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.
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Roostertail Talk
Episode 151: Steve Montgomery, Part 2
Radio waves meet rooster tails in this captivating continuation of our conversation with broadcasting legend Steve Montgomery. From creating iconic KISW "Miss Rock" advertisements to becoming the voice of unlimited hydroplane racing on ESPN, Steve reveals the creative genius and determination that defined his career. This is part 2 of 3 of the Steve Montgomery interview. Look for part 3 to stream next week!
*Photo from the Steve Montgomery Collection
Help the podcast by subscribing to our new service, Roostertail Talk+. The podcast is still free to all on our website and through all major podcast platforms (such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, Castbox, etc) but with Roostertail Talk+ there is more you can enjoy ! With this service you will get early links to new episodes, enjoy access to extra content, raffle prizes and more. This is a new service that we will be adding to as we move along. As always your support to make this show grow is very appreciated! https://www.buzzsprout.com/434851/supporters/new
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 to Rooster Tail Talk. Let's go, steve Montgomery. If you haven't heard the first part of my interview with Steve Montgomery, please go back to episode 150 and listen to that before continuing with this episode.
Speaker 1:Today I had a great talk with him and in this week he's going to go on to talk about more of his stories around the sport. He's going to talk about his experiences with sponsorship, radio talent and security, people of all things Some great stories, though he did share Really appreciate the time he took to sit down with me and talk about his career in unlimited hydroplane racing and broadcasting. So let's get back into my interview with Steve Montgomery, as he continues to talk about his time with KISW, the Rock and the ads that they had for hydroplane racing. Like you said, I love the ads that you came out with. There were some pretty clever and fun ads. You had Boatman at one point and then you had some good one-liners from the different teams about KISW.
Speaker 2:We had a great promotion director named Jim Carey. He was an artist, he was the guy responsible for the colored logo, the Miss Rock logo, and he would uh, he would come down to one of us, any one of us. There were probably three or four different people that had ideas for those ads. We would get together and woodshed them. I think the first one was he had Fred come into the station and he put a hat on him and a bullwhip wrapped around his shoulder and took a picture of Fred. And the ad was something about Fred Leland and the Vessel of Varum. It was a takeoff on the movie the Temple of Doom or whatever. That was yeah, and they went on and on and on.
Speaker 2:Some of my favorites were um, there was one we put together. It was um, nine out of nine unlimited drivers say yes to Miss Rock. And then we'd say Bill Muncy quote yes, I think it was a blue boat. And then somebody else said yes, I went by it a couple of times and all these crazy quotes from different drivers One of them backfired on me a little bit because it had something to do with the comparing the boat to the Budweiser said the Miss Budweiser and, um, the Miss Rock have pretty much identical crews. Our crew is guys who all together weigh 820 pounds. Miss budweiser has seven guys that weigh 800, but there was uh, there was one that bernie didn't like. Yeah, so he accosted me in the bar and said well, I got some bad news. You'll probably be hearing from our lawyers. And I said what's the problem? And I can't remember which ad that was and he said it wasn't very funny. I said oh, we thought it was. Well, you'll be hearing from us, okay.
Speaker 2:I never did hear from his lawyer, so they weren't all received well by everybody but we did have fun with it. One was just a blank page. It said rare picture of Miss Rock racing at night man fun. That's funny. And the radio station was the reason that we were able to. We worked with. We worked with these companies that I mentioned all the time on their advertising so we knew the people.
Speaker 2:It wasn't hard to go find um sponsors when when you were working with them every day we just said, hey, you should be on our boat at Seafair. We made them a deal that included that and the same with some of the sponsors who weren't on that boat. But I ended up working with them on other deals. Most of them came to us through people that I knew at the radio station. The hardest part of sponsorship is getting to the guy with the votes. Well, in a lot of cases I already knew the guy with the votes, so that kind of greased the skids for me. I enjoyed that kind of work. It was interesting and it was hard.
Speaker 2:If you set out to be a sponsor finder, if you get a good lead on a guy, you might be 18 months away from actually getting them involved in a program.
Speaker 2:Really, it takes that long and in most cases, the people who have sponsored Unlimited Hydroplanes were guys who had control because they owned the company. It's tough to get them past a board of directors or anybody like that, of course, or anybody like that of course. But the way to do it was something we didn't have the bucks to do, which is to get somebody to come to the race in San Diego and schmooze them like crazy. You know Well, the sport hasn't done a lot of that because of your budgetary restrictions and things, but that means you'd be talking to them this year, showing them the sport, and they would take it to their people the following year and then the year after that maybe you'd have a deal. That's how the big deals work in NASCAR and other places. But uh, we weren't operating on that level, which is the reason we don't have more sponsors and and the marketability has come and gone a little bit over the years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's definitely changed quite little bit over the years. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely changed quite a bit over the years. What other sponsors did you bring into the sport? Or you want to share? At least I don't remember.
Speaker 2:Oh, one of my first ones was Thousand Trails. Do you even remember that one?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it was Ken Thompson's boat from the Tri-Cities, ken Thompson's from the Tri-Cities. They had the rainbow Yep On the deck, yeah.
Speaker 2:He came into my office at KISW looking for a sponsor. Well, I knew a guy named Bob O'Dell. He was one of my clients and he was the ad agency for Thousand Trails and I said sure, let's go see Bob. So we put that together. Actually, you know, my first one was the Olympia beer. Really, now they're coming back to me. Yeah, leslie Rosenberg owned the boat. Billy Shoemaker had become a good friend, and how did I know the Olympia people back then?
Speaker 2:I don't remember, I can't remember on the timeline where this was, but I took Billy and Les down to Olympia. We met with their marketing director, dave Fredrickson, and made a deal for that boat to be the Olympia beer, and that was before the Olympia funny car. So I don't remember what connection I had. Maybe he was advertising on the station, but I think that was it. Well, that was before I was at KISW, so I have problems with my timeline there. But anyway, olympia beer was an early one, okay, um, the uh, the casinos, um, freddie's club, silver dollar, okay, and those were actually not related to radio. I found them through, uh, through people that knew somebody. That knew somebody, um, carrie Falk was doing some five liter racing, had an office near me in Redmond and I went to see him and he said, well, I can't do it. He had a copier company, he said. But I know some people that should, and it was the folks from Freddy's Club Casino. So I went down to see them and they ended up on the boat. And then that guy Took me down the street to the silver dollar people and said these guys want everything I have. So I hooked him up with uh Ken Muscatel yeah, freddie's club was Freddie's club was on uh Jim Harvey's boat originally, and then uh later with um Kim Gregory, right, yeah, there's one of my and Diamond Lills.
Speaker 2:Yep, there's one of my favorite stories, the uh, the Jim Harvey Freddy's Club. Okay, at Seafair, steve David turned it over right. So they drag it back to the pits and it's got water coming out of everywhere. And I'm up on the boat with Jim Harvey. Ron Jones was up there with us. Oh, I was doing television at the time. I had a camera crew following me around. But I was doing television at the time, I had a camera crew following me around, so, but they weren't with me at the time. So they talked about what it would take to get the boat back in the water and I said I'm going to go get my camera guy and they said okay. So I got down off the boat and went and found my camera person, producer and so on. I said I got a story over here with this wet boat.
Speaker 2:So we get back to the boat and there's a fireman in full battle gear with an extinguisher and a helmet and the whole thing, standing at the end of the boat. I start to go by him and he stops us. He says you can't go in here and I said, excuse me, why not? Well, this, this boat was wrecked. And I said yeah, I know, I'm very familiar with the boat. Well, you can't go in here. And I said, well, what's the problem? He said, well, there's a fire hazard. I think it has fuel in it. And I said, well, the boat is soaking wet. Is there really a problem? Just about, then, a lieutenant with medals and everything is bumping me in the chest going. You got a problem.
Speaker 2:And I said, well, yeah, I wanted to do my job and your man here won't let me get on the boat. And he said, well, why should you get on the boat? And I said, sir, it's part of my job. Okay, I need to do it. I said I was on it earlier, before your man got here, and now I need to get back on it. Well, he and I went back and forth, just about came to blows. Right, I wrote a. I wrote a letter to the fire department. I said you got a guy that's working for you at Seafair that should not be working with people at all. Okay, we never saw him again and I don't know if I had a part of that or not, but I will never forget that fireman and that guy bumping my chest. He touched me, which I think should be illegal, and he couldn't understand why we should be allowed to get on that boat, and I have. That's a whole. Nother chapter in my book is security. People Make a note of that and we'll come back to it later.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you have countless tales of that. Oh man Traveling around the countries and yeah.
Speaker 2:Weekend warriors Right Seafair was one of the toughest. They had those, those yellow plastic jackets that they got to wear one weekend a year.
Speaker 2:And you went from a welding trailer hitches to being the guy telling people who could and couldn't go anywhere that that that day, in fact, steve David was taken into the medical trailer where Dr Peterson was in the infield and they had roped it off so nobody could get anywhere near that trailer. Well, I had his daughter with me and we got over to the rope and the security guy was there and can't go in here and I said this is the driver's daughter, he needs to go to her dad and he was not going to let us in. Oh my God, patty Darling was the series nurse at the time and she saw what was going on and she came over and said steve, do you need to come in? And I said no, but steve's daughter does, she's well, yes, come on. And took her over to the trailer. But stuff like that happened up and down what other tales do you have around?
Speaker 1:because you have to have countless tales of almost every town, almost every town.
Speaker 2:We don't know how many times either me or my reporter would get kicked off the dock in the Tri-Cities and they still fight that over there. Evansville, indiana, is in a cement bowl, right, and the boats are way down below the driveway. So I'm heading down there with my cameraman because the boat is coming out of the water and I'm going to talk to the driver and a security guy stops me. You can't go down here. And I said well, why not? Well, there's a, there's a boat coming out of the water. I said I've, I'm actually familiar with that process. Well, you can't go down there. And I said why not? He said it's for your safety. I said, okay, are you going to be in Detroit next week? And he said no. And I said well, who's going to take care of me over there? I got 10 of these races to do and you're the first guy that wouldn't let me get an arrow boat.
Speaker 2:And then, speaking of Detroit, um, Mark Tate got tangled up with the Budweiser and turned one and he went over it kind of upside down and it jammed his cockpit so it wouldn't open. So they, um, they turned, but the boat was right side up right. So they towed it back to the pit area and decided what they were going to do was set it on barrels and open the hatch on the bottom and get Mark out that way. So they roped off a rather large area around the boat and my cameraman and I ducked just inside and and got to where we could see the bottom of the boat, waited for Mark to come out, and but we're inside the yellow ribbon right. And uh, suddenly a big old cop says you can't be in here. And I said well, we're just waiting for Mark to go on. So I stood up and he grabbed my badge off my shirt and tore it off for me. He says you don't have a pass. And I said give me back my pass. You can get it in the office. So I said what is your name? And he said why do you need my name? And I said because on the TV show at the bottom of the screen, we're going to say we can't show you the picture of Mark coming out of the boat because officer so-and-so wouldn't let us get that shot. You can't do that. And I said you watch me. So I go back to the office getting my badge back and then we go back and we ended up getting the shot and everything's okay. So then Seattle is a little bit later and I'm standing on that big old tower in Seattle and suddenly a guy beside me is bumping me and I turn to my right and it's Mike the cop from Detroit. And now he now he's going to be my buddy Right and I wasn't open to that at first, but we became friends.
Speaker 2:Wow, the next year, the next year, I'm in Detroit and I'm in the lobby of the um, big, what do they call it? The Weston, the big, tall places on Jefferson street, and there's there's Mike the cop and he says, hey, steve, you going to the pits? And I said, yes, sir, I am. He said you got a car? Well, yeah, I do. He said, well, I'll meet you out front. So I pull out of the parking area under the hotel and there's Mike with his motorcycle and his lights flashing and he goes like this follow me. And he leads me down Jefferson street all the way to the pit area. And that was, that was my buddy Mike.
Speaker 2:The other one. The other one was the quote that I'm famous for, the production company in Tampa. At the end of the Detroit pit area, toward the rooster tail, there was a section that kind of went out into the water and it was like a VIP seating area. So I'm walking along the pit area with my camera guy and a producer and a director and a cable puller, and we get to this place and there's a sweet little lady Actually, she wasn't, she was a sweet big lady Okay, young girl. And she says, well, you, you can't go in here, young girl. And she says, well, you, you can't go in here. And I said, I said I don't have time to explain to you how wrong you are. And there was silence and she said, oh, and then we went in. So every time those guys saw me the rest of my life, they remembered that quote. And I'm sure there were more issues with security, but those are the ones that come to mind immediately. Yeah, yeah, that'll be a good, good chapter in the book. Yeah, yeah, it's it's.
Speaker 1:I haven't been to as many races as you have, but it's.
Speaker 2:It's been interesting, to say the least, how uh security has treated people over the years I'm glad you didn't ask me how many races I did, because I can't figure it out. I don't remember. You know who knows Jared Meyer, jared Meyer Okay, we might have to get Jared to do a stat. He is an expert on my career. I had not seen any of my old shows for years and suddenly they started popping up because Jared would find him somewhere. I don't remember which years I did what. Frankly, I know I did a lot of races as the third guy and then suddenly I was the anchor for a decade or so.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about ESPN, because you broadcasted for many years for ESPN and had your iconic voice was on there. How did you bridge that from going to radio to broadcasting nationally for ESPN?
Speaker 2:Well, espn Hydro started on ESPN before I did.
Speaker 1:It was Jim and and and let me see.
Speaker 2:This is what happens now. My brain stopped Dick Crippen, yes, yes, and I had met Jim. I had his network on my station at Cairo and later on KAYO. And, uh, jim was the one that convinced me that I could do it. First of all, the the interview job that I started on, you weren't really on camera much, so that wasn't too bad. They had you ask a question and step out of the picture, which my mom didn't like. She said all they show is your hand with a microphone. I said well, that's my job, mom. Then I don't remember the progression, but the job would change to change production companies.
Speaker 2:Originally it was diamond piece sports and they had made their name in drag racing. They were, they were based in Tampa, floridaida, and then some people from that company left and started another company and they had the sport and at some point and I don't remember how I think you know some of it was budget driven. The other guys wanted more money than I did, I guess, but at some point I had the chance to become the uh, the anchor. The interesting thing about those days is those shows were all finished in Tampa, so every race that I did that was on a network, involved a trip to Tampa and back. Wow, one year we did 10 or 11 races and for every race I went from Seattle to the race, back to Seattle, and then they took the video to Tampa and edited into the one hour show With all of the commercials and Tampa and edited into the one hour show with all of the commercials and breaks and the graphics. The only thing missing was the play by play. So then I would fly to Tampa and do the voiceover. I didn't do it at the race, I did it by watching the video.
Speaker 2:That was not easy. That was not easy, that was a learned, a learned ability. I had to get used to that. Yeah, but if you total it up, that year I went Seattle to Madison, to Seattle, to Tampa, to Seattle, to Detroit, to Seattle. After that, when my body got near the airport, it would start to go no, we can't do this anymore. Golly, the tricky part about that job. It sounds easy when you watch the shows. They will. They will queue up a piece of video and say we need 37 seconds. Go and you've got this timer rolling in front of you going. Look, it's doing thousands of seconds at a time and your job is to have a thought that ends as it hits zero. Not as easy as it sounds, oh, but I got to where I could do that pretty well. After practicing for a few shows Met some wonderful people. I need to mention them because I have good friends to this day in central Florida.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:People like Ryan Kendall, who goes clear back to that Diamond P crew, and the other the other crews that came later. Just a lot of really neat people. And when you're, when you're on the road, let's say you're like a baseball team. You know you're, you're a team and you're on the road and you're working together and you get to be very close. Son Brian is is experiencing that now and I'm really happy for him because he's part of the team shooting the videos and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's he's producing some fantastic videos with the drone. I don't know where all that talent came from. He just uh, he started one of those kids that did video games and things like that and was really good at it. Started one of those kids that did video games and things like that and was really good at it. And, uh, he uh started drone piloting, had a company where he did real estate. He would fly through your house and not touch anything, you know. Okay, wow. And then I hooked him up with um, walt, ottnad and Lisa and talk about people who have been valuable to the sport. I wish they got the.
Speaker 2:I wish they got the recognition they deserve. Right, and they loved Brian, they loved his work and that's worked out pretty well for everybody. That was a lot of fun for Dad watching him do that. Yeah, I'm sure my claim to fame now if I'm in a room full of those people is I'm Brian Montgomery's dad and they go. Oh well, he's pretty good. Yeah, he is.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, you can be proud of him. It's, yeah, Some of the footage he's pulled out. It's. It's fun too, cause it's it's different angles than we've seen before. There's. There's angles that, uh, has never been been shown, like the boats going down the front stretch and you're it's coming right at you. You know it's, it's always been stuff off to the side before, but it's just, it's incredible what he's able to get these different angles that we've never seen.
Speaker 2:And at first it was just getting a good wide shot of the turn, you know, because we hadn't always had that back in the day we had. Sometimes we had a camera in the helicopter so we could get that footage later and edit it in and talk it over. We had the O'Doul's eye in the sky, but it wasn't like having it. It wasn't like having it live or the play-by-play people. So that was revolutionary and that's where it started. And then Brian's got creative and said well, you know, I can fly this thing right down by the entrance pin, watch this.
Speaker 1:And you got some pretty spectacular shots. Yeah, we do well going back to the espn, when you're traveling, that much for the productions that, were you working another job as well, or was or was that your only job at the time?
Speaker 2:1987 I was at kisw and steve rey Reynolds got hurt in Madison. Well, he had been working with Don Poyer. Besides driving that boat he was working with Don on the. They were called Runaway Entertainment. They were doing Unlimiteds and Limiteds and a whole bunch of boat racing. Don Poyer called me and said could you fill in for Steve? And I said I think, okay, let me try it. And I think that was some of my first. I don't believe I had done any television before that. So I became part of that crew and, uh, finished the year doing limited races. We did a Dayton hydro bowl and, uh, first race we ever did was, um, uh, dean Martin's hometown, which I can usually think of the name I will in a minute. Sandy Tate was driving a boat there, but her name wasn't Tate, yet Mark was there, steubenville, ohio.
Speaker 2:Okay, the thing I remember about that, besides Sandy and Mark and some of the boats, my cameraman was from King TV and he had a big, heavy camera on his shoulder and the docks. The docks were a little bit wobbly right, but we go out on this dock and I turned to my left where the boat is and the driver's coming off and I've got my microphone talking to him. Cameraman is behind me. When I got done I put the mic down and the cameraman was gone. He had gone into the river with his camera on his shoulder. I was so tired I had to take an all-nighter to get there.
Speaker 2:I remember falling asleep under somebody's metal trailer and then I had to take an all-nighter to get back to the radio station for an eight o'clock sales meeting Monday morning. Jeez. And it was about then that I started to think maybe my dream of somebody having my own business would be better because I'd have my own schedule. So by late 88, I think, is about when I resigned my job at KISW and started Montgomery marketing doing commercials for people and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:At the sales meeting I told I was sales manager by then and I told my crew I was going to be leaving and they said, well, what are you going to do? And I said I'm going on the senior golf tour. And they said, wow, are you that good? And I said, well, not now, I'm going to have to practice. I'm going to have to practice. But that worked out because now I'm my own boss and I can pursue hydroplane race announcing. And that's when it got pretty serious about then. Now I hadn't thought of that story for years. You, you brought it up, maybe Am.
Speaker 1:I rekindling things.
Speaker 2:Maybe there are more in there. Okay, Well, good good.
Speaker 1:Over the years, though you you worked with some other greats and talents. I know outside of hype and racing, but within, when I always think back on the radio broadcast and the tv broadcast over the years, there's some some pretty fun announcers that have been there as well as you have, and this includes dick crippen, jim hendricks, don poyer, o'day Mike Simmons. There was a lot of great talent around the sport. Did you have a favorite to work with or favorites?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's none of the people you mentioned Really, because I didn't work with them. They were doing their thing and I was doing mine. Okay, my favorites were the guys when, by the time I became the anchor, I had a second guy who did the pit interviews and the color.
Speaker 2:You know the color commentator and that now you're talking about mark evans and that was a lot of fun. Uh, scott pierce was really, really good. Tommy deeth was really a good guy. Tommy was a little bit, uh, camera shy, but mark evans gosh, you know that personality. It was just, um, we, we were doing a piece on the beach in San Diego for a highlight film and I introduced him as one of those um, whacked out hydroplane drivers who's been on his head a few times and isn't quite right. And Mark says and we consider that a compliment. And Mark says and we consider that a compliment Every anytime I gave it to Mark and a lot of that. The two man thing requires timing between the two people. Right, and he and I just really had it. It was, it was really fun. Scott Pierce was fun because he wasn't afraid to say anything. He just called it like it is and and said things that most people wouldn't have, people wouldn't have brought up but made for great stuff. So those were my favorite people.
Speaker 2:Now there was one time I got a call. Pat O'Day had been doing the Seafair Race on KOMO, but the CBS stations had bought the contract so they called me this was a K Z O K K couple other stations. They called me and said could you put together a CFair broadcast? And I said, boy, could I, something I've always wanted to do. If you remember, when I was a kid, my dad and I would listen to the Indy 500 every minute of it all day and they would go around and they had expert announcer here and there and there and they just went clear around the track and I thought I'm going to get all the good announcers on my team and I did. I had Mark Allen in the pit tower so I could throw it to him. As they got down there I had, uh, john Lynch and Brad Luce. Mike McDonald from the Tri-Cities came over. I had Ron Jones sitting beside me as my expert commentator.
Speaker 2:The sad thing about that is the people in the sport never heard us because they were busy running the boats in the pit area. We did two three-year contracts and it was the best radio I ever did and it was among the best that the sport ever had. Really professional stuff never won the radio station of the year award. So I mentioned it to Ken Muscatel once when he was the interim commissioner and I said you know it'd be nice if I could go to the station and tell him we won the award for a good radio show.
Speaker 2:And he said well, I thought we gave it to you and I said, no, I don't think so. He gave it to you and I said, no, I don't think so. He said aren't you kona? And I said no, it's in the tri-cities. And he said oh gee, I thought that was you sorry. So in six years of doing that probably the most professional radio broadcast in the history of the sport we never won the darn award, that's that's sad and and tri-cities and madison just traded it back and forth every year yeah, do recordings of any of those broadcasts exist?
Speaker 2:I don't have them. I wasn't good at recording myself, but yeah, I don't know where they'd be if they were. Yeah, the stations have changed times and right changed owners, changed buildings, yeah, so I'm sure they wouldn't have something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Every now and then I find a saved race on radio broadcast and even though there's no visuals to go on with it, I still have fun listening back to all those voices from years gone by.
Speaker 2:It was great having Ron Jones. Ron was one of my biggest fans for some reason. He just liked my work, so he was happy to be doing it and one of the things I remember about him he was technical, of course. Why this boat's doing that? Some limiteds ran at Seafair and one of my guys in the pits interviewed the driver when he came off the boat and Ron listened to the interview and said um, can you put your headset on him for a minute? So he did and ron said larry, what prop are you running? The guy told him he said well, your, your tail end is too low, you need a little more pitch and this and this and this, and I thought we're tuning guys, boats on this radio broadcast.
Speaker 2:But r Ron was great and, like I said, he was a big fan, a big supporter of mine and I loved the guy and had fun working with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, fun, fun to think back on. Do you have any other notable moments with broadcasters over the years?
Speaker 2:In the nineties, when I was the anchor, there were years we were doing nine, 10, 11 races. Yeah, and if you multiply that times eight or nine years, that's a lot of races. So there were a couple of offshoots. I got a call at the radio station from W S O Y in uh, decatur, illinois or Indiana, and they wanted me to come back and do the uh, the inboard race. I did that twice. I told him I don't know the inboards that well and I said well, I have a guy with you who does. The guy was Mike Noonan. Oh, so Mike and I became friends way back there. I was still at KISW at that time. The thing I remember that day is we set a record on that race course that Larry louder back broke later to that day on green light.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I don't I don't remember.
Speaker 2:I don't remember which boat it was in Madison, but they had some they had. Ronnie Brown was there with his dad's boat. Um, what was his name? Hall, uh, what was his first name? Grew up the Squire. His name Hall, uh, what was his first name? Drove the Squire, later Earl Hall, earl Hall. Yes, earl Hall had a five liter. That was beautiful equipment. Ran away from everybody because his equipment was so good. Um, there was a crop field running in that race. Wow, that's. I'm surprised the old memory can even do that. I'm really, I'm really bad with names.
Speaker 1:I'm getting there too. It's hard. Well, you've met so many people over the years. There's only limited memory space right.
Speaker 2:You know, probably if you go from 1975 to 2014, when I retired, I met just about everybody Certainly all the owners and drivers and all the crew chiefs and a lot of the crew people. It would be a big bunch of people. Being as bad as I am with names, I would know the face but not the name, but we could chat in anyway. So there were a lot of those and, just you know, wonderful, one of my big disappointments talk about being a kid with his nose through the fence at seafair, rooting for the Seattle boats and hating those Detroit boats right. But when I found out that people named Shaneth and Simon and Dawson were all really good people, I was a little disappointed. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was like my childhood had gone away, but they became. You know, they were really great people, yeah, and we had wonderful times together. Yeah, childhood had gone away, but they became. You know, they were really great people, yeah, and we had wonderful times together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's all the time we have for this week. Knuckleheads, come back next week, as we'll have part three and my conclusion of my interview with Steve Montgomery. He has many more great stories to share, so I hope you can come back next week and enjoy it with us. Lots of racing coming up. It's hard to believe it's July. I'm on summer break now.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to get some more episodes out to you, the viewer, and if you haven't become a Richertail Talk Plus subscription member, now is a great time to join, as I have a limited release 10-card trading card set that I'm giving out to all of Richard Hill Talk Plus subscribers. There's more information on Richard Hill Talk's website, where you can find pictures of the trading cards as well as more information about how to become a Richard Hill Talk Plus subscriber. I want to wish good luck to everyone racing this weekend over in Madison, indiana. I hope it's a safe and fun race. I was planning on going this year but plans changed. Things happen right, but I'm looking forward to traveling east next year and hitting a race or two. But I hope everyone is safe and has fun this year in the Madison Regatta. Well, that's all I have for you today, so until next time, I hope to see you at the races.