex of the corner when it's under the biggest load.

Speaker 2:

That's when it always breaks, so there's, gotta be, you know, but if you do the functional simulation, so if you put the loads on a propeller, it is so you spend that thing up to 10 000 rpms. If it will live through that, if you can get it to live through that, then it's going to make it Interesting. And yeah, you know, and that was something that I didn't really understand and you know, and Vilwa kind of told me that before I'd even taken that class and the, you know, just the, I mean it's 20 times the load of just it spinning up. And I just remember, you know, when we first started they, we had propellers break, they started making them beefier and adding more to them and they broke even worse, broke even faster, and that was because of that inertial loading thing. So, um, I know I went a little bit off topic there, but that was interesting that's.

Speaker 2:

That was one of the coolest things that we ever, that we ever came out of that. And then you know so, when we started kind of designing our own stuff and but even though we didn't make it, we told people what we wanted. We knew the thicknesses and stuff. We want it and actually I would try to run that through some of the finite element stuff so that you know if I could get the surface files. We'd run it through there and see if they'd spin up and not fly apart. And that was probably one of the biggest benefits. And then another big thing we did is just using dynamics and differential equations and all the math classes, differential equations and all the math classes was.

Speaker 2:

I used that because, like in differential equations, you have velocity and acceleration and stuff like that. So I had developed this timing charts, these timing charts, so that when Mitch or Jimmy, you know at that time, were out there at any point, we would know how fast. You know if they, if we were at the in the back, shoot halfway up and there were three minutes left to go, I could tell them exactly how fast to go. To make you know if. If the acceleration time at the entrance of the second turn was 22 seconds. I could tell them, if you go 85 mile an hour from here around out, you can make the start. So and they and they work, they work dead on uh, and I had sent you a couple of those yeah, yeah, I got to look through those.

Speaker 1:

It's pretty incredible.

Speaker 2:

All the, all the resources there, all the numbers you have, yeah, it's really cool if, if you go to that, uh, it's that racing game, uh, it's online.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, hydrosyn yeah so my son got the hydrosome and so I said, well, let's try that, you know and do the time. That thing is dead on, really dead on. Accurate matter of fact, when dylan runny got the um job to drive for the madison, he had asked me some things. I said, well, first thing you need to do is get in the gym. That's like the best, and Dylan's an athlete, so that wasn't a problem and I said I would highly recommend getting on Hydro Sim and practice starts.

Speaker 2:

The accelerations aren't exactly the same as like, for example, at Tri-Cities. I think it's 19 seconds from lane one to the entrance. We've got to be at the exit at like 10 seconds or something like that. The accelerations aren't exactly the same. But going around the course, like I can my son, like we would just practice. So he would go out and say now, and I would look at where he's at San Diego, you're on the front stretch at this time, go 90 mile an hour and you'll hit the start and it and it works like it works every time. Well, um so and those courts, I, you know, I think I'd given those to andrew. Uh, I think andrew has a copy of them. Maybe pyro has a copy I think maybe py, maybe Pyro doesn't, I can't remember Well.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to post those in the bio. No, I'm joking, oh, I don't. Well, yeah, I probably shouldn't. I'm joking.

Speaker 2:

You know now with the starts, with them trolling, it's not as big of a deal, but you know, that's where you know when a lot of that stuff came out of, actually, when they were trolling. I don't know what they've done to the turbines that can make them spin up so fast now. So we used to. If you had a turbine down coming out of the exit, if you had it trolling like they couldn't get the thing up, yeah, but now they are up at top speed. I don't know what they've done, but they, you know we used to have a huge advantage there and we don't know what they've done, but they, they. You know we used to have a huge advantage there and we don't anymore. But when we did have that advantage I mean we we would get to the inside just about any time we wanted. But what we found was that all of the motors that we lugged and say that we did the trolling like the turbines do every one of them lost the bottom end.

Speaker 1:

Every single one.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yep, every one of them lost the bottom end, every single one. Yep, okay, yep. And like every propeller that we had that would bend through, that had broken every shaft like the whole drive, we lost gearboxes that we've never lost before and it was all due to that trolling stuff because, like, the hardest part on that whole drive shaft is from zero to 100. 120 is when they getting up and that's when the most violent accelerations take place.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

It makes me think to go back to my models. This last year I was experimenting with some aluminum props that came out of China.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, yeah and they're really fast, really great stuff, and I modified them a little bit to work better. But I started losing props within the first lap of the heat and I think it was because I was going so slow and I would punch it In electric boats. It was instant power basically, and I think they just winged it enough to crack one of the blades and I would lose a blade before the first lap. So I could only get through race and a half, or maybe two, with one run propeller, yeah, before I would lose it. So just what, and it doesn't make sense.

Speaker 2:

I mean it because, like vilwok used to tell me that too, like the, the hardest time on a propeller is from start to getting them up and going. And if you think about the equation, force equals mass times, acceleration. The greatest force is when you're accelerating. The mass is a change, you know, and so that would make sense, that it would. Probably that's when it's getting the most violent, you know, forces put on it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and, and it's true, like we started losing, like you can, we mapped it all back to every trolling start. We made it just destroyed stuff. So that's why we stopped doing it. And that's another reason. Like the timing charts really helped us in that we couldn't go that slow. And that whole 80 mile per hour thing, that was a little bit from us be like we're saying we can't make that start. And other guys were saying, yeah, we're starting to hurt equipment. And, uh, actually jim codling knew that I was doing these timing charts and he came to me he was like, throw me a speed that you think is good, and I think I threw 90 mile an hour at him. People complained, so I think they wound up at 80. Yeah, that was kind of the evolution of that Okay, all right, well interesting.

Speaker 1:

Well, your time was at Cooper. You had a lot of different drivers that joined the team and found some success. I was wondering if you had a favorite to work with.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think I know the answer.

Speaker 2:

Well, I don't know, it might surprise you. It's like seeing who your favorite kid is, I guess.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of hard, but obviously Mitch and Jimmy it would be. I would say kind of hard, but obviously mitch and jimmy, you know it would be. I would say kind of an even thing there. Um, you know, because actually with this new boat jimmy's actually been with it longer and you know, and has driven more heats with it and yeah, um, and jimmy's probably the best friend that I have in the world right now. I mean, he is just an awesome sweetheart of a guy and just has we've done a lot of things together. But you know, just if I can think back in the order of drivers that we had, so Mitch, he's definitely definitely one one, a, you know he's really good, smooth, calculated.

Speaker 2:

Uh, the thing about Mitch it was he's so good at is he was very good at keeping the momentum up. He understood that I have to keep the momentum up. I can't do things to scrub speed, um, and he knew things were going to happen like a half a lap before they happened. So, um, things were going to happen like a half a lap before they happened. So, um, I remember we were back in the 89 90. They used to have these piston shootouts, so it was basically us and the medicine would go up. And uh, the first one was in, I think it was in syracuse, and we had that one one, uh, and we lost a mag and uh, which kind of sucked. And then the second one was in Kansas City and we were like dead, even with Mike and Mitch, you just seem just back way out of it for no reason. And this was before we had radios and we didn't like, we didn't have any idea what the heck was going on. You know, yeah, or maybe we were supposed to have radios and they didn't work or whatever, but we didn't know what was going on.

Speaker 2:

So he came back in and Mike had actually cooked the motor, so we had won it. So they won the one. You know, we lost the one we should have won and they lost the one they should have won. But we came back in and I was like Mitch, why did you back off? Like they should have won? But we came back in and I was like mitch, why, why did you back off? Like we had him. You know he goes, he goes. I could smell it, he goes, I could smell their motor just going away and he goes. I was gonna push our stuff and wow, I'll be darned like he, just like he just was very uncanny for just seeing stuff a half a lap before it happened and yeah, um, yeah, and just one of the nicest you know, and I actually, you know, I named my son after Mitch.

Speaker 2:

Just I can't say enough good things. I still talk to Mitch at least once a month. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's why.

Speaker 2:

another one was Todd Yarling, and I think he he was only with a short time with the team he drove, kind of when Mitch did the Coors thing and then Mitch had another thing he had done or couldn't make it, and Todd, you know, and the thing with Todd is like we never really asked him to do a lot, just kind of start and finish. But the thing about him is that he's smart man. I did not realize how he would have been an excellent crew chief or team manager. Um, you know, he's from the saluda bottoms over there near madison, you know. So probably in the way he talks, you know he's got that big southern draw.

Speaker 2:

But you know, and sometimes he maybe doesn't sound that intelligent, but he is, off the charts, one of the smartest people ever met. Like I always wondered, maybe if he was the guy that could have been the person that got the Exide or the Formula deal, like, or something, one of those deals that came through, one of those one-offs, miracle things that came together. Like I would have really liked to have seen what he could have done because he was very intelligent. I think his calling was probably as a crew chief or team manager, but he wound up driving. The next one was Rick Christensen.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

We didn't really ask him to do a lot and we really didn't give him much to drive, so it's hard to critique. But he's a nice guy. I see him. He comes to the races. If I'm in Tri-Cities or Seattle I'll see him. I still have a good relationship with him. But I don't know how good of a driver he is. Your dad would probably know better than me. I I don't know how good of a driver is. Your dad would probably know better than me, I think, or would have known Right.

Speaker 1:

I think he drove for Jones some, but yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he drove for Jones Leland and for Cooper for short stint, didn't he drive that great big Gentry turbo thing? Yeah? That boat was enormous.

Speaker 1:

It was like 34 feet long or something like ridiculous like that. Yeah, international news, international news yeah, I mean anything. He flipped it in seattle somehow that thing was big.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he just told me that thing was huge. But yeah, yeah, that that boat we built was not that great tubby, was not that good. But uh, anyways, I don't good guy, just I don't know.

Speaker 1:

And then I think the next one was was mark weber yeah, he had mark and then mike weber, he had the brothers yeah.

Speaker 2:

So mark, at the time mark would came on, uh, I think we still had tubby and I. That was a deal where I was finishing up school, uh, I was coaching football and in the process of getting married, all kinds of different things, and I just wasn't around much. There was a year or two that I wasn't around much and I wasn't around much then. But I know Mark, he's a great guy. He obviously is talented. He drove for the Budweiser and did some pretty cool stuff other places. It's nice to see him out in the Miss US now I get to see him at some races, so that's cool. And then Mike, I was around Mike quite a bit. Mike's a very talented driver.

Speaker 2:

I disagree with him on just about 99% of everything that comes out of his mouth, but he's a really good friend. But it's very funny. Just about 99% of everything that come out of his mouth, but he's a really good friend, but just as it. But it's very funny. So he will always anything. Politics, lebron, whatever. We are just opposite spectrums, but it just like. It just shows like, and especially nowadays, like you can totally disagree with somebody on stuff, but you can still be good friends and that's a. Mike Weber is a great example of that, because we don't agree on anything. Funny story about Mikey when we had my daughter, he had sent a set of Hello Kitty permanent markers as a gift and my daughter marked her whole body up with them. I mean face and everything. So, uh, whenever alexis has a daughter or has a child, that kid is going to get a set of sharpies of every color and I'm sending it to him.

Speaker 1:

So so that's kind of been a running joke between Mike and I will pay back. Oh yeah, but he is just an exceptional human being.

Speaker 2:

I I love Mike to death. Uh then, obviously the last one's, jimmy. Um, and I can't say Jimmy and I have turned out to be. He's my best friend. I mean we talk all the time Our wives are good friends. I mean his kids are like my kids. I mean we talk all the time Our wives are good friends. His kids are like my kids. I mean Bobby is like my son and I'm just so proud of that kid and what he's accomplished. And he's done it the hard way, done everything himself, you know, and he's an extremely talented driver.

Speaker 2:

You know, mitch was more calculated and smooth than Jimmy we had. You know, mitch was more calculated and smooth than Jimmy's. Just that GP aggressive, reactive, just will get in and drive the snot out of anything you give him. I don't remember was it 2006,. Him and Steve David in the Gold Cup. They raced each other. I don't know if you ever saw that heat, but they were neck and neck.

Speaker 2:

We were outside and as we shedded that 80 pounds per lap, the boat just kept getting faster and faster and jimmy got him and that was just that's. That's typical jimmy king. He does not give up, um, I mean, we had was I can remember three races. We had a, uh, broken shaft in nashville. Had that won? We came from the trailer position. Had it won? Yeah, the worst one was Tri-Cities and nobody really knows about this one, but we had worked our ass off, got in the inside lane and we're going to put the hammer down on everybody. And we had a system in the boat that if we dropped below a certain speed or manifold pressure, the adi would shut off. It failed. So we came up for the start to hit it and it was just flooded, just water in all the cylinders. That's the one that hurt the most because we were getting ready to put it on them and didn't do it.

Speaker 2:

And then, uh, evansville 2009,. We were winning by, you know, a quarter of a lap and over the form of the boat, and broke a propeller. Broke a propeller that maybe had 30 laps, 40 laps on it. So he deserves better than he's gotten in the Unlimiteds, but he's the. To me, he's the greatest GP driver in the world, always has been, always will be. He's back in the GPs now when we give him something to drive, he's going to be pretty cool Between Jimmy and Mitch, obviously, those two are the two that stick out the most to me, definitely.

Speaker 2:

When I think Cooper and Cooper Racing and Cooper Express, think of, definitely think of mitch evans and jimmy king yeah, I mean just it was really cool to see the progression of how mitch when first had I mean we were just stuck trying to start and finish, we didn't get to race that much and everything that he learned at the geronimo because that was a big learning curve for him and he'll tell you you know he messed up a few times there and things he learned, I mean he was just flawless. If you look at on, you know, cause now we have that, that acquisition. If you look at his corners and stuff, he was. So I mean he just was so repeatable in the things that he did. I mean he just was so repeatable in the things that he did. Yeah, and he was very easy on equipment, very easy.

Speaker 2:

I think we didn't I don't know that we lost a bottom end the entire time that he drove the 2003. Oh, wow, I don't think we did Wow. But we had some good stuff too. We had one motor that was 3,800 horsepower, that yellow motor, and then we had another motor, janet, that came from Al Thorson, that we put these really light pistons in it and it would accelerate. It wasn't as much horsepower but the acceleration was just out of this world. And we use two motors all year. Wow, it's crazy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah, that's impressive.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I mean some great talent that you've worked with over the years. But you've also I think you've gotten to visit many different places around the US and Canada and crewing for different teams, and I know you crewed for many years for H1 series and you're crewing now for HRL team. I want to know I'm always curious to know people have visited, because I've actually never been out to the east coast when I was oh, really.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I didn't know that I asked my dad one year if I could go out back east and I think I was in college at the time or something he said no, you can hit the west coast side. I don't know what that was about. I never got to ask him why that was. What's your favorite sites for H1 series? Your favorite site for HRL series?

Speaker 2:

I'd say my favorite site back in the day was Miami by far. I love Miami. I'm a big dolphins fan, big any, I'm big dolphin hurricane or hurricanes heat, all that different stuff, but oh, I love miami and been going down there for a long time. But that race site is was unbelievable. It was. The spectators were right on top of it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, grand stands that they could sit in, yes, I was just there.

Speaker 2:

My son and I were just there. We go down every year to watch the dolphins and training camp and then go to some Orleans games. We were just there this summer and I parked like, took pictures. I'll send them to you. But we took pictures of the old Miami Marine Stadium and it's so sad because it's there. It's just graffitied up. I mean there's nothing really changed and it's just a bunch of boats moored out in the bay. But it's beautiful down there, absolutely beautiful. We used to race in May. It was nice, we'd go down there and it was nice and sunny. They had beautiful hotels. By far that's my favorite, probably san diego and tri-cities after that. But yeah, miami hands down my favorite race ever. And then obviously san diego is cool just because of san diego.

Speaker 1:

you know, being from the west coast, we're not really used to seeing stuff like that yeah, yeah, I think the only midwest yeah I think the only drawback is dealing with the salt water, but I mean everything, everything else, just it's beautiful, it's, it's warm, it's it's nice, it's in miami it wasn't as bad because you always went to a salt, you always went to a freshwater.

Speaker 2:

Race after that and you can get righted out. And you know, and I don't know why people thought that that saltwater was easier on the piston engines and the turbines. Because it's just, it's awful, yeah, for everything. But, yeah, I. But you know, back in 88, 89, I didn't care, I could work all day and night, it didn't matter, I didn't care if we had to clean it up, that was okay, but that was my favorite. And then obviously tri-city, just because, uh, I've been out there in a while, but I guess management has changed, but back when I was there, I mean it was so well run with paul parish and john culver, uh, just everything about it, other than it was 115 degrees sometimes out there. Yeah, I've been out there. Yeah, seems like I was there when it was raining and cold one year.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a few off times where it was cloudy and chilly, but it's far in between yeah yeah and there's humidity out there now.

Speaker 2:

Last few times I've been out there, it's like humid now.

Speaker 1:

I don't remember that. Yeah, it used to be so dry. I I don't know if it's because the area is kind of it's kind of a booming area. Now there's more people moving out there and more vegetation, I guess I don't know.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, maybe the irrigation. Irrigation has some humidity in the air, but it's just. It's just. It's like humid and hot there now.

Speaker 1:

It's insane.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I just know that when you go out there you gotta throw a towel over your tools or they'll burn your hands when you go to pick them.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm. I remember my dad telling me a story when you guys raced in not in Phoenix, but it was Arizona, Lake, Havasu. Oh, my God yeah and he left a tool out on the deck and he reached for it and he just threw it in the lake and it was so hot it just burned his hand.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's another place. I'm glad we never went back there. Gosh, that place was. I just remember two things. So I drove, bill Fritz and I drove there and I got to drive over London Bridge, which I thought that wasn't the real London Bridge. Come to find out it is the real London Bridge that you get to drive over, and it was just a bunch of old people Like it was a retirement community, is what it is, because, you know, I saw Lake Havasu Well, it's the girls going wild videos and stuff like that and I was like, well, this is going to be crazy out here. Yeah, well, it wasn't. It's basically a retirement community and it was nice, but it was so rough, oh my God. But it was hot yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, is there any other race sites? You're glad you don't have to go to anymore with H1? Or is it just Arizona?

Speaker 2:

Actually Evansville. I'm glad we don't have to go to Evansville Really and most people love it. But if you're from here you have family wanting pit passes Just dealing with family Not my immediate, not my kids and my wife and stuff and they can do whatever they want. But you got uncles and aunts and friends that you haven't seen and the pit pass thing and we always just sucked in Evansville. We just could never run. Well, I mean, obviously once we did or twice we did, but we just never seemed to really put it together at home. It's just hard and you try and you you know all the sponsors are there from. You know all the, the local sponsors, like Hardy break that did our hoses and just all the people that you know, the vendors around Evansville that helped him out all those years, and you try to do so well and you probably try too hard. But yeah, I'm glad Evansville must be to get paid a couple times, which that's tough too, but yeah that's hard. But like the HRL Valleyfield, that's, my hands down, the best place ever.

Speaker 1:

I've heard it's just like an amazing experience.

Speaker 2:

I've got to get you out there like, yeah, I'd love if you ever get out there, I'll work something out so you get a room or something. That place is, I don't even know what to say. It's probably what Seattle. It reminds me probably what Seattle was years ago, but the people there are, it's just crazy. It's just a big party. When we went there, I think it was a 2006 or I can't remember when it was.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, yeah, somewhere on that yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, uh, I remember like like we didn't wear our crew stuff in the crowds because, like people would, you weren't going to get mobbed or hurt, but like they were kind of on you.

Speaker 1:

Really.

Speaker 2:

But some of the teams like that I remember Perkins and some of the Lumar guys like they had their career uniforms on and all that they wore it in. But like I was married, I wasn't looking to have a, you know, I was just wanting to go out and eat. But yeah, I mean there's a big deal, it's a huge thing there. And if you've never seen it, if you've never seen a GP run in Valleyfield man, you're really missing something. It's just the coolest thing.

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean like seeing videos. It looks like both sides of the lake or river or whatever that is it's full, it is it's full of bodies. Yeah, and I've heard that it's just like nonstop racing all day.

Speaker 2:

Like they have class after class, just ready to get ready to go, yeah, and if you're not ready, you won't race. Yeah, and it's. It's different than apba um, in that, okay, this is if. If it says three o'clock, you're going to run at three o'clock, and if you're one second late, then you're not going to run yeah um, and even if our cranes mess up, it's on you.

Speaker 2:

We're still going to, you know, and they're well, I shouldn't say that If their crane messes up, they'll work with you, but they're pretty hard, like they keep the show going, and that's why they've been successful. Yeah, but yeah, it's a great place and Tonawanda is kind of like that, and up in the niagara river near buffalo, is pretty nice and I can say the worst race I've ever been to in my life is a place called saint felician. I don't know if you ever heard of that, but it's where's that it's six hours.

Speaker 2:

It's six hours north of mont, okay, I believe. And like it doesn't get dark till 11 o'clock at night, 10 o'clock at night, it's crazy. So you're that far north, I guess. Wow, and you know, jimmy and I typically Jimmy and I would room together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And Jimmy is really like he gets up early and he gets going. He's up at 2 o'clock in the morning because the sun's up all of a sudden. He's doing calisthenics. Jesus Christ, jimmy, go back to bed. It's just yeah. But yeah, by far the worst race I've ever been to in my life is St Felician. And the race course is nice and it's really weird because the water's's like a dark, dingy brown, because they do logging up there okay, I guess they float those logs down yeah which just seems that now is it now that I think about that's even worse.

Speaker 2:

Like all those logs float down the water. They can't get them all out, maybe hit something, but anyway, that's awful place, do they still race there no, I haven't raced there in a while.

Speaker 2:

I used to always wonder that Bert would never drive up there. He'd always let his backup driver drive All these teams. All the backup drivers would drive in St Felician. I never could figure it out the one time I went up. I understand Just real quick.

Speaker 2:

Another thing I do remember about St felicia. I think saint felicia is the first time the bobby king's boat that he runs now the white, the white lady, we call it um. It's the first time we really ran it and bobby was out running it and it was on the verge of blowing over, like from how to get going just on its. The nose is way up in the air and bobby never driven a 350 so he didn't know what it felt like. And I just remember tammy, uh, king bobby's mom calling jim while he was out running and uh, she was asking him how it's doing and jimmy's on the phone oh, it looks great, it's just smooth. And like's on the phone oh, it looks great, it's just smooth and like that.

Speaker 2:

And Bobby's just out there, the thing's up all wild. I'm like Jesus Christ, he's going to blow. I'm like just tell him to shut the thing off. Like we got to do something. I just remember that and the radio weren't working right and he was just out there, the thing was on its. I mean it was wild and thank god the the canard broke and we had to quit for the day because, I mean, we would have made a war.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it was crazy, I guess yeah that's all the time we have for this week. Please join us next week as I continue my talk with mike hall. We're going to discuss more about cooper's racing, their new boat that they made and the various drivers that they had and the various drivers that they had over the years, and it's just a fun walk down nostalgic lane, talking about the success that Cooper Racing had and his contributions that Mike Hollis had on that team, and just more about hydroplanes. So what else do you need? Until then, please check us out on social media. We're on Facebook, instagram. We also have our website, roostertaltalkcom, and there you can see all the news and updates for the podcast. I've got more interviews on the way. I've actually conducted three or four other interviews. I'm excited to get those out to you as well. Stay tuned for more information on that. And that's all I've got for this week. So until next time, I hope to see you at the races.