Roostertail Talk
A show dedicated for preserving the history, breaking down the racing and looking to the future of the incredible sport of Unlimited Hydroplane racing. My name is David Newton, and I will be bringing you a weekly show in which we will discuss the boats, drivers, owners, crew members, legends, fans and anything that is involved with the sport that I love; hydroplane racing.
Fans you can now sign up for a subscription service for the podcast! As you can imagine, running a podcast can be pricey (from hosting fees, website fees, travel, equipment, etc.). You can help the podcast by subscribing to our new service, Roostertail Talk+. The podcast is still free to all on our website and through all major podcast platforms (such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, Castbox, etc) but with Roostertail Talk+ there is more you can enjoy ! With this service you will get early links to new episodes, enjoy access to extra content, raffle prizes and more. This is a new service that we will be adding to as we move along. As always your support to make this show grow is very appreciated! TOMORROW, there will be an announcement for the first prize for subscribing to Roostertail Talk+.
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Roostertail Talk
Episode 142: John Walters, Part 3
John Walters pulls back the curtain on his extraordinary journey through the world of unlimited hydroplane racing in this captivating conclusion to our three-part interview. After surviving a catastrophic crash in 1982, Walters shares the remarkable story of love and support from family, friends and others kept him in the sport. Throughout the interview, a powerful thread emerges about mental health awareness – a cause Walters champions through his upcoming book. Listen now to experience the insights from one of hydroplane racing's most respected figures and discover why John Walters remains a beloved ambassador for the sport.
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
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 welcome to Rooster Tail Talk, talk. Hello race fans, welcome back. It's episode 142 and part three, the conclusion of my interview with John Walters. Really hope you've enjoyed the past two episodes and getting to know more about John's background in racing and getting to hear a lot of the insight and technical sides of sport, of the sport. But we're going to continue right where we left off last week, as John talks about dealing with a terrible crash he had in 1982, seafair driving, the pay impact and the support he received to return back to the sport that he loves you know, friend muncie would call every now and again.
Speaker 2:Jim lucero, you know, called and we remained good friends, I think between the three of them. They thought, well, you know, we could get john back involved with boat racing if you think that's the thing to do. And so anyway I got. I went to lunch with Jim Lucero. He made me the offer. He said, hey, stan Hanauer, you know, was working on building the engines and stuff last year. Stan really doesn't want to do that. He might be interested in doing some stuff with the boat on a part time basis, but he doesn't want to be the engine guy. I need somebody to build the engines. Would you be interested in doing that? And yes, I was.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, like way back in 1974, when I got offered a job to go racing, I felt some loyalty and I felt some obligation to Ron Jones. I couldn't just do it without talking with him, and so I told Jim. I said, yes, I'm very interested, but I've got some things that I need to settle with Dave Herensberger and Pay Impact before I say yes. And he said, well, the job's yours if you want it. And so I went back and Sybil Tice was David's private secretary at the time and I called Sybil and I said, hey, could you get me an appointment to see David for a whilebil? And I said, hey, could you get me an appointment to to, you know, see David for a while? And she said, yeah, of course, and and uh, so he did, went in, talked with him about it and he just smiled and he said, john, you know what you want and what makes you happy has always been what I wanted. And he said, um, and at that point in time, dave Herensberger and Jim Lucero were not the best of friends and there were some issues there and, honestly, there was some rough edges, let's say.
Speaker 2:And so in Dave Herensberger's words, john, I told you before, as long as I have anything to do with running this company, you've got a job here if you want it. And he said, if, making, if, if, what makes you happy is to go race boats, and I know you've got a lot of things that you wanted to do. Do it with my blessing. I just wish you could do it with better people. And I said, well, you know, thank you, I appreciate that, appreciate that and so much of of my uh experiences, some, so many of my successes in this sport I owe to dave hernsberger and pay impact stores incorporated, and um, and I still see david's daughter, julie, at boat races here and there and son, uh, joe and um, I saw him this year at mahogany and merlot and probably the last few years at at mahogany and and merlot and um, uh, 20 year reunion.
Speaker 2:I think it was at the hydroplane and race boat museum. We all got together for a 20-year reunion for the pay impact stuff and and uh, david herrensberger called me flipper, um, and and to this day, julie still still. You know we'll be walking along and I'll hear somebody yell hey, flipper. You know it's a little bit embarrassing, but it's kind of endearing too yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I love to hear that how close you were with Herrensberger and how how well he treated you. It's just, it's great to hear of his character.
Speaker 2:He was wonderful and like I said earlier, he could have very easily said John man, I'm so sorry you got hurt. You know, good luck with whatever you want to do in the future. But he was always there and even when I was, you know, still in Harborview, three or four times a week he'd show up and come in and hang out and I remember, you know, chatting with him and talking with him about about all of that stuff and um and the things that you know we did and what we could have done and should have done, and all the stuff. You know when you go back and look at the stuff in hindsight, the stuff you know when you go back and look at the stuff in hindsight. And even after I was home the next year, I was going to physical therapy several times a day and doing a lot of different things there. You know the phone would ring at 2.30 in the morning or three o'clock in the morning or something, and you know Arlene would answer it and I'd hear her, you know, talking and well, thank you, and you know it wasn't just a, a crank call or whatever. Come back and and, uh, she said that was that was david herringberger and I say, oh cool, you know what's he up to.
Speaker 2:And well, he was in you know some other part of the world you know in asia or whatever on a buying trip. You know over there, you know buying stuff for the stores and different things and, uh, you know, lost track of what time it was or whatever. But he just called and wanted to know how you're doing and what's going on. And is the insurance? Do you need anything? Is the insurance doing their job? Do you need anything? Are the bills getting paid?
Speaker 2:And he was there. He was there to support me 100%. And all of that time, in the better part of three and a half years, before I could actually go back to work and actually earn a paycheck, there was a paycheck in the mailbox every other week for the same amount of money that I was getting to drive the race. So you know he was. Yeah, he was the best. He was the best as far as I'm concerned and I have been in groups of people where you know they might be talking about you know people or different things, and I never knew anything but just the good side of Dave Herrensberger.
Speaker 2:I know that there were times when you know being in business you have to be tough and you have to do this and you have to do that, but he was always a sweetheart to me and my family and and, and I love that man, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean you did talk about how, like you did miss out on opportunities with the team not, you know, getting more race wins, but you did get an 82, the first ever career victory for driving a turbine hydroplane, and that has to hold a special place in your heart.
Speaker 2:It absolutely does. You know we set some records and did some things that I've actually helped a lot of younger guys, you know, go faster and do things. But you know that's one of those records that I will always have. I will always be the first guy to win a race in a turbine powered boat and that's really cool and I feel good about that.
Speaker 2:I feel good that I've been able to, you know, stay involved with the sport and and and now and hopefully, you know, make some difference. I still involved with the competition committee and still involved and still listed as the chief safety and technical inspector. I've got two really good guys, Steve Compton and Brian Vincent, that are helping with, and Brian's wife, Heidi. She's also been an inspector and really helpful with the stuff. I'm, over the past couple of years, gotten some opportunities with Brad Luce to do some of the commentating and I think that this year I did get the call and he's asked me to go to all the races and be the the color guy for them.
Speaker 2:And uh, and I've talked with brian, I've talked with steve and they're both pretty comfortable at this point in time with doing the inspection stuff. And I can still, you know, look at some of the boats when they're getting put together on thursdays. You know the the uh after the final heat uh inspection. You know, look at some of the boats when they're getting put together on Thursdays, you know, after the final heat inspection. You know I can be involved in some of that stuff too, and with the technology of today, with cell phones and that sort of thing, even most race courses. The broadcast stuff is fairly close to the pits. There's a couple of places like.
Speaker 2:Seattle, where I'm out in the start finish line. Then it's a little more difficult to get back and forth, but I think it's doable and I think that everybody has has agreed that if I can do a little bit of both, I think I'm going to do the color commentating with Brad and and in that group and still be involved. I, they, they think that it's important that I be listed as the chief safety and technical inspector. I, you know, I guess, because of of the experience and the fact that I'm an old man, that that offers some credibility. I don't feel like I'm in charge of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Whenever it gets to a point where either Steve Compton or Brian aren't comfortable, I can make the decision and I tend to be the tiebreaker if there's, you know, something that that, uh, that they disagree on, which does happen occasionally. But yeah, it's, it's fun to be involved. I, I love these boats, I love these people. I, I say that sometimes too, that you know I love everybody in the sport and I've never met anybody in unlimited hydroplane racing that I don't like, some certainly more than than others, but I like them.
Speaker 2:I love them all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I love to hear that you're back as a color commentator, because I think last year, at Seafair, if I'm not mistaken you were doing some color commentating, yeah, and just some of the things that happened on the course and like there's, I don't know, but you were just your depth of knowledge of the boats, the course and like there's, I don't know, but you, you were just your depth of knowledge of the boats, the equipment and everything and you were able to talk about, so, something simple about the water affecting the turbines and you went into, I think, a digression on there. That was just so fascinating, uh, and just on the top of your hat, you did that, yeah, um, and just I, I can't wait to see more of that this year because that's just something that it's very uh much enhancing the experience of watching the races. So really looking forward to seeing you back in that seat. Thank, you.
Speaker 2:That's been fun for me too, and and that's been one of the biggest compliments that I've gotten from everyone is that, wow, I really enjoy the technical side of things. Um, you know, you explain how, how that worked and why, and I never would have thought that so so yeah, that's, that's fun.
Speaker 2:I, I, I know, when I was, you know, much younger and trying to figure things out, that I always liked knowing how things worked and and getting some inside information like that, and there's a lot of that sort of thing in the book.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of stories, a lot of strategies, a lot of things that that you know the're probably the most exciting thing about the race was the stuff that went on, you know, in in in the meetings, you know, before it ever got to the race course, and and so try to expand on that a little bit if you will, and and and bring a lot of that to to the party. There's a lot of stuff there that's directly involved with, with Arlene and and some of the of the things that I didn't know were red flags at the time. That I do now that if I can get someone to read this book and it can help one person to understand something that their spouse or partner is going through with their mental health issues and problems, it will have been worth the eight years that it took me to get this thing done. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned that how part of the book's proceeds are to go back towards mental health awareness, and I don't know if you know this about me, I'm a school teacher. I teach middle school, okay, and mental health is a huge part of that. Oh great, it's. Yeah, and it's something that I feel it's starting to become more normalized to talk about.
Speaker 1:And there was for many years growing up with things I've had to battle myself internally that it just wasn't accepted to talk about, right, and so now I feel like we're starting to get to the point where it's okay to talk about my challenges and my hurdles I have to go through, and so I think just having that narrative is the first step, and I love to hear that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so too, and that's one of the things I guess that makes me really proud of the younger generations. Now I've struggled with things up here myself Myself depression a little bit myself. I suppose at times, the loneliness, different things that have gone on and the younger generations are so much more aware of themselves and so much more aware of mental health and the things that you can do. When I was growing up those things got hidden. It was almost an embarrassment, it was almost a shortcoming. It was that you were a reject or something if you had those kinds of issues and those kinds of problems or, heaven forbid, you had to go see a psychologist or a psychiatrist for anything. And those things are so much more open now.
Speaker 2:You know, with with the internet available, you know I've been able to learn so much about myself, in some cases things I didn't I didn't understand. In some cases I things I didn't even want to know. But you know it's it's so much more readily available and so much more open. And again, I would be so proud if something that comes from this book, whether it's some of the proceeds or some of the experiences, some of the things that I explain and describe in there. If they can help one person, it will have been worth the effort and, honestly, it isn't even a book yet, but a few people that have read it have said it helped them already, so I hope that it does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and that's one of those things where I guarantee it will, john, but you won't directly know, right, and they have to be okay with not knowing that.
Speaker 2:But you are going to be helping people.
Speaker 1:So that is fantastic, great Well, going to be helping people, so that is fantastic, correct. Well, going back to boat racing, yeah, you were crewing for Muncie Racing at the time, fran Muncie Racing, with Lucero and Miller building the motors, and the team had some success, I would say. And Chip had a string of gold cups and you were in the thick of it, and he actually dedicated the fifth gold cup to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a very amazing day and we ran well. It was in 1986 in Detroit with the Miller American, and Bo got back to the dock and, of course, everybody's excited and happy and ready to start the celebration and I jumped on the boat to congratulate chip with tears in my eyes and I don't know for sure, um, if I don't remember being this emotional prior to my head injuries and some of the things that I've done to myself, but after for sure, my emotions can just get out of control. I can cry at the drop of a hat anymore, it seems, and that was one of those days. I jumped on the boat with tears in my eyes.
Speaker 2:Chip gave me a big hug and said what's going on? Are you okay? And I said, yeah, I am. But I said, you know, I worked so hard, I tried so hard to get my name on that trophy and I wanted to win one of these so bad as a driver. It's wonderful to win them as a team, it's wonderful to win them as a crew chief, but I just I wanted my name on that trophy as a driver and John Love was doing our PR at the time and there's several pictures around of Fran and Chip and myself holding our hands up for the fifth gold cup.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Chip said well, I'm dedicating this one to you. And I cried a little bit more. And I cried a little bit more and I saw later in some of the interviews and different things that he had held to his word and mentioned that he was dedicating this fifth Gold Cup to me. So yeah, pretty special. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:Well, the next year 87, went down to San Diego. I know the team had some challenges that year but they got. Stuart Severson was involved and you got another victory, gold cup victory. But I heard there's some trouble at the border, or is this the story. You have to save for the book yeah, no, um, I think it's.
Speaker 2:it's different stories. Okay, we we struggled. We built a new boat for 87 and struggled with that a little bit. The Budweiser guys built a new boat in 87 and they didn't struggle as much as we did, it seems, and and we were really struggling propeller wise.
Speaker 2:And this is also a story that that's in the book.
Speaker 2:Certainly we had been building our own propellers and trying to make some progress there. By the time we got to Seattle we were still struggling propeller-wise at broken propellers. And we're building propellers, new propellers for every race. We're trying to make them large enough, diameter and thin enough and everything to be able to win. Uh, and harold kinswater was building propellers for us.
Speaker 2:Harold lived in california, did a lot of drag boat stuff, was building propellers for the drag boats, building gearboxes and different things, and harold was building the propellers for us and initially we were going to try to spin the propellers 15,000 RPM and do away with the gearbox altogether and save that weight, save all that trouble and maintenance and everything else that goes with the gearbox. As it turned out, we couldn't make the propellers live and we kept going higher and higher gear ratios trying to get to that one-to-one to see if we could make them work. Harold was machining the hub and then building the blades individually and would weld the blades on that hub and we'd bring Harold into a race. He'd bring two propellers, we'd race them, we'd break them that weekend. We'd put him on an airplane Sunday night after the race He'd fly back to California, build new ones and meet us at the next one on an airplane Sunday night after the race. He'd fly back to California, build new ones and meet us at the next one.
Speaker 2:By the time we got to Seattle, harold said John, I can't do this anymore. Man, I haven't done anything in my business. I have a wife and a family that I haven't seen and all I'm doing is building propellers and I just I can't do this anymore. And I said well, what are you saying? And he said I'm saying it's been fun, but goodbye. And I said, well, okay, um, fortunately we had some time between Seattle and San Diego and gave me some time to, you know, figure out some things there.
Speaker 2:This is a story that that's in the book and, I suppose, a little bit sensitive on on one hand. But way back when Lance Morris was involved, lance was helping us with the gearbox stuff and when we went to the L11s, lance was going to build a new gearbox that would handle 5,000 horsepower. Uh, the John Maddox gearboxes that we've been running in the Pay Pack were developed to make 3,500 horsepower or so and I was a little bit concerned that they weren't going to handle that kind of horsepower and torque as the L11. Plus, they were hard to work on and Lance thought that he could make some progress there and make them a little bit easier to work on in the field. So we ended up getting the engines and things.
Speaker 2:I believe there was a communications failure between Lance and Jim Lucero and I think what happened was, I believe, that Jim made a mistake and that when Lance said, okay, we need to figure out you know gear ratios here, what do you want the propeller to turn and what's the input speed of the gearbox. And I think that Jim made the mistake of giving Lance the compressor speed, the N1 speed, not the N2 speed. The N2 speed is 15,300 RPM but the compressor spins faster. The compressor spins up around 18 to 18,500 RPM. So, based on that, lance went and built gears.
Speaker 2:As you remember, that year they started in Evansville because they didn't have gearboxes and what ended up happening was, when the gears showed up, lance used that 18,500 as the input speed, which should have been 13,000. I mean 15,300. And so the gear ratio was 0.59, which was like stump puller gears, tractor gears. Everybody else was running, you know, 0.7, 0.8. You know, in the pay impact days. We were running the things you know, like 20% underdrive. We were running, you know, 80% gear. So when these 0.59 gears came out, lucero said these things are useless. You know we there's, you know we, we don't have propellers, we don't have anything that we can run this stuff with and literally I wish I would have taken pictures Literally, we use those 5, nine gears for glue weights.
Speaker 2:Uh, we would, you know, use them for door stops, uh around the shop, you know, for a few years just collecting dust and and being, you know, a conversation starter. Um, so by the time we got done with Seattle did not have any propellers left. So by the time we got done with Seattle did not have any propellers left. I called Bob Hetzel, who was with Mercury Marine and their performance propeller division and asked Bob, what do you have got in the way of unlimited propellers? And we're hurting here and he says I've got two of them here that I'd make you a super deal on. And I said well, what are those? And he said it's two of them that the Budweiser guys ordered for their Griffin program. He said they're 15 and a half inches in diameter, they're 24 inches of pitch, and he said they're so big, even with the gears they've got in that Griffin they couldn't swing them, they couldn't pull them, but wouldn't get on a plane with them.
Speaker 2:And I said, man, I'm going to have to crunch some numbers here, but give me a little while and I'll come back and let you know.
Speaker 2:And he says it's no hurry, they've been sitting on the shelf here collecting dust, you know, for a couple of years, just like my gears had been sitting there, you know, collecting dust for a couple of years. So I spent a little time crunching the numbers and, lo and behold, if we could bump up the N2 speed a little bit on the governor, which is a matter of turning the screw a little bit up to about 118 percent, which was certainly doable those 5.9 gears would work with those 24-inch propellers. So I called Fran Muncy and I said hey, it's going to be expensive, because now with these 5.9 gears, rather than the 0.8, 0.79 stuff we've been running, the torque's going to go way up. We need new propeller shafts, we need new strut bushings, we need all kinds of stuff to handle this torque and horsepower that we're going to make. And she said John, I don't care what it costs, but you've got to guarantee me we're going to win.
Speaker 1:And I said man, I can guarantee you that we'll be competitive.
Speaker 2:I cannot guarantee you that we're going to win. So I called the gear works and we started building two inch propeller shafts and getting all the spline work done in the in and all the material and everything done. As it turned out, I thought we were going to run out of time and it got really close. We went to Lake Washington to test the boat the Tuesday race week in San Diego. Wow, now yeah, and as it turned out, it was Monday. I guess it was Monday because everybody was leaving to go to San Diego and we were supposed to be able to run on Tuesday. George Long was the guy that was a park ranger or whatever that we would get the permits through and if you couldn't run because of wind or you know whatever, you could carry over one day. And as I remember, it was windy and rainy and nasty and we weren't able to go run the boat. As it turned out, we still had some work to do anyway and so we ended up going to the pits, lake Washington, on Wednesday of race week in San Diego.
Speaker 2:Now, not that it was any real pressure. I mean it was a Miller sponsored event and oh, by the way, did I mention it was the gold cup.
Speaker 2:Um and um, and of course we were sponsored by Miller then. So it was kind of a command performance. We went and ran on Wednesday and chip came back with his eyes as big as 50 cent pieces and he says my gosh, I don't know, I've never driven anything like this. He says this is like a two 80 with a seven liter engine in the thing. It's just amazing how it, how hard it accelerates and and and how fast it goes. But he says that's the problem, um it, it hits the wall at 150. And I said, well, it's because it's on the end to governor, and we've still got it set up for, you know, 80% years or 20% years, um and um. I said I can change that, you know, we'll change that. So I made a couple of adjustments. He went out and ran a little bit more. We came back and we're pretty excited about you know what was going on. We left from the pits to go to San Diego.
Speaker 2:The pits, in Seattle and drove straight through 24 hours, got to San Diego by the time we got there Thursday and, being the Gold Cup, they started running on Thursday. The Budweiser guys were fast qualifier. I don't remember what the times were exactly high one forties, one, 48, maybe something like that. And so we talked with chip and I said, you know, being saltwater, I don't want to run any more than we absolutely have to. But I know this is an absolutely going to be a completely different ballgame for you. You know it's going to accelerate different. Your start times are going to be different, everything's going to be different. It's probably going to use more fuel. We put a 12 or 15 gallon I don't remember surge tank in the boat because I was worried that we were going to run out of gas. And I said what I'd like to do is we're going to fill this thing up with fuel and let you go out and run. If you can do all your start times, if you can do all your testing, if you can do everything you need to do in one run, even if you run 15 laps, I don't care, run as much as you want until the thing runs out of fuel and we tow you back if you want to, but we need to do everything all in one shot. And he said, yeah, I can do that, everything all in one shot. Um, and he said, yeah, I, I can do that.
Speaker 2:So chip's warm-up lap was like three miles an hour faster than the budweiser guys. Um, qualifying gold cup, gold cup record, world record, qualifying laps that they had just run, wow, and and they just got faster from there. And so two mistakes the gear ratio on our end, the propeller mistakes on the budweiser end. Those two mistakes had gotten together there, uh, to produce the fastest unlimited hydroplane in the history of the sport. The thing was just unbelievable, the way that it accelerated and how fast it went. And I have to go back and look at the stuff to be exactly right on all the details. But you know we won. On the inside lane, uh, he drove around, crop fell.
Speaker 2:You know the next time I think in the third heat, uh, jimmy got the budweiser upside down chasing, chasing chip, um, and it was just incredible, um, and I'll never forget. Uh, jim lucero was with steve woomer at the time and um, and came down after the final heat and we were going to the trophy presentation. I, I guess um and jim was coming the other way and he stopped me and he says I gotta ask what did you do? I have never seen a boat accelerate that way. I've never seen a boat run the way that thing did. What did you do? And I have never seen a boat accelerate that way. I've never seen a boat run the way that thing did. What did you do? And I just kind of smiled and said Jim, you don't want to know.
Speaker 2:And, and of course later, you know all that technology. You know we, we had everybody you know, covered there and the next weekend in in Las Vegas as well, covered there and the next weekend in Las Vegas as well. All this stuff is in the book but the details you can read to figure out how it all worked. But you know, we won the Gold Cup. Like I say, the Miller American was the fastest boat in the history of the sport at the time, both there and the next weekend in Las Vegas. There was extremely fast and got back home. The short version is I got fired and when I got fired, everybody quit. Chip was the only one that ended up staying because he was under contract both with Bill Muncy Industries and the Miller.
Speaker 1:Brewing.
Speaker 2:Company and so he stayed to drive the boat and that whole program, and I'm not saying it was because of me, but certainly I had some influence on it. When John Prevost got involved, he wanted to drive a boat, he was romantically involved with Fran and I got called in the office and basically told that there was no position available on the team for me. Fran started crying, I started crying and Fran said John, you know, that's not true. You and Bill were so close. There will always be a position on this team for you if you want it.
Speaker 2:John informed me that he really wanted his guy, artie Ross, to be the crew chief and he said you can stay if you want, but you're going to have to take an immediate cut and pay chief. And he said you can stay if you want, but you're going to have to take an immediate cut and pay and you'll have no influence on the boat setup, the engine setup, gear ratios, propellers, anything else. And I'd kind of like you to show Artie how to make this stuff work. And I said let me make sure I understand. First of all, I'm going to take a big cut and pay. I have no influence on the engine program that I helped to design and put together. I have no input on the boat that I helped design and build and have no input on, you know, any of the stuff that we've enjoyed some success with, but you'd like me to teach your new guy my job and, uh, john kind of smiled and he said yeah, I guess, I guess that's it.
Speaker 2:And I said my french not only no, but hell no. Uh, I, I'm not interested.
Speaker 2:So as I came out of the office carrying a lot of my stuff, um, all the guys, um, you ask what's going on and I said, you know, basically I've been fired, and so chip was there. Uh, he said, hey, let's round up tonight. You know, everybody at my house at you know, 7, 30 or something like that, and we all got together and I think that was the last time that we were ever together as a team and, like I say, when everybody else got called in, I went in first and everybody else quit, with the exception of Chip, who I think would have liked to but couldn't, who I think would have liked to but couldn't, um and uh, and so, um, a lot of this stuff was. You know, john spent some time there looking around the shop doing different things and he asked me a lot of questions and I tried to be honest with him.
Speaker 2:Um, he asked me well, what do you think about, uh, you know, running a two team, uh, out of one shop here? And I said, you know, I've I've been involved with, with some teams that have tried to do that. I'm not saying it cannot be done. It's extremely difficult. What starts out with all good intentions, as our stuff eventually becomes our stuff and their stuff and you're fighting over engines and who gets the best motor and who gets the best tools and who gets the best propeller. And I said it's really difficult. And then he asked me about that boat that he was building that was going to have four Pontiacs in it and I said you know it's, it's going to be man, it's going to be a handful. It's hard enough to keep one of them running, let alone four of them.
Speaker 2:And and he said, well, we're trying to do this thing with an adjustable strut that goes up and down, with, you know, u-joints and things in there, so the driver can adjust the shaft angle. What do you think of that? And I said, on paper, it's a wonderful idea. I've been involved with some boats where we've tried to do stuff like that and the U-joints won't handle the torque, the horsepower, the angle of deflection, all the things that are involved there. It won't work, not to mention the fact that you want to run twin propellers, which is against the rules. And so a lot of his, his favorite ideas and a lot of his dreams. I think he thought that I was shooting down and I was just trying to be honest with him.
Speaker 2:I was just trying to give him you know why my opinion and what I. I wasn't trying to tell him what I thought he wanted to hear, and so, anyway, as you may remember, they went out and really struggled. Yeah, they did.
Speaker 1:You know as.
Speaker 2:I lovingly refer to it at times as the Miller Circus. It was exactly that. I don't think the Miller Belt got qualified for like the first four races or something. It was, you know, really bad and I mean they really had a problem with it. And so I've been lucky, I I've been lucky to surround myself with really good people, really skilled people. Um, there have been a couple of times um including, um, you know, the, the, the shoemaker, uh thing there we had. We had our problems.
Speaker 1:We had our issues there.
Speaker 2:I thought Bill Worcester got railroaded in that deal and Bill Worcester should have gotten the credit for a lot of things that that he set up in that team and didn't you know? We enjoyed a lot of success there, won a gold cup with some. You know one of my favorite people in the world, pyro Scott Rainey.
Speaker 2:Um and um, in a great group of people, a great group of guys again, you know, with a boat that nobody else could make work and with stuff that nobody else seemed to want. Jean Thierrette did an amazing job of driving the boat and that group of people was the magic. We were willing to work hard enough to do what it took. We had great sponsorship with Bill Cahill and the Beacon Plumbing and all the support and everything there, and even with all of that stuff, we won a world's championship there. We won the Seafair. We won, you know, the Gold Cup, had some really good success and some really fun times there and at the end of the day, when people got asked to go home and other people left on their own, there was a team that had all the potential to be a dominating force in this sport. They never won another race.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's wild. Wild to think about. Yeah, that's wild, and like you said you, I mean you. You worked with some great people over the years and some fantastic people.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You ended up. After Muncie racing, you went to work for Woroster at Pringles yeah, and you worked with Bob Fendler and Joey Rise in the Geronimo program yeah, and you worked for Schumacher, like you said, and you won that Gold Cup in 2006. Yeah, and you're able to win you know many races for crewing for the different teams. Out of those wins as a crew chief or crewman is there one that stands out more than others?
Speaker 2:Gosh, you know, I think, probably the Jean Thierrette days, and with that group of guys there, with a lot of the other teams, whether it was Pay and Pack or Miller big budgets you were expected to win. Nobody expected us to win those races and I think that we caught a lot of people by surprise. John Thiorette did an amazing job of driving the boat, theorette did an amazing job of driving the boat and I think that winning Seafair two years in a row there, that's a pretty amazing feat in itself, the stuff that the odds were against us doing those kinds of things, and I think for those reasons those were really special wins.
Speaker 1:Yes, Okay, yeah, yeah, that does mean something more when it's when you're the underdog and underfinanced and you come together as a group and you make that happen. Well, backing up to the 90s, there's one thing I was just always curious, because in the 90s I was really following the sport pretty closely. In one team I felt like they were well, well funded and had a good boat and had some speed. Uh, the geronimo team, yeah, and I felt like they they were always on the brink of winning but could never win. Do you thinking back on those, that experiment or that time frame, what everyone call it? Can you come up with a reason why that never happened? Was it just were the odds against you the whole time, or I think the odds were against us somewhat.
Speaker 2:Um, the boat was really the limiting factor. Um, we tried as hard as we could to lighten that thing up and make it more competitive and make it better. Um, I think that, um, it took mitch a while to get to be a driver. Um, he was, uh, um, an a racer. Mitch had driven a lot of boats in the past where the goal was just to survive so that we can go to the next week, the next race, the next weekend. And it was a big deal to get that killer instinct and and bring that out in mitch, um, to where he could go out and drive hard and drive competitively and feel like he was in a position to win. And I'm not blaming Mitch for anything, I'm just saying it took a while for that to happen and for that to be able to take place.
Speaker 2:There were other times and I'm just going to be honest BS in politics. You know Seattle, when Bill Doner was running the sport. We won all of our heats, we were fast and thought we really had a good opportunity to win the final. And I was out on the barge in the corral there doing the radio stuff with Mitch and Bill Doner came over to me and he said John, you guys have been running really well today. And he says I'm trying to get your owner to go back to Madison.
Speaker 2:Uh, madison had been blown out or uh, I don't remember what had happened, but they were going back at the end of the season to run in Madison and we weren't in the championship race. It didn't make any sense for Jerry rise to go back there and do that, and Jerry had said we would. We were not going to do it. So Bill was pushing real hard, trying to support Madison, which I understand and I agree with, and that's really the only reason that I thought we should do. It is to, you know, promote the race. And so Bill says well, I've talked with your owner and he says I want you to know, I want everybody to know, that unless I get a commitment before the five minute gun goes off in the final, you, you have run extremely well today, but I promise you you will not win this race.
Speaker 1:Oh my.
Speaker 2:God. And I said what, what are you talking about here? And he says I didn't stutter, you will not win this race unless I get a commitment. Uh, about that time, um, dave Billwalk was driving the Budweiser. He drove right in front of Mitch, wet him down, blew the mirrors off the boat, you know. The engine stopped running, got wet. He did get it fired up again and got it going again, but there was no call. You know, I often wonder, you know, if Jerry would have said we were going to go, would that have happened? Would there have been a call? If it did happen? I don't know, but I think there were a lot of politics involved on that particular day.
Speaker 1:Anyway, yeah, Well, I just remember that time frame. Like you were always, that team was always putting up fast qualifying numbers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then there was a fuel flow violation or there was something called against you. Yeah, yeah, that's just.
Speaker 2:Yeah, once we started to go fast and in a position to win, things changed. There was a target on our back and I felt like we got some bad calls at times and got some things. And then Kim Gregory, bless his heart, he came to me in San Diego and he said I hear Jerry Rises thinking about you know, calling it quits. And I said you know, jerry told me he was going to do this for five years. And if we do great, we do great. And if we didn't, you know, he can say he did it and that's really what he wanted to do. And Kim asked me he says well, what do you think it would take to keep Jerry involved in the sport? And I said probably a new boat. And he said, well, I've got one of those. And, um, he said do you think there's any chance that we could, you know, form, uh, uh, an alliance here to where you guys can build the engines and we'll give you a new boat to run, um? And I said that's yeah, that sounds wonderful to me, um, but not my, not my decision to make. And I said let me talk with jerry and we'll, you know, see what we can do. And so we were able to put together a deal. Jerry agreed to go one more year and the new boat man.
Speaker 2:We really struggled with that thing the first couple of races and finally, by the time we got to San Diego it was running well. I thought we were in a position we could win. We were a fast qualifier. For a while. George had beaten the Budweiser a time or two. Uh, he thought that we won the race in tri cities and there were a couple of gun jumpers there and uh and George was just out there running around and what he thought was a winning position in third place Didn't realize that.
Speaker 2:I think Nate uh was was still ahead of him and we ended up finishing second and and uh, the radios didn't work properly. I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't talk to him and and uh, and he thought that we had won that one and and um, and that may have made a difference, but but then you know, after the situation in tri-cities, when, with the crash and all that was, that was just a horrible thing, george was so much fun to race with and george was such a competitor and he used to do that in the flat bottoms that he uh was driving.
Speaker 2:He'd, he'd, you know, win or do good, and he'd start playing with the cavitation plate and he'd get the boat hopping um and um. He tried doing that with with uh the unlimited a couple of times and I kept telling george, george, george, please don't do that. And we, we were fast. The propeller that we wanted bob herring was working on. It was supposed to come, um, we were supposed to be able to take it with us down there and it didn't get done. On friday night I talked with george and he said it's just about finished. He says I can have it to you tomorrow, but it'll, it'll be get there Saturday night, you can run it Sunday, um. And I said, okay, well, let's do that. So they flew up counter to counter. We picked it up at the airport in San Diego, uh, put it on the boat.
Speaker 2:Sunday morning for the butterfly run, um, with three other boats on the race course and I don't remember if we were a fast qualifier or second fast qualifier, but we were quick there and with that new herring propeller, um, even with three other boats on the race course, uh, george was like four miles an hour faster than than our qualifying time and he was so excited he said, man, this is it, this is it, we're going to do this thing.
Speaker 2:And I started walking back up the ramp, um, when I heard and felt, you know, everybody in the crowd, you know, draw a vacuum on the place. And when I looked out across, all I saw was the boat, you know, upside down in the air there. And that was really, I think, if we would have had the weekend that I think we could have had there and actually won that race Jerry Rice might, might still be, you know, it might have stayed involved. Um, but the fact that that we lost george in that deal, uh, he said, no, I don't, I don't know, I don't know that I ever want to do this again. So, yeah, yeah that was.
Speaker 1:That was such a sad day and, like you said, george was such a kind man. I think it was a kind soul and, yeah, that was a huge loss for the sport. It was.
Speaker 2:And it was such a freaky accident. And when the boat got back I noticed how the spar was broken, the sponson was sticking way up in the air and everything there, and I started looking at things more closely. We still hadn't heard the word about George, but I knew things weren't good. I could see, you know, with the binoculars, that they were, you know, trying to do CPR and different things and get him to the hospital and and all that. And as he pulled the deck hatches off and started looking at things and I could see all the scratches and things on it.
Speaker 2:I don't remember who I said it to first, but I said you know what, I think this thing hit the bottom, um, and I thought, well, no, I think you know, maybe we just, you know I got dragged in upside down or whatever happened. I said I don't think so. And uh, and just the way all the glass and everything in the canopy was blown out of it, and uh, and just all the stuff that that happened. As it turns out, I got a course map. I started looking at the stuff. It happened at 920 or something like that. In the morning, low tide was like 915.
Speaker 2:And there was eight and a half feet of water there, and when the thing came back in it went in nose first and it hit the bottom.
Speaker 1:So it stopped instantly then when it hit the bottom, yeah.
Speaker 2:And all that water and everything that was inside the boat, even though it just was instantly as it started to fill up with water when it hit the bottom. All that water went forward and hit the glass and the canopy and everything from the inside, and there's no strength from the inside out, it's all the other way. That's why all the glass and everything was missing. Coroner's report and the medical examiner's report and all that. George's injuries were exactly the same as dale earnhardt's. It separated his spinal cord from um, from his brain. At that point the hans device was recommended. It wasn't mandatory and from that point on it was required and I honestly believe it would have saved George had he been wearing it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I often forget that Dale Earnhardt passed away. What a year before that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the introduction of the Hans device, going back to talking about safety with that, and you spent some years as an inspector for the sport. Yeah, a couple of things curious for the fans, like when you go into inspect boats. Is this just at the race sites or do you go to the shops and inspect them? As you know, the year goes towards, or draws towards its beginning of the race sites, or do you go to the shops and inspect them? As you know, the year goes towards, or draws towards its beginning of the race season. How does that process work as an inspector?
Speaker 2:It's a little bit of both. Every boat has to go through an annual inspection in order to be in their first event, to qualify for their first event, and there's like 14 pages. You literally check every nut and bolt. You know on the bottom, the inside, the outside. You know wiring, plumbing, the canopy, how it's attached. You know checking for any kind of cracks, you know any place, checking the skid fin, the rudder. All that stuff has to come off and have Magnaflux papers that it's been checked, non-destructive testing, to make sure that there's no cracks or no flaws or no problems with any of that stuff in there. And, like I say, there literally is 14 pages of things that get checked off. And then look at every single item in the boat.
Speaker 2:In the event of an accident or a problem, that section of the boat that was damaged we'll go through a re-inspection. And you know, take a look at all that stuff At every race. I usually try to get there on Thursdays during setup day when the guys are putting the stuff together. Then I can take a look at the wing mounts and the wing brackets and the front and rear and all the stuff and it doesn't hinder them too much. They're not trying to run the boat, so it's not a big problem. But pull deck hatches off and take a look at the brackery and the attachment and everything of all the brackets for the skid fin, the rudder, the steering system, turnbuckles, steering cables, the pulleys, to make sure that you know that there's nothing broken or nothing chafing or no problems or anything with any of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Most of it is safety related. I mean there's some technical stuff that has to be looked at because of the fuel flow being checked and rpm and that sort of thing being checked. We look at that stuff on a pretty regular basis and when the box comes out and goes back to the truck, that stuff gets looked at every time the boat's run to make sure that there's no fuel flow issues or over speed issues with RPM. But the safety stuff every time the boat gets run, one of the inspectors and there's usually at least two of us and sometimes three take a look at, you know, the skid fin and all the tie rods and make sure that there's nothing pulling loose or you know the paint's not chipping or there's nothing moving. Take a look inside, outside, with the rudder and the rudder brackets, just kind of do a visual of all the stuff the wing and take a good close look at the bottom as it's coming out of the water to go back to the trailer, that there's no paint blowing off or pieces of the bottom that are damaged or anything like that.
Speaker 2:There have been times where there's been accidents during an event, whether it's a two-day race and there's Saturday and Sunday, and maybe something happened in Friday, or maybe something happened in a heat on Saturday and the guys had to, you know, work overnight to get stuff fixed.
Speaker 2:That stuff all has to be inspected and taken a look at before it goes back in the water. There's been very few times that a boat has been deemed unseaworthy to where it couldn't run, but it's always been because of a safety issue. Something was wrong in the steering, or you know the rudder bracket you know wasn't quite right, or you know something that could come off and break it. That could, you know, potentially damage another boat, or, you know heaven forbid, you know hurt a driver or have somebody get hurt because of something like that. So my goal is always to have the boats, as many boats, run as often as we can, and if there's anything that I can do to help whether it's a quick fix or a way to fix something that'll get you by till the next heat or whatever I'm always willing to share that stuff and always willing to do whatever it takes to get as many boats on the water as we can, provided it's safe to do so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah hand, provided you know that it's safe to do so. Yeah, yeah, well, I think you said a good point that the fans always get is that when you're doing inspections, it's not not a one and done like you're continuously inspecting, yeah, or components of the boats to make sure it's safe for the, for the drivers and other other performers out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and there's been times, um, that, um, you know, wing fairings or the uprights or the wing itself, the rear wing and that sort of thing, has been damaged, or the front canard wings and those kinds of things. There have been times that boats have been allowed to run even though we know there's some damage. It's not a safety issue, it's a performance issue. You're probably not going to win the race and you're not going to be able to go out there and set world record lap times and that sort of thing, but you can still collect some points. You can still, you know, fill the field and then do those things. So, as long as it's not something that's going to endanger somebody's life or, you know, hurt somebody, you know you're pretty much allowed to run.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, all right, yeah, well, I know we talked for a long time. I have one last question I want to ask and then I'll let you go. I appreciate you taking this much time with me, but you have such a knowledge of the sport and so many factors. Turbines have been around for 40, 50 years now in the sport but I hear of a scarcity with the availability of turbines. Do you see the sport continuing with turbines or is there another avenue you see that should be looked at for power plant?
Speaker 2:I think they're going to continue. With the turbines, there is a problem with some parts, especially in the hot end the GP wheel, gas producer wheel, the first turbine and first turbine nozzles and some of those things that are getting very rare and hard to find. I think we're going to get to a point to where you're going to see some of the teams starting to have to manufacture those parts. They're going to have to start building some of those, and that can be done as an automotive thing or as an experimental thing, to where we don't have to go through the FAA inspection process and they don't have to be deemed airworthy. But it's pretty rare now, unless you see a boat involved in an accident, or somebody does something, leaves something loose or a problem. It's pretty rare that we heard engines now and with and uh, with the fuel flow restrictions and the RPM restrictions, there's, there's teams that run the same engine for every single lap. Um, all the testing, all the qualifying, all the racing, all the, everything, um is all done, um, and then the engines are still good and healthy at the end of the season, as long as we continue to run them within their design specification, uh, and we're not stretching this stuff now.
Speaker 2:I mean in the early days. You know, in the Miller days. You know we had 16 engines and you know, I know, the Budweiser guys had just as many. There were times we took 12 of them. You know, back east and we expected to hurt three or four of them every weekend. You know you'd burn a nozzle, you'd burn a wheel, you did whatever it took to win and we went through a lot of stuff there and, as it turns out, the restrictions both fuel and RPM has been a good thing. It's saved a lot of equipment. We very rarely hurt things now If you go through a rooster tail or somebody crashes, gets upside down and the engine goes into water while it's still running it bends blades and takes out, you know, the inlet guide bane and some of those things that are getting extremely difficult to find.
Speaker 2:So I think we're going to have to start, you know, getting some teams together to come up with the money as a group to build enough parts to make it worthwhile to whoever's building them, and you're going to have to start building some of their own parts and pieces. I honestly don't know another form of power that we could throw at it right now. There's a big interest in automotive and I'd love to see that too. I don't think there's a single team out there that can afford to run automotive right now. You'd have to have 12 or 15 engines. They'd have to be in a constant rotation where you run four engines this weekend and they go back and are getting rebuilt and you'll run four more for the next couple of races or whatever. And they're expensive. I mean you look at the drag race stuff or NASCAR or whatever, and you'd have to have a multimillion dollar engine program in order to support these things, unless we just restrict them to the point.
Speaker 2:You know that they would live, and we're doing that now with the turbines, and I think that the turbines are light enough. They make enough torque and enough horsepower, even running at, you know, four gallons a minute, 4.1 gallons per minute. We're going faster now than we did with unrestricted fuel and everything, because the guys are working harder on aerodynamics and hydrodynamics. The propeller technology has gotten so much better I think that's probably the biggest single thing that and the skid fins and the boats handle so well and you know they push so easy and you know, even as heavy as they are, on less fuel and less RPM, we're still going, you know, way faster. So yeah, yeah, I just don't see anything that makes sense right now other than what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it would take someone like a david terrence burger who wants to experiment and has sourcing for that, to, yeah, to get that next level. But I'm glad to hear that there are options for turbines, because I've heard people talk about how they're the the time limit is there now, yeah, because of the scarcity of parts. So well, I appreciate, john. It's been such a great time to talk with you about your career and about your contributions to the sport and I'm looking forward to your book. Thank you, can't wait to read that and I'm looking forward to getting a copy for myself.
Speaker 2:Thank you, all right. Well, I look forward to getting it, getting it done and getting some of the stuff out there. Like I say, there's so many stories in there that are just you know, this sort of thing, uh, things that you know, people don't know and people don't realize, just like you know that that gear ratio and propeller stories that, uh, that people will, oh wow, and I never knew that.
Speaker 2:I never I knew and then I didn't have any idea. Uh, good reaction and hopefully store some interest and be good for the sport as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely, definitely, Can't wait. Well, knuckleheads, that's all the time we had for this week. Hope you really enjoyed my talk with John Walters. Loved every second of it. He could tell tales for days, I'll tell you that, and I would just be there and I would soak it up. Loved hearing all the insights from the sport and his personal journey and his experiences around the sport. He's had so many great, great memories, so many great moments, but that always comes with that other side of things and he has had some difficult moments and especially around that time of that crash of the pain pack. And I love that. He's sharing a story and I cannot wait for his book to come out, because he's going to share more insights around the sport, but more around mental health as well, and I think that's a great bridge because everyone has their own demons that they deal with. And being able to talk about it as the first step, I love what he has done with his book. I can't wait to read it and hopefully talk to you, the listener, more about that. Really want to thank again john walters for coming on the show and sharing his tale and just being the awesome person he is, and there's there's many more. I could think that to go along with this interview, because I had some other people reach out, give me some questions and give me some insight, and really appreciate everyone's support with that. But that's all we've got for this week. Stay tuned.
Speaker 1:Next week We'll have our new, next interview. I have a few in the pipeline, so I'm not sure which one that's going to be yet, but I'm excited to get the next interview out for you, the viewer. In the meantime, check us out on social media. We're on the Facebook. We're on the Instagram. We've got our website, wwwrucheteltalkcom. On there I've got all the episodes from previous interviews, but I also have something called BrewsterTailTalk Plus where you can subscribe for a small monthly fee and get some more insight around the sport. I'm going into my archives from my father, roger Newton, my own archives. I'm adding photos from previous years of hydroplane racing. I've got some fun articles and some more just fun things around the sport that you can get access to with your subscription. But don't forget, you also get early access to all new episodes, as well as a monthly drawing for some fun prizes. But that's all I have today. So until next time, I hope to see you at the races.