Episode 179: Sam Cole, Part 3

We wrap up our conversation with former H1 Unlimited commissioner Sam Cole as he lays out how the sport survived a shaky era and what it will take to grow again. We dig into sponsorship analytics, the Qatar breakthrough, and the hard truths about race formats, fan time, and why new race sites are so difficult to land. 

*Photo by Bill Osborne

Transcript

Welcome And Series Context

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Rooster Tail Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything about the sport that we all love. I drew Lane Reese. I am your host, David Newman. And it's time once again to sit back, relax, and welcome to Rooster Tale Talk. Hello, race fans, and welcome back to the podcast. Today is April 28th, 2026, and this is episode 179, part three, and the conclusion of my interview with Sam Cole. Now again, I'm going to remind you, please go back and listen to episodes 177, 178 for parts one and two of my interview with Sam Cole, as he dove deeply into his history of his presence of hydroplane racing and uh a lot of contributions he gave before he became commissioner of the sport. And that's what today's episode is all about. I asked him some questions about his time as commissioner of H1 Limited, and as he spent a decade propelling the sport forward, and really a lot of his efforts uh we can thank him for today because he took the sport in a very shaky time and he brought a lot of growth and and really added a lot to make it to what we have today. And I think without his efforts, the sport might not be around right now because he propelled it forward with his vision of TV internationally, and a lot of other things are just very positive for the sport. But one of the things I'm just really curious and was fascinated with was all the challenges that it takes to run a sport at this level. Just a tremendous amount of time, money, and energy went into by Sam to make Hydroplane Racing uh more prevalent and a better product for the fans. It's a little bit longer. Uh, I thought about making this one into parts three and four, but it was a great talk, and really appreciate Sam's insight and not holding back with his opinions, and I think you're gonna enjoy it. So let's jump in and let's listen to the conclusion of my interview with Sam Cole. Well, I interrupted you. You you were starting to talk about the transition in 2005, and I want to get back to that now. Um the sport was in another another uh area of dismay. I mean, Bernie Little passed away, and Budweiser was leaving the sport. Um, Gary Garbrick had just was trying to run things and Levy passed away, and and you answered the call to lead the sport on and and and grow it for for many years. It's how did that come about?

SPEAKER_02 3:23

To uh actually it was in um I want to say 2000. It was uh before Gary. Okay, it was when Kenny Muscatel was kind of they were gonna run it with Kim Gregory. I almost um got back involved with them. I was in Detroit and I used to help Jim Hendrix broadcast the races, right? And for a few years there, and uh I was helping out, I was back in the Midwest a lot, and then they decided that's when it got sold to Gary Garbrecht. Yeah, and so I kind of backed away because Gary had his ideas and his way of doing it, and you know, uh, but then as you know, the Gary passed, passed away, and Bart, his son was gonna run it, yeah, or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

I think he tried to or wanted to, but yeah, and then they the owners rebelled, or and then um they sold it to Trent Ling, and then Trent Ling only had it like a couple months, and it got sold to the DRRA.

Founding ABRA And The Triangle Plan

SPEAKER_02 4:29

And I was out in San Diego and they were having a meeting, and I just walked into the meeting at uh Beth Wojek, who was a Seattle uh race director behest, and just talked about the sport, what they had, what they could do, what they couldn't do, what they needed to do. And she goes, Why don't you come up to Seattle and let's put together this organization? And they all voted approval to do that, and that's when we uh founded the uh ABRA, which is still the legal name for H1. H1 is a DBA of the eight of ABRA. Okay, okay. Um, and we had to um stop stop using that name down the road because APBA felt we were infringing on APBA because we were A B R A, but but you know different letters, but okay. But so we put that together. We got we had race sites and owners on a board of directors. Uh it took us years to get the nonprofit status. Um and just started. I was I was not getting paid, I was just part-time, I was helping because I had a job, I was a vice president of nationwide insurance. And um we just started slowly. I kind of had this triangle that there's boats, races, and sponsors, and you got to have a triangle to make the sport succeed. I've always felt that way, yeah. And if it tilts, if it tilts in any other direction, you don't have the continuity that you need. Yeah, and so we um looked at we with the first year we had the uh race in Nashville, yes, uh, which was the guy from Alaska that came down and we had it at that at that water park. Uh he just they didn't promote it or anything. It was, you know, we pulled Ed Cooper almost won the race. Uh, but we just started in. Actually, that race is where Ted Porter came to his first race. Okay, with uh Mike Weber brought him there. Yeah, they had uh Worcester's boat, the yellow five, I think it was at the time, right? And that's when Ted got involved. Um, and we started with um how are we gonna do this? Working with the race sites. Part of it was we gotta work together, we gotta do this, and so we had what Madison, Detroit, Tri-City, Seattle, San Diego. So then we uh we went to Nashville, that didn't work. We um set back and let's let's start building it up here. So we wanted to get boats to the races, and that was with the um Ed Cooper plan where everybody got kind of equal pay okay for racing, yeah, on the on the prize money payout. Uh started getting television. We started with OLN, uh Outdoor was Outdoor Life Network OLN. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

That's right. I forgot about that.

Early Races Equal Pay And OLN TV

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Um, started promoting that, and we just um built it over three or four years, and in that time frame, we got the numbers because what had changed, and candidly, when the most of the sponsors have been people who were a strong personality who maybe, you know, even even today, like the with the coffee company, you know, that was a family-oriented business that you know wanted to promote themselves and things like that. But it was a numbers game, it was all about numbers. So you had television, we we did programs to get boats out there, and then we started working with race sites. And um, the first thing we really got was the air national guard. That was the first big thing that we did. Oh, that's huge, you know, with really bust out of the market. I and in the meantime, I mean, I had gotten like the king, the Sacramento Kings, the Palms, um, some other companies involved. But the real first thing with that, and then Ted Porter bought Bernie stuff, and that helped. And we started getting from six boats to eight boats to ten boats. And when I was with the Air National Guard, it was like all analytics, everything was analytics. And probably the most one of the biggest learning experiences of my life was when Ron Perry let took me to I'll show you this. Here's my code. It's NASCAR's data vault.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Okay.

Sponsorship Analytics And Deliverables

SPEAKER_02 8:46

I mean, my god, they had data on everything, it was all it was all about impressions and analytics. Wow, they didn't care, and that's how they sold sponsorships in NASCAR. It wasn't about put your name on the side of my boat, it was, you know, uh 2.4 million people between the ages of 26 and 29 are gonna see this from three o'clock to four. I mean, they have all that, yeah, yeah. And I had to learn analytics speak like overnight, and we had deliverables. I sent you a copy of kind of the deliverables we had to do. So, yes, they sponsored our series, they provided money, but we had to produce numbers. We had the best way to produce numbers was television. We built social media, we didn't really have a social media presence. Um, so we did we did that, and then um we used the seed money like we went to Sacramento and ran an exhibition, we went to Washington, DC and ran an exhibition or tried to run an exhibition, yeah, but found out we couldn't race there because where we were at is this beautiful site, but the bridge is controlled by the Virginia Water Authority. Okay. So where the turn was was a no-wake zone. They were in force, a five-mile-an hour no-wake zone. The race course was Maryland, and so it just, you know, but it was we were there, we took some boats, everybody dug in and got involved and said, Let's make this happen. Um, you know, then I got visited by people from Gunner'sville. I still have the hero coin from the sheriff when he came up and talked to us. Um, went back and looked at Court Elaine with those people out there. We sent the boats up to Valley Field. We tried Valley Field one year, yeah, and uh just too small. That's where what was it? Dave lost uh yeah, skid fit.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Right, yeah, went up on the line freaked him out.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Yeah, and they were at one point gonna look at other race sites, but they kind of never did. So we used the Air National Guard to build what we needed to build, and uh and about that time, Eric Elstrom told me I needed to go to Qatar and meet with uh Sheikh Hassan, and um that was in 2009. Yeah, okay, had to go over there, and uh so Kenny Muscatel went with me. And by the way, that's one person we didn't mention earlier, Ken Muscatel. Yeah, that guy. I've been there when owners have abused him, when board members have abused him. Right, that man put his soul into this sport. Oh, yeah, as a chairman, as an owner, as a driver. When I said, Kenny, I'm going to Qatar, you want to go with me? Sure. And so Kenny went with me over there. We met with Sheikh Hassan, and uh, I started having to learn how we did business in the Middle East, and uh lo and behold, we announced a five-year contract to uh go though over there to take 10 boats every year. So it was really easy to get the boat count up because if you wanted to go to Qatar, you had to be in the top 10 in high points. Yeah, yeah, and uh we actually I think that really helped the owners won. It was the best money they had ever gotten.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

I was I was saying that they they put up some good money for for the teams, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Yeah, yeah, and um, you know, the the it was great. There was a great payout for all you know for all the owners involved, and plus their expenses were paid and things like that. But we had the opportunity of going going abroad when we got over there. Um, I wanted to expand. I you know, talked to Hassan, he was like so great to work with. Um we um he had us, we went to um Abu Dhabi, I think in 2011 when the UIM had their meeting. He let us wrap two extra boats to take the Qatar. We were supposed to run an exhibition in Abu Dhabi, okay, but politically, Abu Dhabi was aligned with the F1 formula boats. Okay, and so customs would not let our boats out of customs, and so we couldn't run, but then they let one boat come over to the UIM trade show, and we brought that over there, yeah. And um, I brought in Dave Bill, Dave Vilwock, Mike Noonan went with me. Uh, I think Jay LaCrome was there with um the boat, and uh it was awesome. I gotta make a presentation. I and that's like the third time I've made presentations to UIM. First time was back in '83 with the world or '82 or '83 with the world championship. I flew to Brussels with Bob Taylor to get UIM blessing on the world championship.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Okay.

Exhibitions New Sites And Building Momentum

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Then with um the Qatar race, yeah, I had to go to I stupid. I flew to Rome for six hours uh because I worked. So I flew to Rome, met with uh chairman cooley of the um UIM, yeah, and got got sanctioned for the UI because I had to have the UIM championship to get the guitar event. And then I went and talked to the whole UIM about the sport, met some people from China and a couple of other countries that were opportune, you know, opportunistic on going there. And Hasan was supportive of all of that, yeah. And uh we were able to go there, and I think you know, we actually started streaming the first hydroplane race stream live was from Doha.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah, I remember waking up at some ungodly hour to watch it.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Yeah, we had we had like uh I think I we had like 13,000 people watch the first race. I think it was some number like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah, yeah. So so you were thinking about when you're over there, hopefully you go maybe going to China or other countries and having more races in the inner.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Definitely. I went to I actually went to um I went to Abu Dhabi. Um I had an opportunity to go to um oh not Kuwait, not Kuwait, uh uh it's right next to Qatar. I'll think of the name in a minute. It's a really small, smaller than Qatar country. Okay, right there. It's not Kuwait. Um, but they're like a sister. Within I went to go, I wanted to go to China. Oh god, that I want to go. I I found two or three different promoters.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Um, but uh how do I want to say it? I couldn't I could I had opportunities, but I couldn't get these owners to kind of like they didn't they wanted way too much. That's the best way to say it. Yeah, um, we kind of structured a three-year program where you get this much, this much, this much. But obviously the race sites were gonna pay their airfares, their hotels, and all that stuff, but you know, that's kind of how it was. And uh to this day, I mean I visited two race sites in China. There's like one place where they raced one time. They built this in Lin Yi, uh, they built this whole um race site. There the the banks were like sculpted with rock uh you know, stair step all groomed, yeah, underground parking for 750 cars. There was this huge tower with air conditioned suites. I was like, oh my god, that's happening.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

It was crazy.

Qatar Deal And Going International

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah, and it's still there, but they spent all that money and raced the Formula One votes there one time, yeah. And um, you know, but it was it was gonna take a battle. We had to we had to do it because some of those countries had there's a lot of political stuff with the F1 votes with Nikolai, Niccolo, and those guys. But um, oh to this day, I mean we were we were looking at Brazil, we looked at Portugal, um, we just had a lot of things going, and then politics got involved or whatever, and you know, I was I stepped down, Steve took over, but it takes a lot. I mean, it really takes a lot. Yeah, and I really to this day, I mean, I can sit here and tell you I'm the first person to take the only person. I took the unlimited to Acapulco, right, and took them to Doha, taking them out of the country twice.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah, and uh well, technically three times, Valley Field.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

That's true. But I want to God, I'd give anything to take them to, but they've been to Canada a few times, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

We it but we um to this day I want to I want to take them to the east.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah, parties. Gosh. That's too bad.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

That's uh a lot of uh but you know, but I'll tell you the one thing I want to interject, because this is a part of their problem today. I brought people from China to Brazil to races, particularly Doha. At the end of every visit, they came to San Diego one year. There's always three things that I can't get this sport to wake up and understand. The races are too the championship race is too short. It's over in five minutes. Right, right, right. Most of those countries are used to like the Formula Ones, they're right, they run 25 laps. Well, you can't do that with unlimited, but can you figure out a way to make it 10 laps? Do a flag start. You run five laps in five-minute gun, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Secondly, there's too much delay between the heats. And thirdly, nobody wants to sit out there for eight hours for three days to watch 45 minutes of racing. Those three things handcuff the sport.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

And I learned it the hard way, you know, but because you got to give the customer what they want to a degree. You know, I used to always call Michael Noonan and I go, Can't you cut the fuel back to run 10 laps? You know, because no one's gonna know the difference between 100 and you know, they sit there and go, they're going 200 miles an hour, but then you look at the thing, they're going 180, 160. Yeah, you know, so let them run 150, right? You know, but yeah, but build a product, build a product. But that was the I got I still have the emails from the Chinese, from the Brazilians. I mean, people didn't want us to come there and run a championship for five minutes, right? And that was even in Doha, they it took them a couple years to understand the format, okay. But always why isn't the championship heat longer? Because, like at Doha, the VIPs only come for the finals.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Oh, they only came for the final heat. So they they saw a couple minutes of racing, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Yeah, and that's how it is, they come down for the final heat, and um, that's what we miss. We that's what we can't figure out, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

I mean, I I try and every race I go to, I talk to various fans on the shorelines and people who know the sport and don't know the sport, and people who don't know the sport are confused how short things are, and why there's so much they don't know all the things behind the scenes. So it's uh remember this, David.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

The hour between heats rule was put in because they needed time to change a V-12 aircraft engine. Okay. Now they have a turbine that shouldn't even need to be changed. Right. Or if it does, it takes minutes. So right off the bat, that's three hours of the day between an hour between every heat. Now I can get to Seattle, dude. It's a nightmare trying to fuel the boats because they wouldn't let them put fuel in the barrels. They made that truck go around.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

And all the people are trying to watch. Go boat to boat to boat to fill up the boats. Yeah, yeah. And uh it's just like uh one of the things that I had in place that oh it kills me was we were gonna do we made it, I made a deal my last year with CBS Sports. We were on CBS Sports because Sean McManus ran CBS Sports, yeah, yeah. We were the next year, which would have been 15, we were gonna take the CBS was gonna take the Cairo feed for the final heat and try to go live. Oh wow, okay. And it didn't happen, yeah, it didn't happen. But I mean, we were trying to do things like that, but the problem was you couldn't guarantee them is the final heat gonna really be there at three o'clock, right? Or is it gonna be 3 30? Or we're gonna take a we're gonna hold five, hold five. That's the favorite radio expression. Hold five. We have we have a bird on the course, you know, right, right. But um, that was the um, you know, getting it down to where it's an event like well, you know, back in the day when we grew up, man, they only raced on Sunday, started at noon, and they were done by five. Right now it takes three days, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Yeah, you know, yeah, it's compressed down.

Streaming Breakthrough And Global Obstacles

SPEAKER_02 22:38

What other what other sport does a game last three days? Cricket, maybe, but that goes on for years. You know what I mean? You know what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh man. Well, with that that that Doha deal, I mean, that was a huge deal for the sport. I mean, like you said, it brought streaming on, you got opened a lot of doors and a lot of potential. Uh, but I believe I might be mistaken. But I thought you got a letter from Congress thanking you for relations. Is that is that true?

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Military. Oh, yeah. The military. Because every year when I went there, I went out to the Army base and uh and the Air Force base they talk about now was top secret, but the Army base, and we would get troops to come down and work on all the teams. And then we would take the um um boats out to the base. Oh, okay. And it was like the first time that I was getting the Qataris and the Americans together, and we got a lot, we got a letter from the ambassador. That was it.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Okay, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

But um, but I oh I and I got some letters and stuff from the military because what we did out there, the funniest part was these army troops that were out this base, right? They never knew what downtown Doha was because they were kept out there, okay. So then I take them down there and they're seeing skyscrapers and they saw the mall. And I I never forget I used to always send them on errands to the mall. And the colonel would come over and where I saw that we needed batteries, so I sent them to the mall to get batteries, and he'd look at me, like you know, and but they found out there was a real Doha, and we brought it to the um the banquets and things like that. And you know, I got a chance to meet people there like Peter Butler, who produced all those videos for us and for me, you know, the ones we showed at the awards banquet that night with uh you know all the great music and stuff and everything. And Peter worked with me. We started streaming the Doha race on ESPN International. Um, but he helped me. Uh, I met you know, the the Guitari folks were great, you know. So it opened a lot of doors, and I just felt so bad that we couldn't, you know, keep them open.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yeah, that's very unfortunate. But I like you said, there's a lot that went into it. I mean, uh, you got thankfully we had those years and we can enjoy the races that we had there, right? Look back on that with fond memories. Well, in your time in the sport as the commissioner with ABRA and changing it to H1 Unlimited, what what do you think was the biggest challenge that you faced?

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Getting boats to races, really, getting fans to buy tickets and and building a series and getting more people involved. And probably the biggest challenge was getting a younger generation as a fan and as a participant. Yeah, you know, I mean, I I will tell you one of the reasons we never lasted with the Air National Guard was they weren't recruiting 45-year-olds, they're recruiting 18 to 24 year olds, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Right.

Fixing The Fan Experience And Format

SPEAKER_02 25:52

And the the mix at our races was well older than 18 to 24. That was the one thing that really hurt the sport was and now you know, and those 45-year-olds, then it's 10 years later, they're 55 now, right? Right. You know, there's a picture on um out today of some 1973 Madison Ringale with all these people on this, and I'm I I I put a comment, I said, where have all the young people gone? Yeah, and you know, one of the things I researched as I was trying to build it back was generations. If you really look at our sport, the World War II crowd really and truly absorbed it because uh they related to those aircraft engines. They understood it, they were in war, they were there 25 of the population served in the military. Today, less than 1.2 percent of the population serves in the military. Wow, yeah, and this sport has resolved revolved around the military, whether you like it or not. The the the Merlins, the Allisons, the turbine engine comes in the military, yeah, Vietnam. So you had World War II in Korea, then you had Vietnam. Well, now you know all the Vietnam folks were 70, 70, 75 years old, right? Where where is the new generation? Yeah, what do they have to relate to with us, you know? Yeah, and that's where where have they gone? I mean, I think Madison has done a great job, but they've become a music festival first and a boat race second, yeah, to a degree, yeah, you know. Um, but hopefully that music festival is bringing younger people to the race. You know, you and I, you know, you and I grew up, like I said, when we tied little wooden boats to our bicycles and rode around the neighborhood. Right, right. Now you better have a video game or something, you know. I mean, put it on a PDA.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, you know. Well, like like I'm I'm a teacher, right? And I teach uh sixth grade or 11, 12-year-olds. And uh, I mean, I have hydroplane posters on my walls, and uh kids every day say they call it cars or or they don't they have no idea what they are. And I tried to start a club last year because we had to have a homeroom that's centered around some topic so we can have social and emotional learning during the process. And I wanted to have a hydroplane club so that I could bring in drivers and people and talk to them about different things, and uh we our school has like 950 kids, and I had like seven sign up for it. So seven out of 950 kids that wanted to do it, you know. So it's just it's sad. Oh it's sad. Yep. Oh, you have to that's that's in that's right down that's down the street from Seattle, right? So it's yep, the hydroplane headquarters now for for the sport, and no one, none of the kids really know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

No, I it's I I I think it's a tragedy, you know. I mean, I know C Fair puts on 83 events, but get back to the roots, get back to the roots, yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Well, looking back kills me. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it kills me too. It's it's so sad. You've accomplished so much like in your time in the sport, like you said, and particularly in this time, I feel like that that decade or so with Abra and H1, that you did so much for the sport there. Looking back on that, what are you most proud of as being chairman for the sport?

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Obviously, going to Doha, but probably more importantly, getting boats back to the races, adding getting, you know, just the the things that we're able to do. I mean, yeah, I had there were fights, I didn't make everybody happy all the time. Um, but I had a goal of trying to take this, make this sport international. Not everybody shared my goal, not everybody shared my vision. And uh that's what you've got to have, someone with that, you know, with that vision. And I think I proved with Doha that it could have been done elsewhere. Oh yeah, you know, but I probably looked more on what I didn't accomplish more than what I did. Uh what and what I didn't accomplish was position it for where it needs to go to succeed. Uh, and that's and I'm I'm just heartbroken at kind of where it is right now. Yes, they have competitive boats, yes, they're fast, but no, we don't have all these sponsors coming in, we don't have all these race sites coming, and I will tell you, probably the biggest thing was getting race sites because compared to in the old days, it is so hard to get a race site. Oh, yeah, because the water, it's expensive, you know. Uh what Seattle touts a lot of big money where they gotta pay for services to use a community, you know, and you're using a community property, all these cities now want money, you know, like in Detroit. I mean, I hope that they can somehow get Detroit back, but I don't know because what Detroit used to give them, they probably want to get paid for now, right? Right, you know, and uh like Madison, I mean, I then we'll forget the regatta was upset because the city wanted to charge them five thousand dollars for removing the trash. And I'm like, do you realize they're paying like$250,000 in Seattle to keep it clean?

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy, yeah.

The Youth Problem And Cultural Drift

SPEAKER_02 31:24

But you know, it's hard to find the Madisons of the world, you know. Yeah, and to go out and go out there and look, and then you know, just the the positive is we kept a lot of things going. The negative was we could have done more, and um, you know, and getting it back on television, that was big to me. And obviously, social media and streaming and really trying to do things to engage people, yeah, is what I like. I look back and hey, like I said, I didn't make everybody happy, you know. But I guess in this world, who does? Whoever, if you're gonna make if no matter what you do in life, you're gonna have half the people are gonna like you, half people are gonna hate you. So, you know, I I focus on my cup is half full.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah, that's that's a good like way to look at it. Yeah, no matter what you do in life, you can't make everyone happy, right? There's no no way you can do it, even if you're panning up money, you're still gonna make someone mad. Yeah, the the you did you did so many great things, and like that year you had CBS, it was on CBS Sports, it was on a prime time slot. It wasn't on like at 10 p.m. at night, it was on right, I think the weekend and uh a decent hour. So yeah, it was a lot of fun and great things you did for the sport. So thank you for everything you did.

Pride Regrets And Race Site Economics

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Oh, no problem. Yeah, you know, it's um I wish we could do it again. I mean yeah, it's kind of interesting. I will tell you an inside story here. Yeah, I was asked a few months ago to go find a couple races in the Northwest that someone was willing to sponsor. Oh, okay. So I put together my team. There's like three or four people that I can rely on, and um we went and visited two cities, went back and visited visitors and convention bureau, went down and did a site inspection, and uh that person that put me on it couldn't answer all my questions. Like, who's gonna pay for this? Who's going to own the race? You know, who's gonna do this? I needed, you know, give me like dot the i's cross the t's. I've got two cities up in the northwest that could have a race, but I can't find a person within the sport to um talk to, to say, give me the answers we need to go back to this city. Yeah, one of them is a major, you know, major, major city. Uh and you know, one thing I don't I I don't want to lose this before I forget. The one thing that's held this doggone sport back forever is if you think about this in a different term, H1 is a 1099 vendor to the race site. The boat owners are 1099 vendors to H1. So no one has a stake in it. And I know one of the things I was trying to advocate was if you go to a new race, we're gonna race for X dollars plus this percentage of the gate because we're gonna have to help you sell tickets if people we want people to come. Yeah, instead of give me my check, I'm coming. It's almost like a hydroplane race is almost like bucking a rock concert. We're gonna pay the band to come and play a set. So we're gonna pay you guys to come and play a set. Now you got to do a lot of other stuff. It's an expensive proposition to the promoter, right? My God, you got to build everything on community property, and that's why most of them don't succeed. But at some point, because at one time Larry Alberto challenged me about it's been got 10 years now, but he brought a guy in that wanted to invest three million dollars in the sport. Oh wow, and the guy's first question to me was what assets does the sport own? I said, Well, we have a truck, we have buoys, we have technical equipment, but we don't own a race site. We don't have a partnership with a race site, so we really have no assets other than that. Well, why would I want to put three million dollars if you don't really have any assets to sell? It's a good question. You know, what if I wanted to create a race? And I said, well, prepare yourself to probably spend a million and a half to two million dollars over, depending on the market, over three years before you're gonna make money back. Yeah, why would it take that long? Well, you have to build your infrastructure and do all these things. And I said, you know, there really is no intellectual property. You know, what's the H1 logo worth? What's this? Because Seafare owns its event, the water follies own their event, Madison Regatta owns its event, they hire the boats to come in and race at some point. Like, what why is NASCAR successful? Who owns all the racetracks or did for a long time? NASCAR. Yeah, now they're owned by corporations that relate right back to it. IndyCar. Roger Penske owns the Indy 500. I mean, you know, that's owning the the value is in owning the site more than it's owning the boat. And that's where I wish it would change. I mean, you know, some I understand it, but some people don't. And obviously, there are those that think the owners are what the sport's all about. And I totally say they're all there, they are the sport, but it's a business, it's a product, and how you put it together is what you gotta, you know, where it's gonna shake itself out. Does that make about that makes sense to you? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally makes sense. But yeah, yeah. That's that's just sad. Sad sad.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

But they're hired help. They're hired help.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Well, and uh, I know they have a lot of problems, but hopefully it'll get better.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Yeah, I hope so too.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Um, is there any uh Bill Osborne and I talk about this three days a week, okay?

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Okay, okay. Is there any hope for those those race sites in the Northwest that uh might might come on the on the series? Um right now the series has four races. Yep, Madison, Seattle, Tri-Cities, and San Diego, as long as things don't change for next year. Do you see any promise uh adding more recites right now?

SPEAKER_02 37:50

Well, I've been texting I yeah, I guess I don't know if they really want them or not. I've the people knew the person I think that I was working with that was working for one of the owners of the sport is no longer working for one of the owners of the sport. I've tried to reach out a couple times, but you know, um, I think with the right with the team that I got, it could happen. Um maybe an exhibition late this year and a race next year. Um, but oh no, we got a city that really would like to do it. Yeah, one for one particular, another one's gonna take a little more work.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Can you drop any names right now on the record? Probably not. No.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

I I make everybody sign old Sam would have said sure. Old, I mean, young Sam, old Sam says an NDA. Sign an NDA. Okay, because by tomorrow, you know, it's kind of like the Qatar thing. You didn't really do anything in Qatar. Oh no, I went there like six times and right negotiated and did all this stuff, you know. Uh it's a lot of work. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, it is the agreements and everything you gotta do.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

But it was, it was it's uh I loved it, I lived for it.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, uh I know you were a fan of like changing things up and uh involving the sport as things go on. And since your time as chairman, they've tried a few things with the sport, some have worked, some haven't. Uh, and a number of years ago, they had the the shootout, Saturday shootout or showdown, I can't remember if it was shootout or showdown. And they would give an additional win, a career victory win to the shootout, showdown winner. What what were your thoughts on on that that trial that year? I think you have some strong feelings.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

I think it's wrong to cut give them a race victory and compare it with and put them in the rankings with these guys, other guys who drove 90 miles. Because you know, the sport went from 90 miles to 60 miles to 45 miles to 37 miles, and now it's like those races you could win it in 12.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

You know, yeah, and I don't know. I mean, I I have mixed emotions about it because I understand that what the drivers are going through, how what they were trying to do, maybe from a creation standpoint, but I mean, you guy could win one heat, one run one heat, and it it counts as a career race victory, right? That's to me, that's not what it's about. Yeah, I don't know. And maybe they put an asterisk, I don't know. It's it's uh what what's your I'm gonna I'm gonna put the question back on you. What do you think?

Why The Sport Owns No Assets

SPEAKER_01 40:36

I to be honest, I was a fan of it. Um in a sense of I feel like there was more time on the water of boats, but I I didn't feel because there was two at a time, right? And yeah, I felt like there was just more action on the water. Um I don't think it I don't think it counts as it shouldn't count as a race win. I almost felt like it should have been uh in lieu of qualifying or something else to add to the race, not a separate race, if that makes sense. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Um so I like I like the I like trying different things and and seeing the sport evolve, but um I I thought that was that was kind of odd that they couple laps around the the course and you get a career victory from that. That's didn't didn't equate to me either, but I like seeing them try things. I'm old school, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

You know, I mean I I know I saw those other guys that are on that list were driving long races, you know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, wow, yeah. I can't imagine 90 mile gold cups, but I mean, you know, when I was a kid, they were six, right? You know, then they became 45. Then with a two and a half months, they can't, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

But yeah, like newfalgal driving out there on the three-mile race course, and how many laps do they do? And it like it was yeah, it was a brutal process, not not the same.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

But now we can't run five laps. I mean, we can't run five laps or six laps. Yeah, I mean, I don't understand. I just for the life of me. I mean, I I've advocated getting rid of uh the five-minute gun and doing the flag start, yeah, and adding heat and adding laps to the race. Yeah, I I think they're gonna figure they do like some of them do three, four laps during five minutes. Add that to the race. People don't know what the five-minute thing is, no, you know, yeah, and five-minute periods longer than the heat race, right? Oh, yeah, so it's like you know, and I'm people want longer races. So hey, go out there, run one lap, drop a flag, and then run five laps or run six laps, you know. Right, get develop your product of what the people want to see, not what you want to do. Right. That's you know, that's probably where I get it odds a lot of times.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Well, like uh at seafair last year, I was sitting watching the final heat on the on the shoreline, and it was packed because the blue angels were going to be after, right? So tons of people there, and every uh all the boats stopped at the the far end of the course before the one minute 30 gun, right? Because they were trying to do that leapfrog thing, and everyone on the shoreline thought the race was over or an accident happened. There no one understood what was going on, and then they ran down to the corner, okay. Now the race is starting. Like, no, it's still before the start because you have to come around again. No one had any any idea what was going on out there, so yeah, it's just interesting. Yeah, it's hard to explain.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

It's it's weird, you gotta explain it to people, you know. I mean, not you shouldn't have to explain it, right? Show figure it out, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Right. But well, do you have any any optimism for the sport right now and and seeing it grow or or get back to what it used to be?

SPEAKER_02 43:42

I wish I wish I knew kind of what they're trying to do. I sometimes think I don't know if they know what they're trying to do. Um, you gotta kind of have a vision and a plan on where you want to go. Like this is what we want to do. Yeah, it's really hard. I think the to me, a big mistake, and I don't know who instituted it, was letting the race sites pick how many boats they want to come. Yeah, you had that problem, you know. Oh, well, I'm only I only want to pay for five, I want to pay for six, you know. Now tri-cities, hey, we'll pay for eight or nine, it's okay. But no, used to be if we brought 10, we divided the money up. Yeah, wasn't about making sure the five got 20,000 bucks a piece, it was about what what the fans want to pay to see. And uh, I mean, I I I read all these comments and stuff that are out there. I mean, someone's just got to sit back and say, This is what we want to do, where we want to go, and how we want to get there. And I don't know if everyone's in agreement with that and what they want to do. I mean, you don't the key to this sport all the years, you always have had five or six big teams. Right. It was it was the ten hobby guys, the ten guys. I mean, you know, um where are they now? I mean, you know, even with Doha, you had you had let's see, Nate Brown, you had uh Kenny Muscatel, you had Steve Webster, you know, you had Jay Lacrone, right? You know, where are they now?

SPEAKER_00 45:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

You know, I and now you have what two owners, two teams, and then you've got Madison, if when they get out there and you've got Shannon and Scott.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Yeah.

New Northwest Races And NDAs

SPEAKER_02 45:29

Um, Kelly, you know, where's Kelly? You need Kelly out there. I mean, it's about if you're getting how do I say this the right way? If you're getting paid to do something, you've got to deliver what uh the person buying the ticket wants, not what you want you want to give them. Yeah, that's the hardest part to get through certain the people this the that hierarchy in the sport, that they're per if they want to be professional and get paid, you know. I mean, they don't make a movie because it's the way the producer wants it, they make a movie the way people so people buy tickets, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Yeah, and they want to make money, yeah.

Shootout Debate And Future Optimism

SPEAKER_02 46:08

And that's you know, and I mean you know, NASCAR just came out and changed how they're gonna do things because they didn't like the I mean you you've always got to be changing, yeah. Yeah, you can't, you know. I I I know I got in a bad argument with Ed Cooper back in Madison, like I think my second or third year when I started Fast Slap Friday. We got in, I to this day regret yelling at him, and I don't know if he, you know, he and I grew up in Madison and all that, but I wanted to have qualifying Friday afternoon from four to five or five to six. He totally was opposed to it because he said he could only run his boat from eight to nine in the morning. And I said, How many fans are out there between eight and nine in the morning? You gotta get out of it. It's not about what you want, okay. And we did that for a few years. The past lap Friday qualifying in an hour, we're great, yeah, you know, and then it goes away. Where's it at now? Oh, we're gonna have qualifying from 10 to 12, and you know, even like in Gunner'sville of all places, starting the race at 10 in the morning when people are at church, right? What I could put on a one-day race from noon to five, and people are gonna go home happy, you know. But it's just that's my optimism. I mean, I hate to you gotta take a step back sometimes to get a step forward, but my doggone sport always takes two was it, two steps back, one step forward, so they're always stuck in the same place. You know, that's you got you can't do that, you gotta get ahead, right? And that's how I feel. That's how I feel. But I you know, I volunteer, I I help anybody out. Yeah, you know, they'll pick up the phone, you know, and and like Bill and I argue. I mean, right now getting a sponsor is tough. Yeah, because you don't have the numbers. You that you know, you want a hundred thousand dollars a race for what you know. The sad part is uh an owner spends more on a propeller than they win in a race. That's you know, you can't you can't stay in business like that forever, you know. No, uh get it to where it's reasonable and but but they gotta focus on the per people buying the tickets and what they want, and you and like I I was reading some comments today. Oh, it was that picture from 73 of Manis, all these people in comments is like, oh, the boats all look alike, they all they don't they all sound alike, you know. They do this. I mean, think about the innovations. I mean, my god, every Fred Leland used to try Packard engines for every year. Kelly tried the 440 thing, you know, right? Right. Um, you know, uh automotive. It was it everybody tried the griffins, the this, the that. Everybody tried everything.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

It's not there, the innovation's not there. No, the hulls all are look alike, they're built alike, but what's new? What's the next step?

SPEAKER_01 49:03

You know, that was that was a fun part for me as a kid in the early 90s. I know they're all pretty much turbines, but the boats look different, they had different shapes and designs and different paint schemes, and they're bright, and it was impressionable for a kid, you know, seeing oh yeah, the day glow, you know, Winston Eagle and the tide, and the it just everything everything looked different. So you could pick out your favorite and it stood out, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Yep. Yeah, and it's but it, but it I don't know. I I I don't how do I want to say it? I did what I did for the Freddie Alters, the Phil Coles, the Bill Muncie's of the world. You know, I believed you know they were the pioneers that brought it forward, and I think my job was to carry it on or do the best I could to make it survive. I still feel that way, you know. I still feel that way. Um, I I told somebody Bill Walker and I were talking, I said, you know, I got one more left in me, you know, we can do it. You know, and then Dave's gone, but but that's all right.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Dave, Dave's Dave. Well, I appreciate all your time, Sam. I had a great time talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 50:14

Enjoyed talking to you. Yeah, thank you.

Wrap Up And Where To Follow

SPEAKER_01 50:16

And uh it's lucky. Hope I didn't waste your time. Oh, no, no, not at all. No, like I said, I can talk boats for hours and hours. So I really appreciate it. And uh, man, I'm thankful for everything you did for the sport. A lot of things wouldn't be here without you. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

Well, let's keep doing it, let's do it again.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Yeah, yeah. I'll have you back on sometime.

SPEAKER_02 50:37

Five years when it's uh a big hit again. There we go, there we go. Just have somebody call me. I I gotta race in the northwest.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Yeah, all right.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Well, that's all the time we have for this week, Knuckleheads. I really hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sam Cool. Some great insight, and um and I appreciate him being so candid about his opinions and his time around the sport of hydroplane racing. Uh his his passion isn't dead. You can hear that in his voice. He wants to help out more and he wants to do more, and hopefully we'll see his face at the race again, and we'll see some more effort from Sam. As I know we want, we all want the same thing. We want hydroplane racing to be the forefront, and we want it to be bigger and better than it has before every year. So, thank you again to Sam Cole, and I appreciate your support, appreciate your time, and appreciate all you've done for hydroplane racing. Well, we're gonna have another interview next week. I'm gonna keep that a surprise for now. You'll see uh some other names here on the podcast that you might not have before. We've got some fun interviews on the way. I'm gonna get some old race footage back on the podcast. We've got some fun things in store. So, in the meantime, check us out on social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, check us out online at Richatelltalk.com. But that's all I got for you, knuckleheads. So until next time, I hope to see you at the races.