Episode 177: Sam Cole, Part 1

A sport can look loud and effortless from the shoreline, but unlimited hydroplane racing only survives because someone is always doing the quiet work: calling cities, lining up sponsors, writing press releases, and convincing communities that a weekend on the water matters. That’s why this conversation with Sam Cole hits so hard. Sam isn’t just a longtime insider. He’s a former H1 Unlimited leader who has spent decades helping the sport find race sites, build partnerships, and recover when the future felt shaky.

If you care about hydroplane history, H1 Unlimited, sports promotion, and how sponsorship occurs, hit play. Don't forger to return next week for part two, share this with a racing friend, and leave a review so more people can find Roostertail Talk!

*Photo by Bill Osborne 

Transcript

Madison Indiana As A Race Town

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Rooster Tail Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything about the sport that we all love. I'm playing Reese. I am your host, David Newton. And it's time once again to sit back, relax, and welcome to Rooster Tail Talk. Hello, Reach fans, and welcome back to the podcast. Today is April 14th, 2026, and this is episode 177. For today's episode, I actually had an interview I conducted back over the winter a couple months ago, and I sat down and talked with Sam Cole. I think for my diehard fans out there, you know the name Sam Cole, as he had so many contributions to the sport of unlimited hydrogen racing. But for those of you who don't recognize the name, Sam he had a lot of hats he wore. He did so much for the sport of hydrogen racing that I don't think most people understand what he did and contributed to it. But he worked as a marketing personnel, helped to establish race sites, he helped to bring on sponsorships, he helped partner teams with sponsorships, race sites with sponsorships, key relations to many event organizers. But most notably, he spent a decade as H1's commissioner before there was kind of a revolving door that we've had lately for who has been running the show. With his efforts, he really put a lot into the sport. And I actually will say he saved it after a time of turmoil, under unsure where the sport was going. So to say he did a lot for the sport is an understatement. This is gonna be a multiple part episode. I I got talking with Sam. Maybe it's me. I don't know. I just love talking about hydroplanes, but when I get talking to people, we end up talking for a couple of hours about hydroplane racing. So fortunately for you, we've got a we're gonna have at least three episodes for this one. And for this episode, I'm talking more about Sam's history growing up in Madison, Indiana, his relations with his father, who was heavily invested in hydroplane racing as well, where I think he learned a lot of his skills for promotions and running races and whatnot. So we're gonna talk more about the history for him today, and then we'll get into his time as chairman of the sport in the upcoming episodes and what his thought his thoughts are of the current state of the sport and the future of hydroplane racing. So let's jump into part one of my interview with Sam Cole. Well, I'm excited tonight. I'm sitting down on Zoom talking with a former uh H1 Unlimited chairman. It's it's hard to put you in one label because you had so many things over the years. But I'm talking with Sam Cole. And uh for those who don't know Sam as well now, but he he did a lot for the sport over many years and really helped the sport to grow and and several times in the sport with getting race sites, running the show, uh doing a lot of things behind the scenes that we don't I don't even know, but you've done a lot over the years. Sam, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Doing great, enjoying life. And uh by the way, I may have done it, but I could still do some of it again, or at least help out.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Okay, good. I'm glad to hear that.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Uh I think there's I you know I hate to see the sport where it's at. Yeah and um man, want to see it come back, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, you're you're like me, you're you're a diehard that wants to see the the sport grow and prosper and get back to some of those golden years. And we're gonna talk about the future of the sport. I'd love to talk about that with you and and your thoughts, where it's at now and where it's going. But uh, you've got a lot of history and a lot of a lot of great things that you did in your past I want to to know more about. And I think uh probably one big thing for you growing up, your your father was influenced with with boat racing, and you grew up in the area where boat racing was prominent, uh, like myself here in Seattle area. Uh, but you grew over a little bit further east over in Madison, Indiana. And I'm just curious how like what was it like growing up in Madison and having hydroplanes be part of your life?

SPEAKER_01 4:37

It was like sitting in the fourth grade at Eccleson Elementary School drawing pictures of the Miss Madison while the teacher wasn't looking. Yeah. Um, the thing about Madison, because we lived in downtown Madison, which is uh you could hear the the engines coming off the river. And here you are as a kid sitting in the in the race, you know, it used to be October, right? And then well, for a while it was at Labor Day. But you're sitting in school hearing the echo of an Allison or a Merlin, and you're like, Oh man, I want to get on my bicycle and run down to the river. Yeah, but um, you know, it was uh that was like the big thing in town, and my dad was involved with it. But as kids, it was like it was awesome because you know, everybody went to the boys' club and built a hydroplane to tow behind the bike, and we had races around the streets and everything, and you know, pulling them around. And um when the boats were in town, we were all down at the river. Uh, we'd get in pretty much trouble back then if you hooked play hooky from school, so you kind of had to go down there when you're allowed to, but and there was always something going on, you know, like when um Roy Duby was gonna set the world record, they stopped in Madison and actually ran on the river, and then they went on down to Gunnersville. So almost all year round, there was something going on around what was race boats, and obviously it got more exciting when there a couple Miss Madisons came around, and uh you could run over to by the ballpark where they were their shop was and kind of see what was going on and the like. So, you know, everybody collected pins, everybody uh had a favorite race boat, and you know, it was like one of the greatest times of ever in the boat racing world with Ron Muson and Bill Muncie and you know all the boats, and everybody was trying stuff new, and they'd come to Madison once a year, and we were big time town.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yeah, yeah. That's that's really fun to think back on. And I did the same thing, I would always doodle hydroplanes on my my notes and my assignments. And I had one year I had a teacher that was a hydroplane fan that was in high school. I had had fun with him once he uh I did a test and I finished early and I drew drew a Miss Bartle on it, and he uh talked to me after class about that. So it's it's fun to think back on that.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yeah, I know. I remember I used to doodle to Miss Madison and trying to get that drop sponson in there, you know. And I'm not much of an artist at all. So we didn't have AI as you know.

Phil Cole And The Early Circuit

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Right, yeah, yeah, it's gone crazy now.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

I've give me a race boat, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Uh well, speaking of your father, though, he had a huge presence in the sport as well. Um, I'm sure you have tons of great stories on his presence and what he he got up to with the sport. And you talk a little about your father and kind of give a history lesson on his impact on hydroplane racing.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Sure. Well, my dad was a sports editor of the Madison Courier. Uh, that was his profession there, and that was in the um early to late 1950s, and he goes and got involved with the boat racing. Um, he was involved with the Madison regatta and started announcing races. And he was the play-by-play guy at the race site because they didn't have a radio network back then. And uh, I used to get a go with him. I even though I had four other brothers, I was the one chosen to be the uh to ride shotgun most of the time with Phil. Yeah, and um, you know, so I was able back in those days to ride with him when you go to Detroit, Washington, D.C., and the like. And he was involved more on the race boat side. Then he went to Washington, D.C. Uh, we were sitting at um uh dinner at my grandmother's house. We lived out there with them after my parents were divorced, and um he got the job offer to go to Washington, D.C. and work for Congressman Wilson. And he got involved up, he got involved up there with Sam DuPont. And what was it in 1960, 1960 or 61 is when Sam donated the nitrogen as the first race boat for Madison. And uh my dad and all those guys got involved and they put a boat shop out at the uh Jefferson Proving Ground. And as you know, it uh was destroyed. Um that's in Seattle when I think Marion Cooper was the driver. Well, he went back, and the story goes, he got Sam DuPont um feeling very good about life. I'm I can't say exactly what they did, but they did. And um he um next thing you know, he gave him the nitrogen too and all their equipment. And I got the opportunity to ride with my dad up there, Graham Heath and uh Bobby Humphrey and the Don Ledgerwood was the guy they called him Captain Eddie. They brought this big open um truck they borrowed, I think, from the Weinberg uh junkyard. They brought it up there, and his boat equipment was at his mansion. I'll never forget that. We go in, there's this big gate, and in the back is like a big garage, and there was and they loaded up, I think it was 12 or 14 Allison's and all the parts and everything they could cram in that truck, and it looked like it looked like a heap, and they had the race boat and everything, hauled everything back to Madison, and uh then you know started campaigning the uh the boat with Buddy Byers and what first race was down in Gunnersville, and uh remember it well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

And that that boat lasted for a long time for the the community.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

And so my dad helped out getting that going, but when he was in Washington, DC, not living in Madison, he wasn't quite as involved. But by then he was announcing most of the boat races, so he would be going to you know quarterlaine, tri not tri-cities back then, uh Seattle, Court of Lane, Detroit, those those cities. And um, I didn't ever got to go out west. I didn't go out west till I was in high school with him, so I never got to see Tri-Cities or Seattle or anything like that for the longest time. But I did get to go to Detroit, Madison, and uh some of the races back on the East Coast side. And I'd spend the summers with him in Washington, D.C. when he was working for the congressman. Uh, when President Kennedy was assassinated on what, Christmas Eve or something, he gets a call from Harris and says, We'd like you to come to Nevada and put on a boat race. And uh didn't see my dad for a couple years. Uh, he moved out to state line and put on the uh races for Harris. And uh the next time I saw him, he pulls up in a what was a 65 Mustang fastback with a hydroplane trophy thing on the hood. So, you know, and he did the races out there, yeah. Um, and then from Harris, he kind of got the job of executive secretary. Oh, and this was in the um like mid-60s, the late 60s. And um, first thing he did was went down and put on a race in Tampa, Florida. He met Bernie, he helped Bernie get the Anheuser-Busch sponsorship, you know, back then. Wow. Um, they uh had the unlimited radio network, and then he was doing the announcing, and then he was the executive secretary. And so uh I was his uh what do you want to call what do you want to call me his head gopher? Um, I either went to the race or I had to stay at home and run a Gestetner machine to send out 450 or 500 press releases after every race. That was before fax machines, you know. Yeah, and um, oh my god, nothing was like watching Phil Cole try to type uh what do you call those things when you used to type those and you put them on the Gestetner? The um you know what I'm talking about where you type I can't remember the word, but anyway, he'd cuss and hit and because they had correction fluid. My dad would go through like a bottle of collect collection uh correction fluid on every race, and so we did that, and then when I get to go to races with him, after every heat, he would sit down and type all the results the race side had to make sure he had a Gestetner and a typewriter and a and a whole bunch of stuff. And so I that's how I started learning, you know, panning out press releases, the reporters, uh running the Gestetner machine, and uh I was his number one gopher. Yeah, and uh so we he did the we did the he did the Tampa race, uh they helped get the they started the Tri-Cities race, San Diego, you know, he was involved in getting a lot of races started back, you know, back in the day, and that was probably one of his strong suits on the race side. And and I'll get later on when I I were when I was the executive director, we hired my dad to do the uh Lake of the Ozarks race and the Houston race. So I you know, I were it worked well. He was a character, yeah. You know, and I remember like God, I got I meant to tell I forgot to tell you, you know, it was crazy. There's a shoe store in Madison called Hertz Shoes.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I never thought you'd have a place that hurt your feet, but you go there to buy shoes.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Right.

Press Releases Boots And Race Logistics

SPEAKER_01 14:18

That's where all the drivers used to buy those leather boots. Oh remember, if you go look at pictures of Dean and Bill Munsty on them, they had those let they bought them in Hertz shoes. They would buy them, and the first thing they would do is go down to the river and walk in and get them wet. So they would form their feet. Yeah, and I was like, why do they buy them? Well, they bought them there, they bought those shoes because in those old aircraft-powered boats, they had those like form-fitted um gas pedals and stuff with the little cover over it. Those were what they had to wear to kind of keep their feet in there so they could run the accelerator. But I just had you made me think of that, but yeah, the boat racing shoe capital world was Madison in the world.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Okay, by their boots, just to tell you that. Is that place still around, or is that kind of long gone?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

You know, I think it's long gone. Yeah, but you know, I I always used to laugh because you know, Hertz Hertz shoes is where you get them at. So yeah, that's funny. They're new guys used to go buy them. I was there when Leif Borgerson went down and bought his first pair, you know. Tommy Folk, they all went down and stuck them in the river.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

That's funny. Well, I just saw like yesterday, I saw a picture of Leif Borgerson on um uh Hydro History. Yeah, it was Hydro History. He was he was standing on the 69 Notre Dame, had like brand new leather boots looked like, and people were commenting on uh on how fashionable he was. So wearing wearing the leather boots.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Somebody just posted up a picture of Warner Gardner, yeah, and he had those on.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

But uh, they all hurt shoes. That's all I know. I don't know what brand they were or anything else, but uh anyway. I had a piece of trivia.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I learned a lot. Yeah, yeah, you definitely learned a lot from your father. He had a big input. I mean, Christ Cities is still around, San Diego's still around after these years, and uh big spots, Houston, Lake Ozarks, Tampa, Florida. That's all it's all really big for the sport. So it's people like your father that really put uh and you as well put the the sport forward in that time.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

I can tell you the one thing that I have that no one else has, and this was one of the hardest things in the world. I bought my dad a word processing machine before computers. Okay, okay, he wrote a book, How to Put on a Boat Race. I have the only copy, and the problem is it's typewritten. And I'm like, okay, maybe I can scan it or something, but yeah, but I do have the only copy of the book on how to put on a race. Okay, his philosophies he used that template everywhere he went.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Yeah, well, that's a that's a good template, and I'm sure you use that uh over the years as well, right? Yep, yeah. Well, I'm sure with AI now you can scan it and it'll be typed up on uh on Word in a matter of minutes.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

I should, I should, I should, I should. It's like this thick, you know. But he had some real he had some real things he really felt was important, but and I'll tell you that whole thing worked in try that probably it worked the best in Tri-Cities, yeah, because Ken Maurer, uh, who ran the race for all those years and started it, my dad were good friends, and they followed that kind of format with getting like a red jacket club or whatever. The the the founders of the city all bought into it, and uh they were all involved. And that's what he did in Houston, that's what he did in Tampa, Lake of the Ozarks. It worked.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah. Fantastic. Well, at one point I have gotta ask about this because I think it's fascinating. And I heard stories that there's a a boat in the 50s called the Miss Wayne that had two Allison's. It was it was pretty big, and it had a uh I heard a story that your father was a ride in mechanic for a short period of time. Is that is that true?

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Very short. He hated it, scared him to death. And uh he never never had the never wanted to again. Yeah, uh, and that was a Miss Wayne was quite a you know, but that was Bud Saley, if I remember right.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Right in that boat.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah, somebody will correct me on hydro history. I'm not sure on the boat. I believe it was Bud Sale, but yeah, because I found a picture of myself like about five years old with a Miss Wayne t-shirt back when they merchandised in the in the 50s.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

So yeah, I remember just the overall experience was just too scary for him.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

He boy, I don't know. He just wouldn't talk about it. Oh, and uh just said something he never wanted to do again, and he always related it to riding down a cobblestone street in a wagon with no shocks. Yeah, that was that was the pillow explanation.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Yes, yes, yeah, okay, very short, was probably just a couple times out, maybe, or even more. Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

And you know, he went from that to um doing being the executive secretary um up until about 1974, I believe. And um he one day told me, Take my take my resignation over and give it to Freddie Alter and tell him to give me my final check. And that was in Dayton. I'm like, okay, why do I get to do this? You know, that's your job, you know, okay. And um I I can remember it well, and then you know, fate changed things, but he was involved, he helped pay and pack, uh, did a lot of their marketing and PR stuff. Okay. Uh did the then we lived in LA for a couple years. He worked for uh for an ad agency that did Bardall when Billy Shoemaker was the driver, the checkerboard Comet. He worked down there with those guys, and um, but he was always around it. And then he spent most of his time after that was Saul Walther at Indy. Oh, okay. And then he really he really loved the indie cars. Yeah, yeah. And I can tell you, the things he did in boat racing, he took the indie 500, hospitality, marketing, you know, PR, that kind of stuff. So, you know, he it it the same tool, same toolbox, just a different, you know, different engine, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Yeah, different application, yeah. Yeah, that's uh that's one thing that the sport has really thrived on. It's marketing geniuses that can bring in sponsors and and influence people through on the sport. And and he brought a lot of sponsor or he helped a lot of sponsors along the way. He said Pan Pack, um, he helped Bernie with Budweiser.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Uh he helped Bernie with Budweiser. He got he was somewhat involved with Atlas Van Lines.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Okay, that's what's nice.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

I know he was with like Tony Mulheron. Remember Hallmark Holmes?

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Um got involved, got you know, got involved helping them. He the Walther family, obviously, getting them involved in it when Salt was going to drive the unlimited and they built a boat. Um, let's see, I'm trying to think. Jim McCormick kind of did his own thing with Atlas because you remember Jim brought Atlas into the sport with Norm. No, I'm sorry, Norm Manson and Bob Schroeder, because my dad helped Bob Schroeder.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

That was back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

And that's when that that's when they came in, and then it went to Jim McCormick and then ended up with the Shaynus, and then ended up with Bill Muncie.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Right, right. Okay. Wow. It's fun to reflect on just how much uh influence he had on the sport, right? Yeah.

Innovation In Formats And Fan Appeal

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Well, you know, he did some innovative things, like with that world championship at Tahoe, the assigned lanes, they qualified, and they had those, but but they put those like big eight-foot buoys, yeah. He actually put lanes out there, you know. Um, with and then, you know, like the world championship was like three races within one race. It was six boats, six boats, six boats, and they competed. Uh the fan plan, he uh you know, they brought that in when he was there. Um just a lot of you know, a lot of innovative things like that to really appeal to people. Um, you know, for the first part of my life it was points. So a guy could be winning the race and go in the final heat and finish last and win the race. They he was part of that. The winner of the final heat wins the race. Yeah, which you know, changed a lot of perspectives on the on the sport.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah, but as a fan's perspective, I think that's a lot easier to walk away with oh yeah, the per the person, the boat who finished first was the winner, right? Yep, makes more sense.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Well, that was before we had an hour and a half of waiting for decisions, but I'm not gonna go there. I've been there, I know.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Uh they didn't have instant replay, they had whatever Bill Newton said.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

No relation to him, by the way. Just uh right.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Oh, you're putting it.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah, I'm not related to him, so you can just say whatever you want about Bill.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

He was a good guy, he was a great guy. He took a lot of guff, but yeah, he was a great guy.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

I I I envy anyone that can be the chief referee. Yeah, you know. I mean, I know poor Mike Newton, Mike's been fired, Mike's been hired, Mike's been fired, Mike's been hired. What's he doing here, you know? And the guy, the guy is still a stealth. Or guy in the sport.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

And uh probably the most stand-up referee I ever met and worked with. I say that all my heart.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yeah, I pray it's. Yeah, it's a it's a tough position to do. I mean, referee at any level. I mean, I've I've coached basketball and football at middle school level, and uh the a lot of the parents will are very open about how they feel about things. Oh, yeah. Even at that level.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

I used to uh I coached youth soccer, I coach little league baseball, and usually like the first or second time I tell parents, take a chair, go sit over there in the corner, close your eyes, and now you're gonna learn within one minute who the game's being played for. Yeah. So now once you hear all your peers yelling and screaming, when you come back over, please don't I understand where you're at.

Navy Journalism And Learning PR

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, I want to talk more about your career and your your time around the sport and and think in prep for that. Uh, I mean, definitely learn a lot of lessons being around your father and being behind the scenes there, I'm sure. Uh, and reading his book, like you said. But you joined the Navy. Uh, I'm not sure what what year did you join the Navy?

SPEAKER_01 24:14

1974.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

And and I feel like the towards the end of the Vietnam War. Yeah, and I just feel like um that helped you prepare you for the future. Can you speak a little bit about your time there and what lessons you took?

Joining The Sport Full Time

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Oh, yeah. I was a journalist in the Navy. Uh, I attended uh journalism school, radio and television school at uh Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. Um, I was stationed first on the USS Ashtabule out of Pearl Harbor. The interesting thing was is that for two years in a row, I got orders for the month of May to the Indy 500 to uh help my father in the GO Navy program. Oh, and um the captain of the ship would go, How'd you do this? And I said, I don't know. You know, Admiral Tidd wants me back there to help the GO Navy project. So I actually got to go to the ND500 two years in a row and help Chief John Burledge and some guys, some Navy folks, uh, helped promote the Navy. We had SALT doing it. That was after Bill Muncie had stepped aside from the GO Navy program. So the Navy really helped me in a sense of learning pretty much in my role, it was independent duty. So it kind of taught you how to look at the end of your arms and see two hands and get things done. Let you try to innovate to do things on the ship. I ran a television station and uh did photography, did our cruise books and all those kind of things. Um then I went to the Philippines where I was the sports director of the Armed Forces Radio and TV network over there. Then I was sent to St. Louis to the recruiting command and was the recruiting person, uh recruiting public affairs officer for half of Missouri and half of Illinois. So I gotta travel around, go to schools, learned a lot of the grassroots stuff that the Navy was doing to get people, young people in, and that was the volunteer days. And then um I had a choice. Freddie Alter called me and said, Would you like to go to work for me with the I'm the new uh commissioner? Or I had an opportunity, I had a set of orders going to Washington, DC. And um I don't know what possessed me, but I opted to take Fred's offer. Yeah, uh we talked and um I got out of the Navy like God, like on a what was it, like a Wednesday or something like that, and Friday I was on my way to Las Vegas for the banquet. And uh that's that was the transition. Yeah, and but Fred had new ideas because in the past, like with my father, with uh Irv Steiner before him, with Sue Sponable, John Krause, they all worked independently somewhere. I was the first employee ever of unlimited hydroplane racing, technically. Fred put the office in Detroit at the APBA headquarters, and hired I was hired to do the unlimiteds, and a guy named Bruce Mate, who um did offshores. And Bruce has been involved in boat racing forever in the University of Michigan sports information guy. He did the offshores, I did the unlimiteds, and we started there. Okay, and um and what year was that was in 1981.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Oh, okay, okay. So at that time, the sport was a little kind of wishy-washy, wasn't it? I think the numbers were a little bit down and before you got there. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Kind of the late, what late 70s and 80. Yeah, we there were a limited number of boats, although you had like well, you had like Circus Circus, Squire Shop, Atlas Van Lines, Budweiser. Right. And then it was like whoever showed up, if you remember, and Miss Madison, of course. Um, but and they didn't have they only had what five or five races, I think, or something. It was like a kind of almost like it was today.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

And uh Fred said, you know, we got to build this. And um, I have to this day, I still have white knuckles from flying with Fred and his um single-engine bonanza all over the place. We flew to Watkins Glen, we flew to Madison all the time, we flew to Evansville, we flew to Lake of the Ozarks. I mean, the sport was built with Freddie's bonanza. Wow, and I gotta tell you, whenever you're going into city airport, you can't see instrument landing, and you're with a boat racing guy, your knuckles turn white. And and I will tell you one real quick story about Freddie.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah, please.

Building New Races And Sponsorships

SPEAKER_01 28:35

We used to go to Madison, and you remember Madison had that proving ground for the army where they used to test all bombs and stuff. We're flying over this one time, and they go, I know Bonanza 5480 uniform, you're in control airspace, get out of there. Fred's like, We'll be out of here in five minutes. I'm like, Fred, we're gonna get shot down for my hometown, man. But we flew that bonanza everywhere, you know. And um we went and just met people, shook hands, and uh, you know, Fred Fred was a great sales guy, and uh he taught me so many things, you know, about a different perspective on sales and the like. And um he was a true mentor, and we just started. I mean, you know, then I had a guy walk into my office on eight mile road, Tom Bedell, and go, Hey, we want to take the the uh unlimited Acapulco. I'm like, huh? Fred, this guy wants me to go to Acapulco. Okay, so Fred and I hop on a we didn't fly the bonanza, so we go to Acapulco, and it was really different for the this young kid out of Indiana and for Fred. We're sitting down there, they only work at night, so we had to sit around a swimming pool all day long, or whatever, a bar or whatever he wanted to do, yeah, to wait for the tourism director to come in. Okay, and he might come in for 15 or 20 minutes that night. So, after like two or three days of it, we finally got to meet Santiago Medina and um started talking about the boat race, the opportunities of putting on. We drove us out there to PA de la Cuesta and looked at the site, and it looked incredible, even though it was pretty much underdeveloped. But we had assurances it would be developed. And um then the next time it came time to go down there, you know. Fred says, you know, we're not gonna go down there unless we get some money. I'm like, okay. So I took the world championship trophy to Acapulco. We bought a plane ticket for it, it sat right next to me and went down there and I waited like two or three days. And Fred goes, I'm not going anymore. I need to go, I need to work, I can't sit around like that. I said, Well, Fred, I go nuts doing that, you know. And uh, so anyway, here they walk in and give me$175,000 cash. And I've got this trophy, and I got, oh, I gotta fly back. So I'm flying through customs and I reported. There's 175,000. Call me over. What are you doing with this? Oh, we're gonna have a boat race in Acapulco, yeah, right, kid, you know, and um, so I got back in the country because you know, you could report it, and I'm like, this is the prize money for the race. Yeah, took it all back to Detroit, put it in the bank, and I still to this day have the little bank envelope that it was all in. But that's funny, that's how Acapulco came about, you know. And um, we did that with um Seneca Lake with a guy named David Ward. Originally, we went over and looked at Watkins Glen, and then we found that Seneca Lake area up there, and we had the race there, and then it moved over to Syracuse, if you recall. Yes, and by then we had lined up with a guy named uh Glenn Donnelly who promoted a racing series called Dirt. He promoted the Syracuse race.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Uh and then Bernie comes and goes, Fred, Sam, August wants a race in Lake of the Ozarks. Okay, hop in a plane. We go down there and look, met some great, great people. And I said, and my Fred goes, Let's talk to your dad. If anybody can do it, Phil can do it. Yeah, so we talked to my dad, and he agreed, and he went over there and stayed for like three or four months and put the race on. Wow, and um, it was uh, you know, it was it was interesting because they're still using the area where we raced where they have that shootout every year with that dam in the background and stuff, yeah. And uh it was awesome, but I don't know, they just didn't have the fan following that many years ago to support that as a race. Um and then we were talking, you know, Clear Lake. Fred goes, let's go down to Clear Lake. We went down there and took a look at Texas and then met my said, Let's hire Phil. So we hired Phil, and then he hooked up with um Bob Taylor, Bob Hall, all those guys down there, and organized the uh the races down there. First year it was the Budweiser World Championship. Yes, maybe one or two years. And then later, when I got Miller involved, it became the Miller World Championship. And um, but that's how we did it, you know. And you know, John Asmus, I met him in Detroit, he's Continental Airlines. We got them involved. Um, probably one of the hardest deals I ever did was with American Speedy Printing with Verve Buchanan. I guess he's a congressman in Florida these days. Oh, okay, with Ken Rample. We got them involved um as a sponsor. Tosti Asti Spamonti was with Jimmy Sedam originally, and then it went over to Woomer, I think, for a year.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Um, but no, I was we did a lot in it. Well, I used to go to the Detroit Press Club every um, what was it, Tuesday? Was when Bo Shambelecker would come in and give his motivational speeches to the media about how wrong they were. Um but but in Detroit, you had like beat writers, you had Joe Daldahl who covered hydroplane racing. In Seattle, you had uh Bill, what Bill Knight covered hydroplane racing. Yeah, and they don't have that anymore. But that was that was a time, you know, and so it was like you'd take a driver in now and then and do things to keep the sport around and let people know, right? You know, then we start having the banquet every year. We have it in Miami or um out in Las Vegas, get the media involved and get people out there, you know. It's really you gotta put your product in front of the people that can help you the most.

Media Reality And Social Strategy

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah, oh, definitely, definitely. Yeah, and I I remember lots of interviews on the news and growing up seeing drivers come on the news and and that thing. And that's I haven't seen much of that lately, and that's part of the reason why I started this podcast, just to get I know it's a drop in the bucket here, but uh just wanted to get stories out and get some content out so there's more out there, and it it's nice with the internet and everything, but fans just crave getting more things.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Oh, definitely. I mean, you know, that's honestly that's what social media is all about. Yeah, you know, I can tell you one of the later on, and we'll get back to it. But with the Air National Guard, when I was first trying to get them involved, I had to go to Washington to meet with their uh agency, and they're like, Why do we want to do this? Your sport, your sport doesn't have any following on Facebook, and that was when Facebook was you know before Instagram, right? You know, right and so that was a major player, and and like I'm like, Well, we'll work on that, we can get that done. And she goes, You know, your number one driver in your sport has 1200 followers on Facebook. Do you know how many followers a NASCAR driver has? And that's when I started learning about analytics and things like that. But you're absolutely right, these drivers ought to be out doing uh podcasts. They need you know, you you've gotta just keep that social media stuff cranking all the time, and not so much about watching the same YouTube videos over and over and over again. You need to get to the personalities and sell the people, not you sell the what is it, you sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Part Two Tease And How To Support

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Right. Yeah, yeah. You want to see what what the flavor is like, what what's uh what what does it take to be a driver, what what practice do they have, what what do they go through, all that stuff. Yeah, I agree, totally agree. Well, knuckleheads, unfortunately, time's up. That's all the time we have for this week. Make sure you come back next week and we'll have part two and talk more about Sam Cole's history of the sport of Hydro and Racing, his time as chairman, and other contributions he had to the sport in the next episode. Look for episode 178, part two of my interview with Sam Cole to air next week on the 21st. It'll be the same podcast time and the same podcast location. A big thank you goes out to Sam Cole for his time talking with me on this podcast. Had a lot of fun talking with him. I think it brought out some some good stories. And I have to say, I'm so impressed with his memory and recollection of stories over the years, and he just kept naming names uh like as a drop of a hat. There's no way I could remember names as well as he has, but it just really impressed me, his name recollections there. Because not everyone I talk to can can remember names like Sam Cole does. But thank you, Sam, for your time, and I look forward to getting part two out next week. In the meantime, check us out on social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, and our website as well, vrushattelltalk.com. While you're on there, check out our Richartel Talk Plus subscription membership, as there's a lot of fun extras you get with that. You get access to a password-protected side of the website that has pictures and articles. Now I just added some some blueprint drawings, some votes from yesteryear. I also have early access to all new episodes for subscriptions. You get entered into monthly raffle, as well as some other fun prizes along the way. That's all we got for you this week. So until next time, I hope to see you at the races.