Thunderboating - A Personal Memoir - Chapter 3

By Fred Farley - Unlimited Hydroplane Historian

On Sunday, June 19, 1966, I was pounding away on the typewriter when a radio news bulletin from Washington, D.C., interrupted my concentration.

Ron Musson, the sport’s reigning superstar, was fatally injured at the President’s Cup while driving the radical new cabover MISS BARDAHL. Three hours later, two more drivers--Rex Manchester of NOTRE DAME and Don Wilson of MISS BUDWEISER--were likewise stricken from the list of the living.

June 19 of that year came to be known as “Black Sunday.” Some say that Unlimited racing lost its innocence on that terrible afternoon.

After the announcement concerning Musson, I continued working. When Manchester and Wilson died, I quit for the day. But the next morning, it was back to the salt mines.

I knew Ron, Rex, and Don. The human tragedy not withstanding, this was a show. And the show had to go on. I still had a deadline to meet.

Two days later, at the monthly Seafair race committee meeting at the Seattle Yacht Club, everyone was in a daze. Coincidentally, this was the day that the group picture was to be taken. In that photo, which appeared in the program, everyone was smiling. Except for that brief moment, no one smiled that day.

The Race Chairman, Randy Pillow, admitted he had no idea if our race, scheduled for August 7, would be run or not. He told us to continue working as if nothing had happened. A few weeks later came the announcement from Greater Seattle that the race would proceed as planned.

The program went to press. And aside from one caustic comment from Unlimited “Czar” Lee Schoenith, which I didn’t appreciate, it seemed to be well received. There were certainly no complaints about the volume of information contained in the program.

Speaking for myself, the 1966 Seafair program was the kind of book that, as a youngster, I would have craved. If only I’d had a bigger budget for better quality paper and some color photography! It would have been a classic.

Those close to me were amazed that I didn’t go all to pieces when Musson, Manchester, Wilson, and later Chuck Thompson, were lost, given the vulnerable state that I was in at the time. Certainly, I was shaken to the core, just like everyone else. But the specter of fatality in power boat racing was something that I had already come to terms with seven years earlier.

Most fans, when they first become interested, look at the sport through rose-colored glasses. Then, eventually, they must confront the inevitability of accidents. When that happens, a hard decision must be made. Do they continue with the boats or walk away from them. Those that choose to stay never look at the sport in the same light ever again.

For a lot of people, that painful moment of truth was the 1966 President’s Cup. For me, it was the 1959 Diamond Cup at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. No one died at that race. But four drivers (Bill Brow, Jack Regas, Chuck Hickling, and Norm Evans) sustained injury--one of them (Regas) critically.

The MISS BURIEN hydroplane was destroyed. MISS BARDAHL owner Ole Bardahl threatened to pull out of the sport. And in another racing accident, Limited hydro pilot Bob Doros was run over by another boat and lost an arm while driving WEE WAHOO at the Pasco Water Follies on the Columbia River. (Doros was filling in for regular driver Mira Slovak who had an Unlimited ride at Coeur d’Alene that weekend.)

The carnage sickened me. While Jack Regas, the 1958 Gold Cup champion with HAWAII KAI III, hovered between life and death, I did some serious thinking. I had to decide if boat racing was something that I wanted to continue doing. For several days, I was at a crossroads. I could have gone either way.

But then it was Seafair week again. As Gold Cup day neared, I found myself getting caught up in the spirit of things as usual. It wasn’t long before my enthusiasm shifted back into high gear, where it has remained ever since.

I was greatly encouraged when all of the drivers injured at Coeur d’Alene recovered--and all eventually returned to competition. Doros showed up as a spectator at the 1959 Green Lake Regatta--and in good spirits. Ole Bardahl “unretired” a month later and finished the season. And a new MISS BURIEN was ordered for 1960 from Ted Jones.

Looking back on the 1959 Diamond Cup, I see it as a “coming of age” milestone, which forced me to confront the real world. As an adult, one must accept the bad breaks with the good as a part of life. Moreover, death is the risk of those who defy it in high-speed hydroplane racing.

Following the dark days of 1966, quite a few long-time fans abandoned the sport. But for those who stayed, their reward was a competitive series of races that compared favorably with many of the great races of the past.

The sport remained competitive until the late seventies, when not enough good Allison and Rolls-Royce Merlin equipment remained to justify a class. Unlimited racing then went into a temporary decline but was restored to prominence by the turbine revolution, which began in 1984.

The 1966 season featured plenty of side-by-side action for the fans. And six different boats won races.

A few days after the Seafair Regatta, my girl friend Emilie Gamache and I went to see a movie called THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY--an apt description of the triumph and the tragedy that characterized Unlimited racing in 1966.

The expense of travel pretty much limited me in those days to the races in the Pacific Northwestern quadrant. (I was, after all, a struggling college student.) Nevertheless, I made it to four Unlimited races in five weeks: Kelowna, British Columbia; the Tri-Cities, Washington; Seattle; and Coeur d’Alene. And squeezed in between the two Washington state races, I attended the APBA Inboard Nationals on Lake Washington.

Slovak and TAHOE MISS won at Kelowna and Coeur d’Alene; MISS BUDWEISER owner Berrnie Little scored his first-ever career victory at the Tri-Cities, and long-shot Jim Ranger grabbed all of the marbles with MY GYPSY at Seattle.

In all, 1966 was a year too terrible to remember but too wonderful to forget.

Lining up pit passes for races outside of Seattle wasn’t always easy. For a brief period during 1964 and 1965, I wrote race reports for a magazine called THE WORLD OF BOAT RACING. I sent the editors samples of my work with the Seafair program and got the assignment. THE WORLD OF BOAT RACING folded rather quickly. They couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay anything. But at least I got some pit passes out of the deal.

The first check that I ever received for writing services was for my work on the 1967 Seafair program, which paid $350. At last, I was a professional writer!

The last four Seafair programs that I did were a mixed blessing. The pay was nice. The books were more elaborate and benefited from bigger budgets than in the recent past. But I had less and less control over them.

The powers-that-be wanted less of a regatta program and more of a Seafair festival program. I had a lot of respect for Arden Aegerter, the head honcho of Seafair in those days. He never lied to me. But I had difficulty dealing with some of the people who worked for him and who apparently didn’t believe in returning phone calls.

One thing that did please me about those last few books was in the area of photography. Most programs around the country used all of the same photos of the boats. These were the set that the Unlimited Racing Commission (URC) sent around to all of the committees in the spring of each year. A lot of those photos were one or two years old.

If a team built a new hull to replace an older one, the URC Executive Secretary Phil Cole would often send a photo of the old hull. Sometimes this couldn’t be helped, especially if a boat wasn’t launched until after the start of the season.

Luckily for me, I had a photographer friend named Rich Ormbrek who always went to the races at Detroit and Madison on his vacation. He would bring back with him pictures just a few days old of all the new boats and the repainted older ones.

For the years 1968, 1969, and 1970, I was able to fill the program with photos that never appeared in any race program other than Seattle. And that made them extra special.

But my problems with the Greater Seattle staff continued. Sometimes I prevailed, and sometimes I didn’t. The end of my involvement with the Seafair program came after 1970. The last couple of editions had been marred because of changes that were made behind my back.

Erroneous information was added. The readers inferred that I was responsible for those errors. This I could not tolerate. Fred Farley does like to be correct.

My Seafair program experiences were mostly good ones. The opportunity provided a stimulating challenge. I like to think that I started a trend, providing much more information for the readers than had previously been the case.

I enjoyed working with the Seafair committee. But it was time to move on.

Following my Seafair swan song, I attended the 1970 Gold Cup in San Diego. I remember it as if it were yesterday--a very special event with a lot of emotional highs and lows.

It all started with the ultimate downer. Tommy "Tucker" Fults--one of the gutsiest and most personable men ever to jockey an Unlimited hydroplane--was killed in a freak accident during testing with PAY 'n PAK'S 'LIL BUZZARD.

"Tucker" was a good friend of mine. He always had time to shoot the breeze with his fans--and he had many. A very down-to-earth guy, Tommy was never arrogant or mean-spirited. And he loved to race. I still miss him.

His accident happened on the day before I arrived. On the flight from Seattle down to San Diego, I remember being very depressed. Then, as the plane flew over Mission Bay, I looked down and there was the bright red MISS U.S. out testing with a gorgeous roostertail of spray trailing behind her. It was an absolutely beautiful sight. Instantly, my spirits started to revive.

Race day was filled with almost non-stop competitive action. Boats battled side-by-side all day long. The 1970 Gold Cup was easily one of the half-dozen best races of the hundreds that I've seen. It was simply superb.

MISS BUDWEISER and NOTRE DAME--a couple of Ed Karelsen-designed hulls--were the class of the field with Dean Chenoweth and Leif Borgersen as drivers. MISS MADISON with Jim McCormick was also hot as was MYR SHEET METAL with Bill Muncey.

Muncey had a miserable day and ended up having to run in the consolation race. In an earlier heat, the MYR was called for "chopping" the BUD. Bill protested his innocence until white paint from the MYR's transom was found on the BUD's bow.

MISS MADISON was always in the hunt, even though the hull was ten years old. McCormick was able to bring out the best in her. MISS M's upward favorable trend reached fruition the following year.

NOTRE DAME had no excuse for not winning at San Diego in 1970. She was clearly the fastest boat there and dominated the first two heats. Borgersen had only to stay ahead of MISS BUDWEISER in the Final Heat and the race would have been his.

But Chenoweth flat out-drove Leif. Dean got the jump on him at the start and kept NOTRE DAME "on his hip" for two laps until Borgersen spun out in corner number-one.

MISS BUDWEISER wasn't quite as fast as NOTRE DAME, but the BUD deserved to win because she had the better driver.

MISS MADISON took third-place overall behind the BUD and the NOTRE DAME. Billy Sterett, Jr., took fourth with MISS OWENSBORO, followed by Norm Evans--in his last race--at the wheel of Bob Gilliam's TOTUM TRAILER SALES.

As I rode the shuttle boat from the Judges' Stand back to the pits, I replayed in my mind the exciting event that I had just witnessed. A part of me was jubilant over the quality of the competition. And another part was subdued because my friend Fults was no longer there to enjoy the race with me.

But life and death, triumph and tragedy, are all part of the human experience. I believe that we all have our appointed time to go. And who are we to question the means. I'm grateful for Tommy that his time came when he was doing what he loved best.