Roostertail Talk

Episode 139: Mike Hall, Part 2

• David Newton • Season 7 • Episode 3

Share episode

Send us a text

Join me as I conclude my interview with Mike Hall, a true veteran of the sport, who takes us behind the scenes of this charismatic community. The episode is filled with Mike's colorful anecdotes. His vivid storytelling paints a picture of a close-knit community where camaraderie and friendship thrive both on and off the water. We explore his technical adventures in building innovative boats and delve into the intricate world of GP racing, where Mike's passion and commitment shine through the challenges of crewing and boat building. This is one episode you don't want to miss.  Enjoy!

Support the show

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

Speaker 1:

Ruchetel Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything about the sport that we all love, Hydroplane racing. I am your host, david Newton, and it's time once again. So sit back, relax and welcome. Rooster Tail, talk, talk. Hello race fans, welcome back. It's episode 139 and today is March 4th 2025.

Speaker 1:

Well, today we're going to conclude my interview with Mike Hall. Last week I got a chance to talk with Mike about growing up in Indiana and how he fell in love with hydroplane racing. He talked about some of his contributions to the sport, talked about the drivers. He's been around with the Cooper's Express and Cooper's Racing Team and today we're going to continue that conversation. He needs to talk more about the characters and the personalities around the sport that he's involved himself with, sharing some great stories and some great insights to that family of hydroplane racing. Because whenever I've talked to someone on this podcast about hydroplane racing, it always goes back to family and that sense of family and friendship, and he's made some great friends over the years and has some great stories to share about that. He'll also talk more about that technical friends over the years and has some great stories to share about that. He'll also talk more about that technical side of the sport and continue to talk about his crewing and what he's currently up to.

Speaker 1:

So let's continue that talk as we conclude my interview with Mike Hall. Well, as a crew member, I know you've visited all the sites and had experiences with that, but you also have had the opportunity over the years to just meet a lot of interesting people. Yeah, and I know some of the people you've worked with, but I don't know everyone. But I'd love to hear some great stories about these people, because I think fans don't always get to hear these fun, fun stories. Uh, being around some of these greats and and characters as well, um, mostly characters.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because they're just people, normal people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, right, yeah yeah, but I have a list of some, some characters here. I was wondering if you could share a story about each one, sure, so first one on my list. I have jamie ald james all.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, probably the nicest human being I've ever met in my life. Just the sweetest, nicest person. Uh, god, I can't say enough good things about jamie. But, um, my good friend, chris, harley and michaelan they saw him the father of the modern three point hydroplane, like they. That's how well respected he is. Um, yeah, just an unbelievable guy. I'd met him a few times when Jim, when Jimmy and Jamie are really good friends, um, and a few times in back in 2015,.

Speaker 2:

Uh, we were racing at Brockville and the three 50 that Roger has was basically the, the three 50. That was the best one in the world for a long time. Uh, hit a log and blew the right sponsor off I think Valley field was. Two weeks later, roger wanted to win Valley field real bad and we had a good shot at it. So I was in Ottawa. I worked for Microsoft. I was in Ottawa working on a job, just happened to be there and saw it happen in Brockville, went to Ottawa, completed my job, flew home, got in my Volkswagen TDI and drove right back to Brockville to Bert's shop and Jamie's shop. Drove right back to Brockville to Bert's shop and Jamie's shop and that's really when I met, got to know Jamie Ald and worked with him.

Speaker 2:

The funniest story I have about him is so if you've ever been in a thrash with these boats, you know that there's highs and lows during that whole time and it was really kind of a team building exercise too. There's highs and lows during that whole time and it was really kind of a team building exercise too. But the funniest thing was we'd been working on that thing for I don't know about a week and we were at the point where all the parts were put together and getting ready. We were probably behind. So we knew we had about two or three all-nighters Weren't going to go to bed for a few nights.

Speaker 2:

About two or three all-nighters weren't going to go to bed for a few nights and it was going to be nothing but grinding, itchy, nasty, dirty work for about two or three days and everybody's a little bit grumpy uh. I'll never forget jimmy was calling me. He called me, uh, and he said you know, hey, man, how's it going. You know, and I'm pretty positive guy and just would usually yeah, it's going good, you know. Typically, as Americans, we always say when somebody says hey how's it going?

Speaker 2:

Like, yeah, it's going great. But I just told him. I was like, hey, listen, jimmy, team morale is low. Dude, we're in the A&W here in Brockville. Jamie's in this corner, bobby's in this corner, bobby's in another corner. My son hasn't talked to me all day. He's in another corner and I'm over here.

Speaker 2:

I was like I don't know if we're going to get this thing done. I mean, we're all pissed off and not mad at each other. God, it's just and it's hot and whatever. But the funniest thing is so if you go back and watch the speech of when Jimmy and we go and win Valleyfield, I don back and watch the speech of when, when jimmy we want and we go and win valley field, I don't know how we did, but we did, we won it. And as you go out and see, in each heat it's got more pain on every time we go out. So we had, you know, started putting more pain on it because everything was still drying. So when jimmy gives the speech, he's like, well, we didn't know what was going to happen.

Speaker 2:

Team morale was low at one point. So that's a really inside joke. So that always cracks me up whenever I hear that. But that's kind of a Jamie All story. It's kind of a Jimmy Jamie, but just an awesome guy. Yeah, I mean, I could do a whole podcast on Jamie, on the stuff that he's taught me. Yeah, just an awesome person, person, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Bill Fritz.

Speaker 2:

Fritzy, yeah, yeah, and I do you know. Did you knew Bill didn't?

Speaker 1:

you yeah. Yeah, I knew Bill. Yeah, because he was he. He had some molds for when he'd scale hydroplanes. My dad worked with him, yeah, for the Budweiser and on some other ones and, um, yeah, he was. He was such a funny guy, you know it's it's sad he just passed away as well, I know, I know.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, world famous bill fritz, that's what we called him, uh, but you know it's it's so funny because he's, he's a really nice guy, but he did, he had a bit of a temper. So when we first met like the first time I met Bill was we were going to drive the tubby to Lake Havasu. So Bill was a truck driver by trade, very good truck driver, yeah, and I was an awful truck driver. So I had driven that 73 International for ed for years. And he bought this freight liner which I'd never driven before. It's a whole different thing, uh.

Speaker 2:

And so fritz was going to teach me how to drive it whenever he got tired. So he, uh, he'd go out there and uh, I'm having trouble getting through the gears because it's, it's just hard. I mean, it's hard to drive a truck and I've got a lot of respect for those because I suck at it and uh, so I'm going through the gears and I can see just getting madder and madder. So I get out, it's his turn to drive. We go on down the road. He just keeps driving and, reluctantly, he gives the wheel back to me a second time and the only thing I'm watching is the pyrometers, like don't get the engine too odd. I'm getting this down the road, but he's not happy with how I'm doing it. All right, so we go out again.

Speaker 2:

So the third time we're in New Mexico he'd had enough of me, like he just totally had it, and he started yelling at me. He's like you know, you don't, you can't drive this truck. And I was like dude, I never told you I could. I'm just doing my best, like you know. If you're upset with me, I'm sorry, I'm trying, I'm getting better. But he wasn't happy.

Speaker 2:

He just kept yelling so I just put it in neutral. I pushed the clutch and I got it in neutral and just slowly pulled off. He goes why'd you pull off? It's like we're gonna go old man right now, because I've had enough and I don't know why I said it.

Speaker 2:

I said I am gonna roll you like a gator when we get out this thing. And so we start looking at each other and this is like 30 seconds of very awkward silence and we both start laughing and from that point on we were like the best of friends. I roomed with bill everywhere I went. It's just, I don't know, he was just, he had a temper, but he, I think it, he had some compassion too and he really knew I was trying. I'm just not a good truck driver, you know, I'm just. You know, and people that can do that, that's really hard to do, but and and I can drive it now, but you know, I was a lot younger then and it was I'd never driven something like that. Yeah, it was hard to do. That's a handful driving while I was so yeah, so that that was that's kind of my bill story. But, like I said, we had a rough start and a great ending also yeah, I, I know you.

Speaker 1:

I want to hear your stories, but I had a couple bill stories I want to show you share with you real quick.

Speaker 1:

um, one is I can't remember what year it was, but you guys had tubby out here in seattle and he was working on an engine that was right by the the gate there and my dad and I were talking with him and he's like, well, well, I'm all done. And he shows me this cup and it's full of these bolts and nuts and I was like, well, don't you need those? He's like well, I got everything together. These are just extra parts. Now, I'm pretty sure he was just joking with me.

Speaker 1:

Oh no, it was a joke, I've heard that before, but at the time I was like holy shit, Is that motor going to survive? What's going on? But then another story I have is he had all these great molds and he didn't want to do.

Speaker 2:

I would have loved a snake nose, yeah.

Speaker 1:

He didn't want to do the RC boats anymore. I think he was tired of dealing with some people. But he sold everything to a friend I have down in Florida, steve Galtieri, and he was trying to learn everything from Bill, and I think he laid up a boat and it flashed wrong and didn't come out right, and so he called up Bill and told him everything that he did. And Bill said, well, do you know what you did? And Steve's like, no, I don't know. And Bill said, well, you fucked up. Okay, bill, but that was a sense of humor.

Speaker 2:

Well, he was the reason that we could even do that boat. Like he knew how to build the molds. So he's the reason that we got started on the new boat. Like we had somebody that knew the molds. But then once he did it, we were like, oh my God, is that easy, yeah, the molds. But then once he did it we're like, oh my god, is that easy, yeah. Then we like I build molds all the time for bmw parts and stuff. Now the stuff that I do on my own, but yeah, but he's bill was like super instrumental in ed's deal yeah, yeah, he, he was, he was, he was a fun guy miss him.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, yeah, all right, uh, scott Rainey or Pyro.

Speaker 2:

Pyro. Yeah, so Scott and I probably started about the same time and though, you know, even though we haven't really raced together, the biggest thing about Pyro I don't really have like great stories about him, but something that's really cool that we bonded over and I think it's really cool is is like we both are disney, we both love disney and uh, so we would always talk and when he, when he married shannon, shannon loved disney too, and that was something that we always had a common. You know, we'd always. You know we're going this year and what are you guys going to do and what? You know, how can you save money here? How, what did you do there? And then we always had that bond. And then now his daughter, emily, is an imagineer, she's in a, she is a engineer at disney, that's cool down in florida and she lives down there, okay, and uh, yeah, so, um, that's kind of a neat thing.

Speaker 2:

And and so actually, after the San Diego race, the last couple of years, we both kind of went up to Disneyland, which I had never been to Disneyland, being from the East Coast.

Speaker 2:

Even though we really don't spend the day with each other, we both go up there that day and you know it's funny, this year I ran into Jay Michael and just wound up, you know, waiting in line with him with with for a couple of rides and even though he's been around a lot of time I haven't really talked to Jay Michael a lot and he seems to be a really nice kid.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, but that you know it's that bond with Pyro has really been over Disney and then here lately he's called me for different structural things and things in the boat that he knows. That I know and I've been helping him with that and I was supposed to fly out there here in a few weeks and help him do some fairly big projects. I'm not going to get into what they are, but I just had some medical things that I can't go out. I'm going to be better soon, but yeah. But yeah, I've gotten to know him pretty well over the last few years and, like I said, just that love of Disney he and I kind of brought us together Fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, bill Cantrell.

Speaker 2:

Bill Cantrell. Yeah, you would have loved to have met that guy. Just the millions of stories we used to go up. I'd love to have met that guy. Just the millions of stories we used to go up, ed and I, when Ed first started that program, whereas now he does everything in-house. He does the cylinder banks in-house, he does everything. But back then we pretty much did the motor assembly in Evansville and all the stuff on the boat. Well, it's not really in Evansville, it's in Posey County, but close enough to Evansville. We did all that here. But in Madison they did cylinder banks. There was a guy named Gary Turner and Ed's dad Cuz we called him Cousin. Ed Cuz would do the cylinder banks and so we would always wind up monthly making a trip up to Madison.

Speaker 2:

And part of that trip to Madison was going up and seeing Bill and Graham and meeting them at the Hereford up on the hill, the little restaurant which you haven't been there so you wouldn't know where it's at. But there's a little restaurant up there. It's got a big steer out in front of it called the Hereford. But one time we went to see Cantrell and Cantrell wasn't going to be able to make it to the Hereford, it was for whatever reason. He was stuck at the house. So we stopped it at at Bill's house to see him and I'll be damned if he did not have a big 50 pound raccoon sitting at the table with him eating breakfast. His name was Joe, the raccoon's name was Joe and, like he would just like was part of the family, was sitting at the table eating off a plate and so, like bill and just you know, bill was the sweetheart of a guy and he was just like, hey, mike, eddie, do you want? Do you want a sandwich? You want me to make something? Dude, that's okay, we're good, we're good, we just ate. Like, even though we hadn't, like I wasn't gonna eat off plates that a raccoon had eaten, I'd still have to get rabies or some crazy thing like that.

Speaker 2:

So that was the coolest thing about him is just like he always had cats around and I'm a big cat guy, I love cats and he raccoons, man, like he had raccoons in the house and, yeah, it's crazy. Like never forget that. Because, hey, do you want me to make you something? And I'm looking, I'm like, hell, no, I don't want you to, but that that was. Uh, I don't know that. That that is funny and uh, I just can't explain it. Yeah, it's just so surreal to see I mean acoon. I mean that thing had to be 50 pounds in the house. I almost started screaming when I came. I was like Ed, there's a. And he even warned me. He was like man, there might be a raccoon or something in the house. And Ed, just he's so full of shit Like I didn't know if that was right or not. But I was a young kid so I kind of believed everything he said at that point. But yeah, I mean Dan, a big raccoon in the house.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wow, mitch Evans.

Speaker 2:

Mitch, yeah, I mean God, I can't think of a story off the top of my head about Mitch. It's just there's so many things and so many things we did together of my head about myths. It's just there's so many things and so many things we did together. Um, um, I mean he. I mean you just interviewed him. You heard some of the stories and probably the funniest and the truest and funniest story I ever heard in my life was the story of, I guess, when norm took a house from somewhere up the hill and he took it down that bridge and it was three foot narrower on one side yeah and you can see the rub marks on the bridge.

Speaker 2:

At least you could. I don't know if the acid rain has taken them off by now, but at least 20 years ago you could see where that thing had rubbed on both sides. Yeah, uh, just the stories it's. It's really not so much Mitch. Mitch is just a mild-mannered, sweet, nice guy, just awesome. You know, do anything for you. Mark's the crazy one. He's probably got more stories, but like, yeah, I mean, most of the stories about Mitch are kind of about Norm as well. I mean, just a great friend and a very underrated driver.

Speaker 2:

You know, I remember the day I used to do all this plane tickets. I remember the day that he said he wasn't going to drive for us anymore. I was just devastated, you know he had, and I was the first one that found out, I guess because I had called him and told him. I was like hey, let's get your tickets ready, cause you know, mike, I just don't think I can do it anymore. I was like, yeah, okay, well, what do you want to fly out to Evansville first? And he's like no, I'm serious, he goes, I'll talk to Ed, you know.

Speaker 2:

And I guess at that moment he just decided he didn't want to do it anymore and I think he might have had a, you know, I know he was really stepping up his marine business and everything and had a lot going and he always told me he never wanted to get hurt in a boat and I just thought he figured it was the right time. Yeah, yeah, and I still talk to Mitch at least once a month and we're going to go out to Mahhogany and Merlot this next year, I think Jimmy King and I, jimmy and Tammy and my wife and his wife, oh, cool, cool.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, have you been out there before?

Speaker 2:

I have been to land several times, but I've never been to mahogany and Merlot. It's a fun it's a fun weekend. I mean, you see a bunch of vintage boats and a bunch of people hanging out, yeah, whereas Troy Holmberg calls it beer and plywood, I think is what he calls it. I don't know if you've heard it called that or not.

Speaker 1:

No, I haven't.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Troy always asks me if I'm coming to beer and plywood and yeah, All right, yeah, I'm going to make it out there. You know, the plan is is Jimmy's got into these wooden boats, the older boats. He's got a I don't know what it is, but like the old wood, Chris crafts and stuff. But he's gotten into that and he's not. Jimmy's retiring from driving. He's not going to drive anymore, so he wants to go out and see those boats. That's his big thing.

Speaker 1:

That'd be cool. Okay, yeah, out and see those boats. That's his big thing. That'd be cool, okay, yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of jimmy, what do you think about jimmy kane?

Speaker 2:

jimmy. He is my best friend in the world. There's no, I mean without a doubt, uh, greatest gp driver in the world. Um, really, I mean he's been through me through thick and thin. You know we've just been great friends.

Speaker 2:

I was kind of going to tell you about that. You know the thing with Jimmy that comes to mind I was going to tell you the thing about the morale was low, kind of. Already told that about Jamie, but when Jimmy first started driving with us, I'll never forget. So we, I think the first year is when we went up to Valley field. I think that was his first year. Second year drive, I can't remember. And he was early on when he first started driving. Um, actually, there's two things I can think. I'll go to this one. This one's even better. It's not as off color, so it's probably better. Um, when he came down to get fitted for the seat, we would always say Ed didn't have a bathroom in the shop and if you were a man you kind of just went out back, or if you need to do something else, you just go up to the house. But we told Jimmy, if you need to use the restroom, it's out the back. Man, there's copperheads. I mean, there's some bad stuff back there.

Speaker 1:

There really wasn't.

Speaker 2:

None of us had ever seen anything back there, but we just like, yeah, watch it, you might want to take somebody with you or take a gun. And so finally we get him fit and sit. He's getting there, getting ready to get in the seat, and he goes hey, I better go to the bathroom before we get here, because we pour that seat around him. Sit. He's getting there, getting ready to get in the seat, and he goes hey, I better go to the bathroom before we get here, because you know we pour that seat around him and he's going to be there for a bit. Yeah, so yeah, you know that's probably a good idea. We didn't think anything of it. And so he goes out back and jimmy comes like tiptoeing back into the shop.

Speaker 2:

We go what in the hell is the matter with you? He goes man, man, those snakes you said. He goes there's a zoo snake back there. We go what A zoo snake? What is that? He goes you know one of those big snakes that you only see in the zoo, and we were like Jimmy, we were really just kidding about that, you know, we weren't serious. And he goes oh no, there is one. We go back there. There is a five foot long copperhead back there. We had never seen a snake back here. Ed goes running back up to the shop and he must have shot 10 shells or shot shotgun shells into that thing and killed it.

Speaker 2:

I mean, and it was so funny because we were like holy cow, there really is snakes back, there were, and, uh, the next day go, and it was laying on this big slab of concrete and we went out there and something had drug it off, you know, and Ed goes, man, I wonder what drug it off? And all I could think of was man, whatever it did, it has a chipped tooth in it because of all the steel. You know all the stuff, but that that's, you know, as far as first meeting jimmy, and that was like the funniest thing ever, that's. And then, just real quick, one other story that I was thinking of. So when we first, when we first met him, um, he, uh, we went to valley field and if you go to valley field, jimmy's very famous up there like grown I've seen grown men drop and start crying in front of jimmy saying I finally got to meet you, and all this and of course, his wife's just sitting there rolling his eyes. Just, oh, my god, you know, just, if you know jimmy's, he's just an awesome guy, uh, and it is, I don't, so anyway. So, um, people name their kids after. It's crazy. Why can't say I named my kid after mitch, so uh, but anyway, uh, it's just we're, we're going up there and I just remember when I got on the plane to fly up there, I opened the door and there's a woman like naked in the plane.

Speaker 2:

Like I was like whoa, I just opened the door and shut it. It's like what in the hell? You know, that's never happened before. I guess she had like a body suit on and she used the restroom and then like I was totally embarrassed and like she was almost sitting next to me. So I was like totally embarrassed, I felt bad for her.

Speaker 2:

And then the the next time I was at, like you know, one of the outhouses in the pits, I opened up the thing. Same thing there was a naked lady. I mean, there were really attractive women and like I was going oh my God, I'm so sorry. You know, whatever. I shut the door and like I'm just embarrassed, whatever. And I do the third time and Jimmy whatever, and I to the third time and jimmy's getting changed in it. So I open it up and I open it and he's not butt naked, but he like he was getting dressed and all I could tell you is like you know what I probably did? I was probably like a. I rubbed up against a genie bottle or something, and I must have wished that I'd seen three beautiful women or something like that, and I blew the last chance on jimmy, you know. So that was a running joke that you know, here I had this.

Speaker 2:

You know I had three wishes and you ruined my last wish you know so that that was probably the the funniest thing you know, jimmy, uh, but yeah, I, I absolutely adore that guy. He's jk said he's probably the best friend I've ever had. He's just a great guy, yeah yeah, troy humberg my boy. Yeah, I guess, besides mike uh and scott mcintosh, and there was another guy named quinn that was on the winston eagle. He's there.

Speaker 2:

Those, those guys were probably the first friends I ever had on the boat circuit that were not part of my team okay uh, and I think troy at that time was probably with the U2, the Harvey's team back then, and he and I just hit it off. And, matter of fact, one thing leads to another and I'm going out and visiting Troy every year. We go out and go up to Ballard and see was it, wooster's shop was in Ballard.

Speaker 1:

Wooster was in Kent. Bartle had a shop in Ballard. Okay, elstrom was in Ballard.

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, maybe when Pyro the second time around. Anyway, we were up in Ballard. I thought, we were up in Pyro's or whatever. I do remember the last time I anyway we were up in ballard, I thought we were up pyros or whatever. I do remember the last time I'd seen cowboy bob, uh, which that's kind of sad. I don't know if you remember cowboy bob yeah, yeah, because he crewed on.

Speaker 1:

Uh well, he's at the museum a lot and he crewed with um barge's team.

Speaker 2:

Yeah and that was yeah anyway. So, uh, we were troy and I went up there and his wife at the time was making shirts and things for people, so we went down to the is it the Ballard freshwater docks? I guess there's freshwater in Ballard, so anyway, the locks, yeah, yeah, the locks. So all the deadliest catch boats were down there.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 2:

I kind of liked that show, so we went down and looked at it and I'll never forget Troy. We were down there looking. I kind of like that show, so we went down and looked at it and uh, I'll never forget troy. We were down there looking at this stuff and uh, we meet the guys from the wizard. Um, I don't, I can't remember their names. I know one of the guys names is mouse the brother and anyway. So we go there and troy's got hands full of shirts and everything. So he goes and tries to sell shirts to the deadliest catch guys and they were as nasty and mean and rugged as they are in the show. They were just a complete jerk to him. So that was pretty funny.

Speaker 2:

But at the tail end of that another thing we used to do, so like on tuesday nights, we go out with j-dub, j-dub and myers and we'd go to a restaurant taco tuesday we'd go there, and another night we'd meet this. But the funniest thing is we'd go to visit jim bachy and at the time, jim, I guess it was just when the big tvs were coming out I don't know if you like the big, oh yeah, great big tvs and uh, we used to go and watch the jbo Tron at Jim Hockey's house. J-dub is very funny for coming up with names like that, but yeah, so that's kind of a funny story I remember every time I think of Troy, besides him turning me on to the Rusty Burger in Kashmir. Is there a Kashmir?

Speaker 1:

place called the Rusty Burger. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Every time I go there I'm stuck on eating at the Rusty Burger. I think of Troy about that, and then I think of the Jimbo John. I thought we thought that was funny. Yeah, nice.

Speaker 1:

Tommy Alfano.

Speaker 2:

Tommy Alfano yep, great guy, the funniest story I have about him. So he helps Bobby King out a lot because he lives in Detroit. He's very instrumental in that whole program. So at one point Bobby had bought a van. We call it the Shaggin' Wagon, so it kind of looked like the old A-Team van. I don't know if you remember that and across the A-Team van and just the old conversion van.

Speaker 2:

It had know, if you remember that, and across the 18 van and just a just an old conversion van. It had shag carpet in it and I mean he thought, you know, being a young guy, he thought this is a great crew van. You know I can go to races and sleep in it because bobby doesn't require much. You know he give him a soft bed and whatever he, he doesn't need a hotel room, you know he doesn't require. He's very low maintenance. So he bought this van and we're going down the I think it's the 401, whatever the road is in Hanna that if you're on the HRL circuit you go up and down the 401. You know it's right, you just go from toronto to montreal, brockville, all the, all those cities are off of that.

Speaker 2:

So we're driving down the road and tommy's driving and there's no air conditioning in the van, it's hot, and we're trying to uh get to a race and we're kind of running late and we're just like cars are flying by us like, and I'm like tommy, like what the hell, dude, is there something wrong with the van or what's going on? He's like you know what he goes and you know tommy's kind of a smart ass and I was like but really good guy, but he's like I am driving at an acceptable rate of speed, so just sit back there and enjoy the ride. Be okay, and I looked up and I go. You can't reach the pedals, can you? And you know, tommy, he's not that tall.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he's a short guy.

Speaker 2:

We had a block up there for him. The block had slid out and he's too proud to tell anybody that, hey, this block slid out. So he's going down the 401 at like 35, 40 miles an hour. He's too proud to tell anybody hey, could you get the block so I can reach the pedal? And I was like you can't reach the pedal, can you? He goes yeah, I can't reach the pedal. That was the greatest. That was so funny. To this day we still tell that story and, yeah, everybody gets a big laugh out of that.

Speaker 1:

But he is so talented. Yeah, I mean, what a great crew guy. Well he, he crewed for ken for a number of years he loved working for kids and um, I have a funny story.

Speaker 1:

Then I got a couple more names for you, but it was 97 and mark weber was a sub driver for budweiser and jimmy king was actually driving forane at the time. And that's when they did that piggyback thing going through the south turn. And at the time Jimmy King had a pretty big mustache and so did Tommy, and they were down there working on the boat and Bernie walked by and he mistook Tommy for Jimmy King and he put his arm around him and said God damn it, jimmy Gave us quite a scare there Because Bernie thought Tommy was Jimmy King.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and Tommy's just like oh, yeah, sorry.

Speaker 1:

Sorry about that. Sorry about that, bernie, yeah.

Speaker 2:

He did have a big old mustache.

Speaker 1:

Jimmy did at once.

Speaker 2:

If you look on the front of all the boats that he drives for Roger Mahan, there's a big mustache on the front of them. Just for that, because he used to have that mustache. Yeah, that's funny.

Speaker 1:

All right.

Speaker 2:

Roger Mahan. Roger, yeah, probably the most decent human being I've ever met in my life. He is good friends with, I guess, ronnie Brown, les Brown. He came from that era in the GPs when Les was running the Long Gone and I guess they raced the GP boats together and stuff like that. And Roger has become, just like Jimmy, one of the best friends I've ever had.

Speaker 2:

Just a great guy, very successful person, smart guy. He actually owns the largest, he has the largest private collection of Mack trucks him and his brother in the world. So if you go to the mayhemcollectioncom or something like that, they have like all these. He owns rock quarries and things like that. So they have all these old trucks and these old chain driven map trucks from the 30s and stuff. They're all completely restored, beautiful. There was like over 300 of them at one time. But he was, yeah, and some of the trucks were used in the Godfather, the Great Gatsby, the movies and stuff. It was really cool. That's cool.

Speaker 2:

It's a big thing there and people don't realize he was very instrumental in the early turbine Budweiser stuff because he and Jamie Alder are friends, like I said, with Ronnie Brown. He did some work there but he was instrumental in them. I don't know if you remember they used to have those old Ford, those great big Ford haulers, those trucks, and then when they went to Mack trucks, I think that Roger was kind of in the middle of them getting those Mack trucks. Okay, roger's had a pretty big tie-in with the Unlimiteds and he's helped a lot of people over the years. Like I said, he's just a great, great guy and that collection if somebody ever gets to the East Coast near New Jersey where he lives, they need to take the time and go see that. It's amazing, just absolutely amazing. And he's actually got one of the guns off the USS New Jersey the battleship and like if they shot it from the house they could hit lower Manhattan. I mean, it's crazy, yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's wild.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

Neat guy, yeah, very neat guy, yeah All right, I have one last name on the list. I have to ask you about Roger Newton. One last name on the list.

Speaker 2:

I have to ask you about roger newton. Oh yeah, and you know I don't have a lot of stories about your dad, but like he was just just so unassuming, like I never realized he was on the fringe of so many cool things that happened in unlimited's over the years, from like oh yeah, well, I helped drive that back. Like for oh yeah, well, I helped drive that back. Like for the Miss Buzzard, oh yeah, I helped drive that boat back from here there. He did so many things within the sport that people didn't know and to even you know people back here. We just, you know, we just heard of the Ace Go Class. You know people built Ace because I never knew. Like he invented that, like that was his deal, he was the godfather, did they call him the czar?

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah, that was his nickname around the hobby of one person like he was not.

Speaker 2:

As you know I it's the nicest, nicest guy. Just yeah, I mean, I just I can still see him now just sitting on the lawn chair watching the guys work on the boat Just was just so kind. And you know, I just absolutely loved your dad. Like I said, I can't think of any stories. We didn't spend a lot of time together but you know, the time that I did talk to him, he always would ask me how I'm doing. I had so much respect for him and then, just knowing all the things that he did, and then I've been to your website and look at all the stuff that was put together over the years, it's just mind-boggling. And he is you know, everybody in RC Boats owes him a debt of gratitude Just an amazing guy and yeah, I wish he was still here.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it was just just yeah, yeah, yeah, well, thank you, yeah, he yeah he definitely had a burning passion for the sport in every aspect. Yeah, yeah. Well, uh, getting back to the cooper days, um, it was fun talking going down the nostalgic lane there with all those, all those characters. But uh, I know you, you had a part in in building that brand new boat that cooper had was 22 years ago now that came out.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if it's unbelievable or not, but yeah, I know you're you had a part in that.

Speaker 1:

What was your role and and and how did the boat work so extremely well out of the box?

Speaker 2:

I think it kind of surpassed some expectations yeah, you know, I, we actually started working that boat about 2000 is what people don't realize is so with the first.

Speaker 2:

The first parts of that were bill fritz and Rick Bowles went out and built sponsons off the bud molds and another part of that deal was that we took the cockpit and built a plug out of it, out of the Budweiser plug, and got out of the shop and then JR Ron Jones jr built us a mold and then he could take it and do whatever he wanted. So that's how that. That's kind of how that that cockpit got to so many boats is because of we started it with um, you know, basically doing the stuff that we did and and went from there. So that's how JR got it and all that. But, and we and I'm kind of going back to that so when that was all brought back, so we had also we, we bought, we built the sponsors, the canoes, the front, the front part we bought the non-trips, some non-trips from the Budweiser that they didn't want, and after we ran them we figured out why they didn't want them.

Speaker 2:

They were actually made out of Kevlar and formed fiber. And Kevlar is not something you want to build non-trips out of what we found out. It's so strong, like if you hurt it in the back it'll pull the pull the kevlar all the way through, so it'll go all the way to the front, wow. So if you heard something in the back, it like pulled one of those little strands all the way up, uh. But anyway, so all of that stuff. So, yeah, it was brought back. And then between 2000 2000, when we, you know, we finished it mid-season. So we actually ran the east coast with tubby and I stayed back and was working on the new boat. And when we got home, when we got back, we knew we had to get that boat out. It was so close, you know, we always made the joke is uh, it was sitting there in the shop it had, if you would go in and look at it, oh, it's ready. And we were like, well, we're halfway done, you know, because there's so many things you have to do as far as putting systems in and everything. So the first race we ran it was in tri cities, I don't know if people remember that, but like, yeah, we ran the East coast with tubby and there was a lot of stuff that had to come out of tubby to go into the new boat and during that time, between the engineering hours and just the fabrication hours, I had averaged over 1800 hours a year for the, you know, per year, cause I I owned an engineering firm at the time and so I was kind of keeping track of the time so I could, you know, see, you know, basically kind of write some of that time off. But there was one year I had like 2100 hours and stuff, but yeah, so I did everything. You know there's not a single part on that boat outside of the sponsons and that I didn't help have a part in making. And even if you look at the boat now, I mean all that stuff is stuff that either I made the whole thing or had an art and building, all the layups on that which made it really different. Going back to my engineering background, all of the layups on that Rick bowles did an outstanding job of documenting everything. But we put a lot of time into the laminate theory and stuff like that to get the layups at the right thickness and everything. So that thing is probably the lightest, unlimited ever built, because once you take the allison engine out of it it's really light. I mean really light.

Speaker 2:

So if somebody was to buy that and put a turbine in it, you'd have to. First thing, we made the right sponson wider the footprint, because of the way the Allison spins. The other way, the rotational inertia wouldn't want to press the right sponson down, okay, so we felt we needed to widen the footprint of the sponson to push it back up. They may want to take that out of it if they ran a turbine. But yeah, I mean I had a lot to do with that. There was a lot of us Rick Bowles, aaron Farr, ben Cooper I mean just thousands and thousands of hours in the shop. But it's still. You know, know, it's still from front to end. It's really probably the only boat that I've built from beginning to end.

Speaker 2:

Um, yeah, I mean obviously didn't build it by myself yeah right, right guys, but yeah, just a beautiful piece, yeah yeah, and it was.

Speaker 1:

It was fun to see it come out and I think people had some optimism to see it work well, but I think it blew away a lot of people's expectations.

Speaker 2:

We didn't expect it to run like that. Yeah, we, you know, I did all the calculations and the and the motors, the two motors we had. We thought we could get to them with 155. Okay, you know, but for it to do what it did was way beyond. And it was light. I mean it was lighter than the turbines when we first made it and I don't remember the exact weight, but it was light and we just got lucky with the balance. And we just got lucky with the balance. I mean, basically, we made some educated guesses but it came out. The percents were perfect. It was one-third on each corner. I mean, it was amazing, wow yeah.

Speaker 1:

I was just thinking back to it. I know that boat broke all the piston records and it was top qualifier at some a few races. Yeah, do you recall like the fastest lap that ever did?

Speaker 2:

the fastest lap yeah, actually the fastest lap it ever did wasn't recorded um, which sucks. We did a 165 in tri-cities and was it testing then?

Speaker 1:

it wasn't. No, it wasn't recorded.

Speaker 2:

I forget well I guess it wasn't. No, it wasn't recorded, I forget. Well, I guess it wasn't testing, but they were still. You know which. I hated that rule. I mean, every time you, you know how hard it is Every time you go out it should count. I don't like that test, I don't like that. But anyway, we were really geared up to run one and I actually went part of my deal was doing the radios so I went to the judges' stand early and said, hey, we are going to try to break a record here. And it was right before lunch, it was like 11 o'clock, it was in Tri-Cities, the water was perfect, it was a little bit cooler out so we could get some horsepower. And I told them we are going to try to break one. Please pay attention. And I'll never forget it.

Speaker 2:

He went out and went wide on the first one came back into, you know, really burned one off on the second lap to tuck inside. And I, I was looking at my stopwatch and I hit it and I had us at like 166 and I looked down and the timing people were sorting sandwiches. I guess somebody had brought sandwiches to the table. I wasn't upset, because they're such nice people and like they're volunteering because they're such nice people and like they're volunteering right. You know, as I wasn't that upset, I knew what we did but and I think they gave us an official speed of 160.000. Yeah, like the 165. I mean, it was legit too. I, I had it at 166 and I think we've gone back and looked at the video. Maybe it's like 165, but it was fast and uh, we never had an opportunity like that again, uh. But I think we ran a 163 in tri-cities once with jimmy um. Just, we never had the propellers like the.

Speaker 2:

The initial propellers we had were great. We had the high-rankrake propellers that Ronnie Brown had built. They were just absolute pieces of art, those that all went away. Everybody's running lower-rake stuff now. If you look at the rooster tail on Ed's boat, if you look at it when it runs in between after 2006, you'll see a really jagged rooster tail and it's because of the low-rake wheels just make it want to hop up and down. It's still crazy fast, but it doesn't want to stay in the water as good.

Speaker 2:

But when Ronnie Brown was, I mean we won Thunder on the Ohio, which people don't believe. We won it with a wheel that was two inches under diameter. Really it was 25 degrees of rake and we just spun it up Wow, you know as fast as we could spin it, yeah. And we came back. All three blades were broken when we got back, yeah, but it was crazy. But that boat, if you could get a little bit of a you know a little bit of an undersized wheel with tons of rake in it, a lot of pitch, it's so fast, it's crazy. But we can't get anybody to build those anymore.

Speaker 1:

That's too bad. Well, Cooper just announced over the offseason that the team's for sale. It didn't run last year. It last ran, if I'm not mistaken, in Tri-Cities 2023. And it's been sitting. Do you have any knowledge, any rumors out there that it's going to be back out on the circuit with new management or one more last run?

Speaker 2:

No, I don't know anything. You know Ed's daughter passed away last year, year before last, and then he really hasn't run it since. And you know I haven't really even. It doesn't even really come up when we talk about it. You know, I'll be honest with you. I'm just so happy for Ed.

Speaker 2:

Ed seems at such peace now with the boat and where he is in his life. Him and Barb go and Barb still go to the races. He's at every race still, but he helps with Jay Armstrong and the Miss US, is that right? He's at all the races and he actually will crew for Bobby King. But it's so nice to have Ed at the races without the pressure of having the boat there. I don't know it was.

Speaker 2:

It seemed different for me when he was running it later. It was a lot of stress for him. Yeah, and you know he's just at a different time in his life. He's got two beautiful granddaughters from Eddie and he spends time doing stuff with them and his wife, barb, is just absolutely the best and it's her.

Speaker 2:

You know, I think it's probably he figures it's her time. You know she put up with my shit for these many years. So we're going to go do the stuff that she wants to do and Barb still likes to go do the stuff that she wants to do. Yeah, and barb still comes, likes to go to the races, like she hangs out with us and we go out to eat and uh, I mean, she's always, she's like a mom to me. You know she's, she's amazing, but I I don't see that it's. I know when ed had made that announcement, mitch had called me to see if we could try to find some people to take that program to the next level, do some electronic fuel injection and stuff like that. I had no interest in it. I like doing the GP stuff and yeah, but I don't think you'll ever see it out. But the thing with it, there's always a number. There's always a number that are getting back out.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, okay, all right. Yeah, I don't see it happening, and I had no idea that he was just going to stop like that too. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's too bad. Hopefully we can see it again at some point. Yeah, I heard like you said you're big into crewing with HRL and the GPA series. Now who were you working for and how did that transition happen to go from? Cooper's team to HRL.

Speaker 2:

I had an opportunity to work for some other teams but I honestly had no desire to work on a turbine and you know I'd been approached by a couple other teams to maybe do some stuff and, like I said, I'll help like Pyro in the offseason and things like that do some things, but I don't ever want to go back to doing Unlimiteds. I think that transition happened to the GPA and things back in 2015 when I helped Roger Mahan rebuild his 350 for Valleyfield. He saw some of the talent that I could bring, or some of the things that I could bring, to a program and we started, you know, over the years, talking about building another GP. He had built a GP that was just crazy dominant. At one time he ran Chrysler Hemi's and they were just unbelievable. I mean great power and everything. So I forget when we started talking about it, probably 2018, 19. He approached me and said, hey, if we build these GPs, would you be involved? And I was like heck, yeah, you know, you got Jamie Ald involved and all these really talented people Jamie Alde involved and all these really talented people Chris Harley, his son, michael Mahan one of the most talented boat people I've ever met in my life, absolutely so. I have been with him.

Speaker 2:

I've actually been with Roger Mahan ever since that day 2015. I've been doing everything. I go to all the races with them and still kind of crewed on both teams. I think the last race I probably crewed with Ed was 17 or 18, 2017 or 18. Okay, and then pretty much full time with Roger. I will go up to New Jersey in the winter and work in the shop and my son both my son and I, which is awesome that my son gets to go and do the things that I did back in the day, yeah. But yeah, I pretty much made that full transition to Roger's team and then pretty much any time Bobby King runs his boat, I will be there to help crew that thing too. I had a little bit to do when he built that. I did some of the electronic stuff and then did a little bit of the aero stuff for him, some of the electronic stuff and then did a little bit of the arrow stuff for him, and then we've got some stuff planned for the upcoming season on some arrow stuff that I've been wanting to try for a long time.

Speaker 2:

Bobby is always willing, bobby's a great listener and the reason that boat's so successful is because he is. He takes, he takes a little bit of good things from everybody and puts an end to that that thing's. I've never seen a boat like that in my life. That thing's just so dominant, it's so nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I crew. That's pretty much. All I'll do is anything that Roger has I will crew with, and anything that Bobby King is with I will probably be around too. All right, because Jimmy's done, he's told me he's retired. Yeah, he is done. Okay, and I'll believe that when the GP3 goes out and he's not in it, wherever we're at next, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Some people they say they're done, but yeah, until you see it Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people, they say they're done, but yeah, until you see it right, yeah, all right. Well, my last question for you. I mean just thinking back on your career of crewing. I mean you've talked about how dedicated you are and well, I mean one thing that I think fans don't understand is how much of a time commitment it takes to crew. I mean you're talking about some years, 1800 hours you put into to like cooper's program or, and I'm sure it's not. I mean I'm sure you're still doing the same amount or close to with hrl now, but no I've cut it way down from there.

Speaker 2:

Well, I don't know, I guess stuff in the shop, no, it's way down from there, but yeah, it's still. It's still commitment, right? Yeah?

Speaker 1:

yeah. So I mean, just think about all these things you've gotten to do and all these experiences, events you've gone to. Can you narrow down, like, what are your favorite moments in Unlimited ranks and HRL ranks?

Speaker 2:

Obviously number one 2003 Gold Cup. Winning that that I just that was indescribable. I still can't believe we won it. You know and I still will watch it and send the video to ed and said we won it again, you can't take it away. And then you know, we were the last ones that ever got to take that trophy home with us, so we were the last people to ever, because it was a traveling trophy, so we got to take it home. So I've got pictures of my kids with it. You know, my son, son Mitch, was as tall as the trophy. He was three when I took pictures with it, so that's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

Probably number two is winning Evansville at home, because we always suck there, you know, and it's the first race we won with it and I had some stuff going on in my family at the time and I really needed that. And I've got this picture and it almost brings tears to my eyes now. It's a picture of my son that helps me race now, mitch and he and I. I've just got him. He's a little guy and I'm hugging him. Yeah, god, that kind of gets to me now. But yeah, that was pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

And probably the last thing I think of is when Jimmy beat the Alberto in Detroit in 2006,. I think it was. It's one of the greatest races they show. But I mean we were on the outside and it just shows the engineering of that boat, of how solid it was. And we really built that boat for um detroit. I mean we had that course in mind when we built it. We built it wanting to win the gold cup and just to see all the things that we put together for that to to win and to see it win. You know and do so well, but the one thing that we knew about it is like for every minute it ran I mean it was, it was, I mean it was shucking like 50, 60 pounds uh, yeah, because it goes through a crazy amount of fuel, right, like, how many gallons does it take every, every minute?

Speaker 2:

I mean we uh well, it's probably seven to eight gallons per minute yeah so you're losing 50, 60 pounds and the motors we were running what's what's crazy is the motor we want it with was sucking more fuel than that. Like I never got a number on it. Matter Matter of fact, like we fueled it, I had to put, we'd feel it, and we have put our thumbs on the vents and we put caps on them and we got to the water and if you I don't know if they got video of it, but you'll have two guys on the boats right before it takes off, taking the vent caps off the fuel, so it'll stay in there there, so we'd have enough. Wow, because that course was almost three miles long. Yeah, back then, you know, yeah and uh, yeah. So if we had to run an extra lap, I don't know if we would have made it. It's just like the evansville race. We won it.

Speaker 2:

You watch the race like he dies on the on the cool down lap, coming out of the last turn and I'm in charge of fuel. I'm just like almost throwing up, thinking God, I almost had that wrong because that yellow motor we had just drank more fuel. I don't know what he did to it and he never told me, but like it drank at least a gallon to a gallon and a half, maybe two gallons or more per minute, like it was just probably, and if you do the calculations it's like 4 000 horsepower. It was amazing how much. Yeah, wow, yeah man, what about?

Speaker 1:

what about your favorite hrl moments?

Speaker 2:

yeah, uh, I'll tell you what the best thing about the hrRL is just watching my son. You know, it's just not one moment, it's just like every moment I get to spend with my son, who's now 24, every moment I get to go to a race with him is just the best. It's like you can't get any better. Every year we go to now that Bobby's driving an Unlimited Jimmy. He has a sponsor in tonawanda, new york, so he's got commitments to run that boat, so my son and I go up and run the boat there and mitch is my son. Mitch is kind of the crew chief at that boat because I've got two artificial hips now I can't get up and do the stuff I did on the boat. And Mitch is, you know, the youngest of us, so he gets to do all the jobs on the boat and it's really special for me to get to see him do that. So you know, anything we do HRL, gpa just being able to watch him do the things that I used to do is the best. That I used to do is the best.

Speaker 2:

2015 when in Valley Field with when we broke the boat in Brockville, and that's when I kind of started that relationship with Roger Mahan Any of Bobby King's Valley Field wins. Just name one of them. Any of those were some of the top moments you know. And just going back to the you know we've won Tonawanda two years in a row now, basically with my son doing most of the crew chief stuff. So that's cool. And then I'd say the last thing is we did that pro light thing in 2022, where we went out and just dominated all the races between when I say that, between roger mayhans, uh, boat and bobby kings like we just split races and some of the best racing I'd ever seen. Um, so, yeah, those, that's probably probably it, but just going back, just being able to do this with my son, is probably the best thing ever. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I told the hero on that. I have a nine-year-old. He'll be 10 in March, but I'm trying to instill that love of boat racing in him. It's kind of taken off. But he's doing some RC stuff with me but I'm really hoping that that takes off so he can show up.

Speaker 2:

What I found is you can't force them into it. Like I tried to force him to do it and I finally just kind of gave up and just kind of took him in some races and then, if they want to do it and that's what makes it cool you know he wants to do it and like it's almost more important for him to be at a race now than me, which is nice, because I'm just like I said when I played college football, that was the only way I could go to college was to play ball, and I've had 14, well, now 15 surgeries since then. Two artificial hips torn, all this stuff and it got me through school. But yeah, that's why you don't let your kids play football. Kids, right, there't play there.

Speaker 1:

I guess my dad made a good decision he wouldn't let me play.

Speaker 2:

I don't blame him. No, I should have stuck with tennis, but I don't know. I love football and that's you know. I was telling you about those timing charts and that's where they came from was being able to. I used to call plays as a coach and I'd always have that sheet. There was a sheet. So my thing was I wanted to run as many plays as I could all the time. So I came up with that sheet so that basically, you know, if it was third down and we were on the 40-yard line, this was a set of plays I could run. You know this was the down and distance. So all of that came and it was all color-coded. So if you look at those sheets, there's color codes and everything, and it all came from that football background of.

Speaker 2:

Okay, if I'm in this situation, this is what I have, this is what I have and it's just being able to do it real quick. So calling plays as a football coach and and being a quarterback and stuff in college, I knew that like I want to run 60 plays every game. So and you know I had to be fast. So that's why that sheet's like it is. So if Jimmy comes out of the turn and I'm at four minutes and 30 seconds and I'm halfway at the back sheet. How fast do I got to go to make the start, so we could tell him right away. Or if we got to cut the course to get to somebody in front of somebody, I could always tell him how fast he needs to go.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, man well, a lot of fun stories. I appreciate your talk today, thanks for coming on awesome.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I hope I didn't bore you no, mike, you didn't bore me and I don't think you bored any of the audience at all. It was. Those were some great stories you shared and it was fun to talk about that technical side of the sport Just the fun personalities and sharing those stories is so fun because there are so many great people in the sport that have a lot of great personalities. But that's all we have for this week. Please tune in next week as I talk with legendary hydroplane driver, crew member, inspector and now author, john Walters. He's going to join the podcast next week. It'll be a multiple-part episode. Stay tuned for more information on that.

Speaker 1:

In the meantime, don't forget to follow us on social media. We're on Facebook and Instagram. We also have our website, roostertailtalkcom. On there you can become a subscribed member. There's a link in the support tab where you can choose your monthly donation from anywhere from $3 to $10 a month and in return you get early access to all the episodes and you also get first dibs on any merchandise that we will be selling, which also has exclusive entry to my vault, where I have many old articles and pictures from yesteryear of Heidemann Racing. I'm going to be adding more to that. Currently I have pictures from 1993 and 1984, and I'm going to be adding more pictures as we move along. Well, that's all we got this week, so until next time, knuckleheads, hope to see you at the races.