December 17, 2024 • 32 mins
Mark and Mitch Evans, legendary figures in the world of Unlimited Hydroplane Racing, join us for part 2 of their 4 part interview. We revisit their riveting exploration of their high-octane careers in the late 80s. From Mark's poignant hiatus after a personal tragedy to his triumphant return, their stories are filled with the adrenaline and heart that's powered their iconic presence on the water. Hear about their collaborations with renowned names like Chuck Hickling and Ed Cooper, offering a window into the challenges and triumphs of a sport that demands both bravery and brilliance.
*Photo from Jon Osterberg
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Ruchetel Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything
about the sport that we all loveHi, jibbley and Reese.
I am your host, david Newton,and it's time once again.
So sit back, relax and welcometo Rooster Tail.
Talk, we'll talk.
(00:45):
Welcome back race fans.
This is episode 134, tuesday,december 17th 2024.
And this is part two of myinterview with Mark and Mitch
Evans.
Last week we left off talkingabout the early 80s and
Unlimited Hydroplane Racing forMark and Mitch and we're going
(01:07):
to continue that and we're goingto talk about how they both
worked with Chuck Hickling, howthey both worked with the
Coopers and their journey intothe late 80s of Unlimited
Hydroplane Racing.
They both share great storiesaround the time frame and I'm
excited for you to hear that.
I just had such a fun talk andI can't stress that enough.
(01:29):
It was a fun afternoon I haddown at Sunset Marina with them
and you know what, you know whothey are.
They both have great success inunlimited hydroplane racing and
I'm just going to tell you,you're going to hear some fun
stories about Chuck Hickling,about his shop.
You're going to hear some morefun stories about Ed Cooper and
(01:49):
working for him, and let's justget into it and enjoy part two.
This is four parts.
Remember there's going to befour parts of this, so we're
about halfway there after youfinish this episode.
But part two of my talk withMark and Mitch Evans.
But part two of my talk withMark and.
Mitch Evans.
It was a few years before you.
At that time, before you gotback into the woods, mark, um,
(02:09):
you know what?
What was your why?
Why did you have a break there?
Well, I mean you ran the, the,the green bomb Right, and then
Mitch was racing unlimited, andthen it was a while before you
got a seat.
Yeah, it was a while before yougot a seat.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah Well, dad got murdered in 81.
And that was just consuming andwe had the marina going on and
just lots going on.
So I just stuck to the marina.
We had the driving and stuffand plus the green bomb, we took
the Allison out and put it inthe other boat, so I was without
a ride really.
But, mitch and Rick, let metake the.
(02:43):
What did we call it at the time?
Kw3?
Yeah, kw3.
Yeah, I got to take a couplespins out here, so that was kind
of fun and went and crewed withthem and just bided my time to
get another ride and that'sabout the time Chuck Hickling
came around, I think yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, it was the tunnel hydroplane that you built
.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yes, yeah, yeah, it was the tunnel hydroplane that
you built.
Yes, yeah, that was a scaryride there.
Wow, that was something.
I mean beautiful boat, likecabinet work.
You know it's a beautifulcraftsmanship, but boy, it was
scary Bob.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Mashman drove it and he didn't like it.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Jack.
Schaefer oh yeah, and then whenI got in it, jack was actually
really nervous.
He came down to the docks andsaid listen, buddy, just be
careful.
He says he won't like how itturns.
He said it's either going towant to hook or take off on you,
and sure enough it would.
You go to turn it and just jumpup and take off and hook.
It was that big Merlin in atunnel boat.
Just didn't really work.
But I got the opportunity, youknow.
(03:40):
Of course, one of the best oneswas, I think, the second year.
Chuck decided to put somenitrous in it, and you know be
careful of the nitrous.
And anyway, I pushed on thebutton a little too much and
exploded the thing.
Well, the batteries were rightunderneath my seat.
The fire come up through thecockpit and started burning me.
(04:00):
So I just reached out and hitthe fire button and jumped about
100 miles an hour.
I think it slowed down anyway.
But we got front page in thesports section and so bernie
little came up and he was allgiving me a bad time.
What about I have my driverjump out just to get on the
newspaper?
And I said yeah, bernie, andyou have your driver jump out
right at the final, quite theexperience with that.
(04:26):
Yeah, that whole thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
That was quite an interesting design.
I built a model of it one time.
Oh did you?
Yeah, and I ran it and it wasfast.
But every once in a while itwould get to the corner and it
would hit awake and it would goup and it would just float for
like 40 feet or so.
It wouldn't go over it for like40 feet or so it wouldn't go
over, it would just float andthen it would come back down.
No kidding, yeah, Similar tothe big one Now did you put the
(04:51):
little wings on the front?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I didn't do the wings , yeah, second year.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And, by the way, those wings were solid, mahogany
.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, they weren't light weight, yeah.
And so a couple of guys saidman, if you get this qualified,
you go race.
Stay out of a rooster tail.
You're going to get it right inthe forehead.
Yeah, probably could have.
No, he carved them out by hand.
Beautiful, did it work?
They were really slow.
Our servos were really slow.
(05:14):
Then we kept having engineproblems.
Fortunately, without gettinginto the heavy story about my
gearbox being hooked to anallison and having the same
fluid go through to lubeeverything, chuck put his
gearbox in the boat with aseparate system and slid the
Merlin back into the gearbox soif we ever heard an engine, we
(05:35):
didn't have to mess with thegearbox the shavings going
through.
That was a unique setup that Ireally liked.
That Chuck did Cool.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
He was quite the innovator and mechanic and
craftsman, wasn't he?
Yes?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
He was very picky and any of us that went up and
worked there, he already had ourtools lined out.
He had the project he wanted usto do.
He had the little vacuumcleaner there and you better
vacuum If you drilled a hole.
You vacuum right now.
And then later on I got tonotice and I went in there one
day and I looked and all thePhillips screws on the bottom
were lined up.
They weren't.
Oh yeah, that's how detailed?
(06:10):
It is Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Wow, yeah, there's something I didn't write down,
but I remember my dad having abook and I thought it was by
Chuck Hickling, and it was justa collection of how-tos for like
the shop and the boat Puttingthings together.
Did you ever see something like?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
that from him?
I did no, but it wouldn'tsurprise me.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, my dad was crew chief and he was looking
through it and he was looking attips on how to do certain
things that are on the shop.
Yeah, yeah.
But I haven't found it.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I don't know if it— Gosh, yeah, but I haven't found
it.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I don't know if it gosh.
I yeah, I don't rememberanything like that, but I'm
gonna think of it.
It's a little vacuum cleaner behanging here, he's arrows and
everything's in place.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, maybe we can find that out online somewhere
in the hydro world that we kindof fun to see.
Yeah, but it just had had stuffaround the shop and electrical
stuff and the walls in the shop.
On the trailer there werethings and there was stuff about
the boat, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
To get the boat down his driveway.
It had a really steep drivewaythere.
You park up top and unhook thetruck, turn it around.
You had a hitch on the frontand then he had little lines
marked on the asphalt.
So you drove that boat trailerright down those exact lines.
You had to in order to get aclear shot and he was that picky
(07:38):
.
Oh, another thing about Chuck.
I think they call it OCD nowthe impossibility well, it
worked for him.
Another thing about him if youcame down there in your car and
you left and there was a drip ofoil there, chuck would circle
that and when you come back nexttime he would have the rag and
(08:01):
the MEK or whatever to clean itup.
Wow, yeah, I know he's acharacter.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But, mitch, he drove another Hickling boat.
Yeah, I believe was thatCooper's first boat.
He purchased it from Hickling.
Yeah, what was that experiencelike driving that boat.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, it was pretty great because I had met.
Ed the year before when Rickand I decided to take the boat
on the tour.
We went to Houston and then wewent to Detroit, anyway.
So we got to meet him and thenof course Ed calls.
Hey, he always called mecracker ass for some reason.
That's an Indiana thing orsomething.
(08:44):
He goes and Jack was helping himdrive at the time, cracker ass
for some reason that's anIndiana thing or something he
goes and Jack was helping himdrive at the time, couldn't make
it or whatever.
So yeah, I come to Madison andjust plopped right in it.
You know he goes, here's aswitch, turn this on and go out,
you know, make some laps andcome back.
I mean, what are you thinking?
It was really.
It was pretty terrifyingbecause that was really my first
(09:06):
time.
And the boat, pleasantly enough,handled really well.
You know it was a conventionalbut it it had a little skid fin
on the side, it had a widetransom on it so you could go
down and, you know, turn thething without feeling like you
were going to end up in kentucky.
And ed's motors, you know atthe time were pretty stock.
But as we went on with theprogram he had those kind of an
(09:29):
adapted 10 and a quarter blower,bigger carbs, nitrous I mean we
ran 100 pounds of nitrous inthere for heats and he said he
wasn't afraid to have it usedwhen needed.
Anyway, that was just a greatexperience.
And then obviously it led to20-plus years of racing with him
.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, he had a few.
Yeah, he had some highs andlows there.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, that's part of it.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
And same thing.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I mean gosh, ed was a school teacher right by trade.
You know all-volunteer crew buthe worked endlessly in the shop
, you know, to build everythingright.
I mean everything about theprogram he did in-house that he
could.
I mean there was some someexterior stuff, but no just just
a great guy to to work with anddrive for.
(10:17):
Yeah, so I was really luckythat way I haven't figured out
how he does it.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I follow in his footsteps.
Then I'm a school teacher, Idon't have a hydroplane, I don't
have a boat.
I don't know how he does it.
I follow in his footsteps.
Then I'm a school teacher, Idon't have a hydroplane, I don't
have a boat.
I don't know how he was able tomanage that To this day, me
either.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I mean, I look at it, I've been in business,
self-employed, all my life, doneall these things.
You know.
He just had that mentality andhe, like you say, was able to
just bit by bit, and there weresome great opportunities, some
good sponsorship came along atthe right times.
You know, he got into the Imean, chuck gave him a great
(10:51):
deal on the boat and the trailer, you know.
But it was years and years andyears of grinding away at it,
years and years of grinding awayat it.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Is it true, mitch, that Ed was sick one September
and couldn't go teach school,but the principal saw him on
ESPN down there in San Diego?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
or something there might have been a time or two of
that.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
yeah, Got in trouble because you're sick, huh, Ed?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I just saw you on ESPN.
He was always really carefulabout that kind of stuff.
But there were sick huh Ed,yeah, yeah okay, I just saw you
on ESPN.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, and Ed always he was always really careful
about that kind of stuff.
But there were just some timesbecause I mean Ed did everything
and drove the truck, I mean,you know, took the boat, you
know, and we would try to tradeoff some.
But I mean the guy is just wow,yeah, and so he made it all
work, like I say, and theteaching in the early days was
(11:46):
obviously his livelihood and hispassion.
He had this side gig, you know.
He put in all the hours it tookto make it work.
And the rest of his family, hiswife, of course, barbara.
She was a teacher also.
Oh, and then his dad was acharacter.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I'd throw in Ed Senior.
There was somebody that wasjust another great guy and
volunteered and he was a bighelp and I know there were some
times that we all needed to cometogether from many different
directions and that's how he didit and the great volunteers out
, there too, it took the villageto do it, because no way we
(12:28):
would have done it.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I called out sick today, so don't tell anyone
You're sick.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
You don't look real well, so I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
You know another thing this TV can get people in
trouble.
Back to the story when I uhused a little too much nitrous
in chuck's boat and jumped out.
Yeah, I also got a call thatmoney from uh insurance company,
life insurance company goes,dude, you get in the office.
I saw you on tv on fire jumpingout of a hundred miles.
You are not covered for thatkind of stuff.
(12:59):
Oh man, I'm sorry, sir, I'vegot my own shirts.
We get on there TV.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
You'll get yeah TV.
We need it, you know for oursponsors.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
That's really just be careful what you show yeah.
Yeah, there's quite a fewstories out there that we can't
talk about, so people getinvested well well, mitch you I
think was it the winner of 87 88you built, uh, a new boat or
helped build a video boat, yeahyeah, so.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So, mark I, that was a another project that we
decided out of the blue and, um,we had the pieces and parts and
then, and then, yeah, we wereable to put it together.
We took the sponsons off theold predelco there.
We cut that thing apartbasically, and then we thought
(13:53):
we were going to be able to justkind of rebuild that but it
ended up just— the centersection was rotten.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
We'll back up just a little bit that predelco hole
that we use as sponsons.
I was working for Jim Lucero atthe time and it showed up down
at their shop and it was theMiller American and the Circus.
That was the same time andthere was a bunch of controversy
going on.
So a friend of mine, george,and I, we bought that hole from
Fran Muncy and I took it up toEdgewood where I was living, and
(14:17):
we put it in the backyard andwe proceeded to work on it.
Well, jim Lucero had a couple ofMerlins that we wanted to buy
but we didn't have the money.
We tried to get the sponsorsand so on and so forth and we
just couldn't do it.
But we didn't have a trailer atthe time.
So, believe it or not, thatthing, that boat, was sitting
behind Boeing surplus at Luceroshop and on a sunday morning I
(14:39):
had a flat trailer and I didn'ttell my buddy and I said, george
, just follow me, drove down 167all the way down to eduid, up
jovita boulevard.
We got it to the backyard and,wow, that's when I thought, okay
, we need to tilt trailer, thisisn't going to work.
And then we knew we didn't havethe money and I can't remember
how we we just decided to sellit to Ed.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
He started gathering up all the pieces and parts and
then, of course, got it here andthen began the long process.
And then, when?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
we found out the center was so rotten we just
dropped those functions on thefloor through the middle of the
way and Mitch called up Ed andsaid Ed, you might want to send
out some panels of honeycomb,some cash, some fiberglass, some
cash.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
He was really silent for a long time.
He was telling me he goes.
I thought we were justrebuilding.
I said no, there's just no way.
He said it's done and, as itturned out, we were able to do
some things to it with the helpof a lot of people asking a
million questions.
The cool part.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Part of my favorite part was I hadn't interacted
with Jones Jr and Sr really thatmuch their lives were, you know
.
And so once we chopped thesponges off, we knew center
section.
Well, you have the angle of thebottom, how far is your break,
how wide the boat you want tobuild?
Well, the Madison folks werebuilding the boat at the same
time.
So I just walked in the door ofJones' shop half nervous and
(16:11):
hey, I'd like a littleinformation on how to build an
unlimited here.
And Jones Jr says, come on, youknow he's all gruff.
He takes me back in the holygrail, the back shop that no one
gets to go in.
Go into the drawing room.
There's a senior there with allthese top secret drawings and
the Madison stuff.
I'm like holy cow.
(16:35):
Junior says my dad will helpyou out, he just leaves.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I go.
What's all this?
I go holy schmoly.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I said, well, how wide should we make the boat?
How long is the break?
He goes.
Well, mark, we're doing this tothe Madison, here's this and
here's that.
So we went home and I said,mitch, let's do a little more
than that.
So we went, I think, two incheswider, the break was only four
feet, and so on and so forth,and it really worked.
But what got me and Ed Cooper,I think too was, once we got
(17:03):
rolling, someone said oh themEvans boys don't know how to
build a boat and Ed Cooperdoesn't know how to build no
engines.
Well, shouldn't have said that,because that read me out, and I
told that to Ed too.
And Ed goes.
Hmm.
So from then on, think aboutthe battles that Mitch had with
Mike Hansen at Madison.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
You always whipped him when he went twice cities,
yeah, and it was just by puredesire, you know.
And it all came together.
Yeah, it was the combination.
I mean at that time theycommitted to running the
turbocharged motors, right, andof course, bill and Graham.
You, you know, bill built allthe induction stuff for the top
(17:43):
and the hillborn and putting allthose pieces together and and
then and then making it all livein the early days was was a
miracle for sure.
But there again, being frommadison, I mean there was, you
know, he was able to to get somegood information from a lot of
different people and, and thecrazy thing is, is the more
questions you ask, I mean, thebigger the project becomes.
(18:05):
And then so at some point youjust got to say, okay, this is
what we can do and this is howwe're going to get it done.
And then that was the path wewent down and it ran well, um,
um, for years.
You know there's you know you'vegot to budweiser, you know
(18:26):
Atlas and Miller and all thoseother boats to run against, but
we were just determined to dothe best we could with what we
had.
But you set a bunch of recordsyeah, I got off.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
You were pissed and powered Right.
Yeah, right it was cool.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
How fun was that first win for you in tri-cities
89?
Yeah, it was great, obviously.
I mean, I was more amazed atthe amount of people that were
on the dock, because before thattime, you know, there was
really no radios.
We're just learning about thecanopies and, you know, and I
see all these people jumping upand down.
I'm thinking I was pretty sureI had second, you know, but
obviously I hadn't heard aboutno to you know getting
disqualified.
I was just racing, mike youknow, and.
(19:05):
Tommy was in front of us, andthen he came back and went how
did you win?
Anyway, then, chip Hatter hewas one of the first ones, he
was there, you know, chugging me.
It took a while for it to sinkin.
It was a great one, for sure,and being that was would be my
home track.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
That was great too, for sure, yeah, fun times.
And then I heard a story thatSeco Aviation Fuels wouldn't
sponsor you for that race.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, we obviously had the help in Seattle there
and ran.
Good, there was a discussionabout it, so the old Cooper's
Express went on there and thatwas what we ran.
So yeah, he missed out on thatone.
For sure.
He let us know that for a longtime.
I'm sorry, I just couldn't doit right.
Those opportunities come and go, all forms of racing yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think around that sametime, mark, you were dabbling
toes in with Shaneth and the ETAproject and all that, and I
think you bought a boat Was it afat boat.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Well, I leased a boat from Jerry called the Double
Trouble.
It was the twin propeller shaftone with the offset engines,
and so he made me a deal, andthe deal was I had to go out and
get it in Michigan.
But to go get it I had to stopat the Rutt Brothers and tow
(20:28):
another Stoddicker out there,and it's the one that Ron Snyder
drove with Tri-Cities with thewing on it, the Tri-Cities, yeah
, yeah.
So we made arrangements and Itowed that out to Michigan.
A little side story halfway outin the middle of Wyoming a
windstorm came up and blew thething upside down.
I bounced that right down aguardrail, ripped the hitch
(20:51):
right off of it, almost put usinto a canyon.
Yeah, about eight hours laterand $450, I think it was I had
it upright, a new hitch weldedon it and I called Jerry.
I called Jerry and said therewon't be any honeymoon.
If you don't know what, sendmoney soon or there'll be no
honeymoon kind of like that andI told him I blew the boat over
and I never forget Jerry's.
(21:12):
So, wound up, he goes where areyou at?
And I said Wyoming and he saidhe went, silence goes.
There's not even any water inwyoming.
So anyway I literally becausethose framed trailers, there's
no storage so there's no ballastdown low and the wind was
blowing so hard so I I stoppedand got a bunch of burlap sacks
(21:33):
at a feed store and went to agravel pit and filled them up
and tied them on the trailer forballast and made it clear to
northern michigan.
That's when I met john statikerand and I was amazed at all his
stuff and then got that doubletrouble drug at home and it is
in my backyard, by the way,right now, yeah okay, yeah, we,
I uh.
It sat over at ray forsman's foryears in the weather and I
(21:56):
don't know if I can rebuild itor not, if I don't have anyway.
Having said that, uh, I got todrive it once and then later on
I drove Brian Keel's dualautomotive boat.
So I've had a taste of dualengines and when they're working
man, it's got some horsepowerand it's loud and it's fun.
And I am just still stuck onthis dual automotive scenario.
(22:17):
Or one big reciprocating engineof the newer type.
These offshore guys arephenomenal with their engines
they have now and their computersystems.
So I just so really want to tryanother reciprocating engine of
some kind.
We had the guitar boat for abit, but we couldn't get Elstrom
(22:38):
to figure out what he reallywanted to do, sell it for a
reasonable or so on, so thatsort of fizzled.
So about that era I pushed andspent my life savings to get
that going.
I spent my life savings a yearand a half working in about 15
minutes it wasn't eight and ahalf.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Don't do the math on per second how much it costs.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Do you think it would have worked if you had the?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
technology now, yeah, convinced, especially if they
let us use a two-speed gearbox.
Oh yeah, I was in Madison whenWas it Alamo?
Yeah, ned Allen, I was rightthere when they first tried it.
Bo took off and he came rightback in.
He said well, something's wrong.
He was shifting, it was in highgear and he was shifting down
to low.
(23:26):
Once he figured out it was lowgear and then shift up, he
whooped them so bad.
He came in and he goes.
Mark, I'm using only halfthrottle, I can't even go any
slower.
It was phenomenal and they gotbanned.
I bet my life that some niceoffshore engine, maybe a couple
of them, with a two or threespeed box will do it.
(23:47):
I mean Sheikh Hassan, his boat.
I think he had a five or sixspeed in his.
Really, yeah, yeah, wow, soshift and go.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I just need to hit the lottery or have someone put
up a few million bucks just acouple.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
There's no do you think they have a durability as
well?
Speaker 3 (24:08):
oh, possibly not.
But hey, drag car racing, theywere both the engines right in
the pits.
So, uh, I didn't want to.
Uh, yeah, maybe maybe so, butmaybe not, who knows.
With the two-speed gearbox andthe way things are, yeah, yeah,
you might want a few of theseengines stacked up ready to go,
like they used to in the olddays.
You know the old Merlins?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, no doubt they'd be a whole lot better than what
they used to be.
Yeah, just by being computercontrolled.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
And then a key thing for me right now in the
unlimited sport, I've alreadyhad this conversation with two
really big hitters wanting tocome into the sport and they
both went wait a minute, I'mgoing to have to go buy an
engine from one of thecompetitors and they'll call him
up and they won't sell him oneand he goes besides.
How do I know if it's any good?
Who builds the hull?
(24:56):
So this sport has no resourcesfor new people to come in.
So that's why recently I bustedmy butt with Murdo Cameron.
He popped a mold off ofUnlimited and he was wanting to
try to cut the price clear inhalf, make it affordable.
And then we worked with anotherengine guy.
(25:22):
I think it's got potential tobring in a new owner, especially
if you could go to someone thatdoesn't race and buy the hull
and even put it together.
There was a reallywell-sponsored offshore group
that actually was going to sendtheir guys up to Murdo's and
look at the molds and theywanted to do all the work and
put it together, which would begreat, and they ran some
fantastic big engines and I wasso hoping that would work and
(25:46):
that fell through.
Their sponsor pulled.
So I still think it can work.
I would really like to try it.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Well, I saw a great picture of both of you and I
think there was another guy ortwo in the picture.
I think it was a John Walkerwith the Elan boat.
He had a big old engine there.
Did that project just fallthrough because you couldn't get
a deal on the whole?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, eric Elstrom, I'm going to throw him under the
bus, I don't care, he would notcooperate.
He was just wishy-washy.
There's another guy that has agiant engine, tim Gross out of
Michigan, and he built the thing.
It's almost done, 3,000horsepower with an amazing
(26:29):
amount of torque.
So we're right in the range ofthe turbines.
And he sent the block out.
We put it at Mitch's shop.
I set up the whole shop.
We started mounting it in.
We got a gearbox.
It was fit right in there.
We were on a roll.
But again, I wish Eric wouldhave cooperated.
But the sponsor that I had andthe engine guys they knew that I
(26:53):
didn't have anything signedthey said, listen, we can't go
any farther unless we know youactually own that hull.
You have a lease for a coupleof years.
I just couldn't get anythingfrom Erickson.
So it's back over there sittingin the field.
Unfortunately.
That's too bad.
That's sad yeah but I don't know.
There's a couple guys out there.
I've got a couple big projectsI'm finishing up right now.
(27:15):
Maybe this winter, if I take adeep breath and think about it
some more, I might give it a tryjust well.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
There's a guy over in detroit sitting on I don't know
how many boats.
Oh gosh, like what 10 or 12yeah, I know, can I just?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
give you one.
I bet you you know that's agood idea.
I hadn't even thought of beingthere first yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
All right, it's just that two million dollar part
that I need.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
It's just a small, small little heck up there,
golly, yeah, it's such a shamethat that couldn't happen yeah,
I was close.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
We were just about to get on a roll and what we were
going to do, we weren't going toget up on the soapbox and say
we're coming out.
We weren't even going to go toa race, we're just going to go
right out here make sure we gotup on plane.
I mean, we were willing to spendthat much time and money to
just see if it would get up onplane and do a few laps and if
we could see the potential, thenwe were going to go to the next
(28:08):
level and start pursuing things.
We weren't even going to pursuea sponsor and try to get to a
race without testing it.
Yeah, that's smart.
Yeah, we were really close, butmaybe someday We'll see.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
We'll keep holding on Under hope someday we'll see.
All right, well, we'll keepholding on under hope for that.
That would be fun to see.
Yeah, because I mean that's agood point.
I mean anyone who's not in thesport now wants to get in.
I mean props, yeah, like what.
I mean you can count likegearboxes, motors, all the stuff
there and can't go to somewhereother than a competitor to get
that stuff.
But I don't know of any othersport in the world that is
anywhere near that.
(28:42):
I don't.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Well, actually, if they want, you know what that's
that ended our career with theu57 here a few years ago.
I blew that gearbox tosmithereens down there in san
diego.
We went to detroit.
You had to order three of themat 65 000 bucks a piece and that
the gordon family.
But then, uh, one of theGordons passed away and that
ended the whole gearbox thing.
So there is no gearbox, thereis none.
(29:07):
Someone would have to startover and boy, a new person.
So back to these gearboxes, theoffshore boys.
There's a gearbox out there.
It's a two speed for $13,000.
That is already proven thatthey're using.
Of course, yeah, they aren'tputting that pressure on the
corners like we do, but they'rein and out of the water.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
So I mean that alone right there, that's a lot, of, a
lot of work.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Yeah, so that just convinces me even more to try it
.
Yeah, see if it works.
Wow, and that ego engine stillsitting back there.
Tim calls me up about everymonth.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Hey, I got that boat ready to go so close.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
Knuckleheads, tune in next weekon Christmas Eve as we continue
my talk with Mark and MitchEvans and at part three of four.
Don't forget we're on socialmedia.
We're on Facebook, instagram,online, our website, richardtel
talkcom, and on there you canfind a Richard tell talk plus
(30:06):
subscription service where youget early access to all episodes
and you get entered into amonthly raffle drawing.
This month we had a prize, aChristmas present, which I'm not
going to give away for our, ourwinner, stephen Gibson.
I don't want to give away causeI don't know if he's open,
waiting till christmas to openit up.
But next month we've got moreprizes to give away.
(30:27):
I got some fun things on thehorizon for the subscription
service, so you get to chooseyour monthly donation and all
the donations go back to all thehidden fees and costs that come
up with the podcast and reallyappreciate all the support I'm
getting from the subscribers.
But not too late to become partof that subscription list.
(30:50):
That's all I got for you thisweek, so until next time, I hope
to see you at the races.
Ruchetel Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything
about the sport that we all loveHi, jibbley and Reese.
I am your host, david Newton,and it's time once again.
So sit back, relax and welcometo Rooster Tail.
Talk, we'll talk.
(00:45):
Welcome back race fans.
This is episode 134, tuesday,december 17th 2024.
And this is part two of myinterview with Mark and Mitch
Evans.
Last week we left off talkingabout the early 80s and
Unlimited Hydroplane Racing forMark and Mitch and we're going
(01:07):
to continue that and we're goingto talk about how they both
worked with Chuck Hickling, howthey both worked with the
Coopers and their journey intothe late 80s of Unlimited
Hydroplane Racing.
They both share great storiesaround the time frame and I'm
excited for you to hear that.
I just had such a fun talk andI can't stress that enough.
(01:29):
It was a fun afternoon I haddown at Sunset Marina with them
and you know what, you know whothey are.
They both have great success inunlimited hydroplane racing and
I'm just going to tell you,you're going to hear some fun
stories about Chuck Hickling,about his shop.
You're going to hear some morefun stories about Ed Cooper and
(01:49):
working for him, and let's justget into it and enjoy part two.
This is four parts.
Remember there's going to befour parts of this, so we're
about halfway there after youfinish this episode.
But part two of my talk withMark and Mitch Evans.
But part two of my talk withMark and.
Mitch Evans.
It was a few years before you.
At that time, before you gotback into the woods, mark, um,
(02:09):
you know what?
What was your why?
Why did you have a break there?
Well, I mean you ran the, the,the green bomb Right, and then
Mitch was racing unlimited, andthen it was a while before you
got a seat.
Yeah, it was a while before yougot a seat.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah Well, dad got murdered in 81.
And that was just consuming andwe had the marina going on and
just lots going on.
So I just stuck to the marina.
We had the driving and stuffand plus the green bomb, we took
the Allison out and put it inthe other boat, so I was without
a ride really.
But, mitch and Rick, let metake the.
(02:43):
What did we call it at the time?
Kw3?
Yeah, kw3.
Yeah, I got to take a couplespins out here, so that was kind
of fun and went and crewed withthem and just bided my time to
get another ride and that'sabout the time Chuck Hickling
came around, I think yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, it was the tunnel hydroplane that you built
.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yes, yeah, yeah, it was the tunnel hydroplane that
you built.
Yes, yeah, that was a scaryride there.
Wow, that was something.
I mean beautiful boat, likecabinet work.
You know it's a beautifulcraftsmanship, but boy, it was
scary Bob.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Mashman drove it and he didn't like it.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Jack.
Schaefer oh yeah, and then whenI got in it, jack was actually
really nervous.
He came down to the docks andsaid listen, buddy, just be
careful.
He says he won't like how itturns.
He said it's either going towant to hook or take off on you,
and sure enough it would.
You go to turn it and just jumpup and take off and hook.
It was that big Merlin in atunnel boat.
Just didn't really work.
But I got the opportunity, youknow.
(03:40):
Of course, one of the best oneswas, I think, the second year.
Chuck decided to put somenitrous in it, and you know be
careful of the nitrous.
And anyway, I pushed on thebutton a little too much and
exploded the thing.
Well, the batteries were rightunderneath my seat.
The fire come up through thecockpit and started burning me.
(04:00):
So I just reached out and hitthe fire button and jumped about
100 miles an hour.
I think it slowed down anyway.
But we got front page in thesports section and so bernie
little came up and he was allgiving me a bad time.
What about I have my driverjump out just to get on the
newspaper?
And I said yeah, bernie, andyou have your driver jump out
right at the final, quite theexperience with that.
(04:26):
Yeah, that whole thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
That was quite an interesting design.
I built a model of it one time.
Oh did you?
Yeah, and I ran it and it wasfast.
But every once in a while itwould get to the corner and it
would hit awake and it would goup and it would just float for
like 40 feet or so.
It wouldn't go over it for like40 feet or so it wouldn't go
over, it would just float andthen it would come back down.
No kidding, yeah, Similar tothe big one Now did you put the
(04:51):
little wings on the front?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I didn't do the wings , yeah, second year.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And, by the way, those wings were solid, mahogany
.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, they weren't light weight, yeah.
And so a couple of guys saidman, if you get this qualified,
you go race.
Stay out of a rooster tail.
You're going to get it right inthe forehead.
Yeah, probably could have.
No, he carved them out by hand.
Beautiful, did it work?
They were really slow.
Our servos were really slow.
(05:14):
Then we kept having engineproblems.
Fortunately, without gettinginto the heavy story about my
gearbox being hooked to anallison and having the same
fluid go through to lubeeverything, chuck put his
gearbox in the boat with aseparate system and slid the
Merlin back into the gearbox soif we ever heard an engine, we
(05:35):
didn't have to mess with thegearbox the shavings going
through.
That was a unique setup that Ireally liked.
That Chuck did Cool.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
He was quite the innovator and mechanic and
craftsman, wasn't he?
Yes?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
He was very picky and any of us that went up and
worked there, he already had ourtools lined out.
He had the project he wanted usto do.
He had the little vacuumcleaner there and you better
vacuum If you drilled a hole.
You vacuum right now.
And then later on I got tonotice and I went in there one
day and I looked and all thePhillips screws on the bottom
were lined up.
They weren't.
Oh yeah, that's how detailed?
(06:10):
It is Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Wow, yeah, there's something I didn't write down,
but I remember my dad having abook and I thought it was by
Chuck Hickling, and it was justa collection of how-tos for like
the shop and the boat Puttingthings together.
Did you ever see something like?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
that from him?
I did no, but it wouldn'tsurprise me.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, my dad was crew chief and he was looking
through it and he was looking attips on how to do certain
things that are on the shop.
Yeah, yeah.
But I haven't found it.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I don't know if it— Gosh, yeah, but I haven't found
it.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I don't know if it gosh.
I yeah, I don't rememberanything like that, but I'm
gonna think of it.
It's a little vacuum cleaner behanging here, he's arrows and
everything's in place.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, maybe we can find that out online somewhere
in the hydro world that we kindof fun to see.
Yeah, but it just had had stuffaround the shop and electrical
stuff and the walls in the shop.
On the trailer there werethings and there was stuff about
the boat, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
To get the boat down his driveway.
It had a really steep drivewaythere.
You park up top and unhook thetruck, turn it around.
You had a hitch on the frontand then he had little lines
marked on the asphalt.
So you drove that boat trailerright down those exact lines.
You had to in order to get aclear shot and he was that picky
(07:38):
.
Oh, another thing about Chuck.
I think they call it OCD nowthe impossibility well, it
worked for him.
Another thing about him if youcame down there in your car and
you left and there was a drip ofoil there, chuck would circle
that and when you come back nexttime he would have the rag and
(08:01):
the MEK or whatever to clean itup.
Wow, yeah, I know he's acharacter.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But, mitch, he drove another Hickling boat.
Yeah, I believe was thatCooper's first boat.
He purchased it from Hickling.
Yeah, what was that experiencelike driving that boat.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, it was pretty great because I had met.
Ed the year before when Rickand I decided to take the boat
on the tour.
We went to Houston and then wewent to Detroit, anyway.
So we got to meet him and thenof course Ed calls.
Hey, he always called mecracker ass for some reason.
That's an Indiana thing orsomething.
(08:44):
He goes and Jack was helping himdrive at the time, cracker ass
for some reason that's anIndiana thing or something he
goes and Jack was helping himdrive at the time, couldn't make
it or whatever.
So yeah, I come to Madison andjust plopped right in it.
You know he goes, here's aswitch, turn this on and go out,
you know, make some laps andcome back.
I mean, what are you thinking?
It was really.
It was pretty terrifyingbecause that was really my first
(09:06):
time.
And the boat, pleasantly enough,handled really well.
You know it was a conventionalbut it it had a little skid fin
on the side, it had a widetransom on it so you could go
down and, you know, turn thething without feeling like you
were going to end up in kentucky.
And ed's motors, you know atthe time were pretty stock.
But as we went on with theprogram he had those kind of an
(09:29):
adapted 10 and a quarter blower,bigger carbs, nitrous I mean we
ran 100 pounds of nitrous inthere for heats and he said he
wasn't afraid to have it usedwhen needed.
Anyway, that was just a greatexperience.
And then obviously it led to20-plus years of racing with him
.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, he had a few.
Yeah, he had some highs andlows there.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, that's part of it.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
And same thing.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I mean gosh, ed was a school teacher right by trade.
You know all-volunteer crew buthe worked endlessly in the shop
, you know, to build everythingright.
I mean everything about theprogram he did in-house that he
could.
I mean there was some someexterior stuff, but no just just
a great guy to to work with anddrive for.
(10:17):
Yeah, so I was really luckythat way I haven't figured out
how he does it.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I follow in his footsteps.
Then I'm a school teacher, Idon't have a hydroplane, I don't
have a boat.
I don't know how he does it.
I follow in his footsteps.
Then I'm a school teacher, Idon't have a hydroplane, I don't
have a boat.
I don't know how he was able tomanage that To this day, me
either.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
I mean, I look at it, I've been in business,
self-employed, all my life, doneall these things.
You know.
He just had that mentality andhe, like you say, was able to
just bit by bit, and there weresome great opportunities, some
good sponsorship came along atthe right times.
You know, he got into the Imean, chuck gave him a great
(10:51):
deal on the boat and the trailer, you know.
But it was years and years andyears of grinding away at it,
years and years of grinding awayat it.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Is it true, mitch, that Ed was sick one September
and couldn't go teach school,but the principal saw him on
ESPN down there in San Diego?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
or something there might have been a time or two of
that.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
yeah, Got in trouble because you're sick, huh, Ed?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I just saw you on ESPN.
He was always really carefulabout that kind of stuff.
But there were sick huh Ed,yeah, yeah okay, I just saw you
on ESPN.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, and Ed always he was always really careful
about that kind of stuff.
But there were just some timesbecause I mean Ed did everything
and drove the truck, I mean,you know, took the boat, you
know, and we would try to tradeoff some.
But I mean the guy is just wow,yeah, and so he made it all
work, like I say, and theteaching in the early days was
(11:46):
obviously his livelihood and hispassion.
He had this side gig, you know.
He put in all the hours it tookto make it work.
And the rest of his family, hiswife, of course, barbara.
She was a teacher also.
Oh, and then his dad was acharacter.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I'd throw in Ed Senior.
There was somebody that wasjust another great guy and
volunteered and he was a bighelp and I know there were some
times that we all needed to cometogether from many different
directions and that's how he didit and the great volunteers out
, there too, it took the villageto do it, because no way we
(12:28):
would have done it.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I called out sick today, so don't tell anyone
You're sick.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
You don't look real well, so I'll tell you.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
You know another thing this TV can get people in
trouble.
Back to the story when I uhused a little too much nitrous
in chuck's boat and jumped out.
Yeah, I also got a call thatmoney from uh insurance company,
life insurance company goes,dude, you get in the office.
I saw you on tv on fire jumpingout of a hundred miles.
You are not covered for thatkind of stuff.
(12:59):
Oh man, I'm sorry, sir, I'vegot my own shirts.
We get on there TV.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
You'll get yeah TV.
We need it, you know for oursponsors.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
That's really just be careful what you show yeah.
Yeah, there's quite a fewstories out there that we can't
talk about, so people getinvested well well, mitch you I
think was it the winner of 87 88you built, uh, a new boat or
helped build a video boat, yeahyeah, so.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
So, mark I, that was a another project that we
decided out of the blue and, um,we had the pieces and parts and
then, and then, yeah, we wereable to put it together.
We took the sponsons off theold predelco there.
We cut that thing apartbasically, and then we thought
(13:53):
we were going to be able to justkind of rebuild that but it
ended up just— the centersection was rotten.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
We'll back up just a little bit that predelco hole
that we use as sponsons.
I was working for Jim Lucero atthe time and it showed up down
at their shop and it was theMiller American and the Circus.
That was the same time andthere was a bunch of controversy
going on.
So a friend of mine, george,and I, we bought that hole from
Fran Muncy and I took it up toEdgewood where I was living, and
(14:17):
we put it in the backyard andwe proceeded to work on it.
Well, jim Lucero had a couple ofMerlins that we wanted to buy
but we didn't have the money.
We tried to get the sponsorsand so on and so forth and we
just couldn't do it.
But we didn't have a trailer atthe time.
So, believe it or not, thatthing, that boat, was sitting
behind Boeing surplus at Luceroshop and on a sunday morning I
(14:39):
had a flat trailer and I didn'ttell my buddy and I said, george
, just follow me, drove down 167all the way down to eduid, up
jovita boulevard.
We got it to the backyard and,wow, that's when I thought, okay
, we need to tilt trailer, thisisn't going to work.
And then we knew we didn't havethe money and I can't remember
how we we just decided to sellit to Ed.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
He started gathering up all the pieces and parts and
then, of course, got it here andthen began the long process.
And then, when?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
we found out the center was so rotten we just
dropped those functions on thefloor through the middle of the
way and Mitch called up Ed andsaid Ed, you might want to send
out some panels of honeycomb,some cash, some fiberglass, some
cash.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
He was really silent for a long time.
He was telling me he goes.
I thought we were justrebuilding.
I said no, there's just no way.
He said it's done and, as itturned out, we were able to do
some things to it with the helpof a lot of people asking a
million questions.
The cool part.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Part of my favorite part was I hadn't interacted
with Jones Jr and Sr really thatmuch their lives were, you know
.
And so once we chopped thesponges off, we knew center
section.
Well, you have the angle of thebottom, how far is your break,
how wide the boat you want tobuild?
Well, the Madison folks werebuilding the boat at the same
time.
So I just walked in the door ofJones' shop half nervous and
(16:11):
hey, I'd like a littleinformation on how to build an
unlimited here.
And Jones Jr says, come on, youknow he's all gruff.
He takes me back in the holygrail, the back shop that no one
gets to go in.
Go into the drawing room.
There's a senior there with allthese top secret drawings and
the Madison stuff.
I'm like holy cow.
(16:35):
Junior says my dad will helpyou out, he just leaves.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I go.
What's all this?
I go holy schmoly.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I said, well, how wide should we make the boat?
How long is the break?
He goes.
Well, mark, we're doing this tothe Madison, here's this and
here's that.
So we went home and I said,mitch, let's do a little more
than that.
So we went, I think, two incheswider, the break was only four
feet, and so on and so forth,and it really worked.
But what got me and Ed Cooper,I think too was, once we got
(17:03):
rolling, someone said oh themEvans boys don't know how to
build a boat and Ed Cooperdoesn't know how to build no
engines.
Well, shouldn't have said that,because that read me out, and I
told that to Ed too.
And Ed goes.
Hmm.
So from then on, think aboutthe battles that Mitch had with
Mike Hansen at Madison.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
You always whipped him when he went twice cities,
yeah, and it was just by puredesire, you know.
And it all came together.
Yeah, it was the combination.
I mean at that time theycommitted to running the
turbocharged motors, right, andof course, bill and Graham.
You, you know, bill built allthe induction stuff for the top
(17:43):
and the hillborn and putting allthose pieces together and and
then and then making it all livein the early days was was a
miracle for sure.
But there again, being frommadison, I mean there was, you
know, he was able to to get somegood information from a lot of
different people and, and thecrazy thing is, is the more
questions you ask, I mean, thebigger the project becomes.
(18:05):
And then so at some point youjust got to say, okay, this is
what we can do and this is howwe're going to get it done.
And then that was the path wewent down and it ran well, um,
um, for years.
You know there's you know you'vegot to budweiser, you know
(18:26):
Atlas and Miller and all thoseother boats to run against, but
we were just determined to dothe best we could with what we
had.
But you set a bunch of recordsyeah, I got off.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
You were pissed and powered Right.
Yeah, right it was cool.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
How fun was that first win for you in tri-cities
89?
Yeah, it was great, obviously.
I mean, I was more amazed atthe amount of people that were
on the dock, because before thattime, you know, there was
really no radios.
We're just learning about thecanopies and, you know, and I
see all these people jumping upand down.
I'm thinking I was pretty sureI had second, you know, but
obviously I hadn't heard aboutno to you know getting
disqualified.
I was just racing, mike youknow, and.
(19:05):
Tommy was in front of us, andthen he came back and went how
did you win?
Anyway, then, chip Hatter hewas one of the first ones, he
was there, you know, chugging me.
It took a while for it to sinkin.
It was a great one, for sure,and being that was would be my
home track.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
That was great too, for sure, yeah, fun times.
And then I heard a story thatSeco Aviation Fuels wouldn't
sponsor you for that race.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, we obviously had the help in Seattle there
and ran.
Good, there was a discussionabout it, so the old Cooper's
Express went on there and thatwas what we ran.
So yeah, he missed out on thatone.
For sure.
He let us know that for a longtime.
I'm sorry, I just couldn't doit right.
Those opportunities come and go, all forms of racing yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think around that sametime, mark, you were dabbling
toes in with Shaneth and the ETAproject and all that, and I
think you bought a boat Was it afat boat.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Well, I leased a boat from Jerry called the Double
Trouble.
It was the twin propeller shaftone with the offset engines,
and so he made me a deal, andthe deal was I had to go out and
get it in Michigan.
But to go get it I had to stopat the Rutt Brothers and tow
(20:28):
another Stoddicker out there,and it's the one that Ron Snyder
drove with Tri-Cities with thewing on it, the Tri-Cities, yeah
, yeah.
So we made arrangements and Itowed that out to Michigan.
A little side story halfway outin the middle of Wyoming a
windstorm came up and blew thething upside down.
I bounced that right down aguardrail, ripped the hitch
(20:51):
right off of it, almost put usinto a canyon.
Yeah, about eight hours laterand $450, I think it was I had
it upright, a new hitch weldedon it and I called Jerry.
I called Jerry and said therewon't be any honeymoon.
If you don't know what, sendmoney soon or there'll be no
honeymoon kind of like that andI told him I blew the boat over
and I never forget Jerry's.
(21:12):
So, wound up, he goes where areyou at?
And I said Wyoming and he saidhe went, silence goes.
There's not even any water inwyoming.
So anyway I literally becausethose framed trailers, there's
no storage so there's no ballastdown low and the wind was
blowing so hard so I I stoppedand got a bunch of burlap sacks
(21:33):
at a feed store and went to agravel pit and filled them up
and tied them on the trailer forballast and made it clear to
northern michigan.
That's when I met john statikerand and I was amazed at all his
stuff and then got that doubletrouble drug at home and it is
in my backyard, by the way,right now, yeah okay, yeah, we,
I uh.
It sat over at ray forsman's foryears in the weather and I
(21:56):
don't know if I can rebuild itor not, if I don't have anyway.
Having said that, uh, I got todrive it once and then later on
I drove Brian Keel's dualautomotive boat.
So I've had a taste of dualengines and when they're working
man, it's got some horsepowerand it's loud and it's fun.
And I am just still stuck onthis dual automotive scenario.
(22:17):
Or one big reciprocating engineof the newer type.
These offshore guys arephenomenal with their engines
they have now and their computersystems.
So I just so really want to tryanother reciprocating engine of
some kind.
We had the guitar boat for abit, but we couldn't get Elstrom
(22:38):
to figure out what he reallywanted to do, sell it for a
reasonable or so on, so thatsort of fizzled.
So about that era I pushed andspent my life savings to get
that going.
I spent my life savings a yearand a half working in about 15
minutes it wasn't eight and ahalf.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Don't do the math on per second how much it costs.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Do you think it would have worked if you had the?
Speaker 3 (23:06):
technology now, yeah, convinced, especially if they
let us use a two-speed gearbox.
Oh yeah, I was in Madison whenWas it Alamo?
Yeah, ned Allen, I was rightthere when they first tried it.
Bo took off and he came rightback in.
He said well, something's wrong.
He was shifting, it was in highgear and he was shifting down
to low.
(23:26):
Once he figured out it was lowgear and then shift up, he
whooped them so bad.
He came in and he goes.
Mark, I'm using only halfthrottle, I can't even go any
slower.
It was phenomenal and they gotbanned.
I bet my life that some niceoffshore engine, maybe a couple
of them, with a two or threespeed box will do it.
(23:47):
I mean Sheikh Hassan, his boat.
I think he had a five or sixspeed in his.
Really, yeah, yeah, wow, soshift and go.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I just need to hit the lottery or have someone put
up a few million bucks just acouple.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
There's no do you think they have a durability as
well?
Speaker 3 (24:08):
oh, possibly not.
But hey, drag car racing, theywere both the engines right in
the pits.
So, uh, I didn't want to.
Uh, yeah, maybe maybe so, butmaybe not, who knows.
With the two-speed gearbox andthe way things are, yeah, yeah,
you might want a few of theseengines stacked up ready to go,
like they used to in the olddays.
You know the old Merlins?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, no doubt they'd be a whole lot better than what
they used to be.
Yeah, just by being computercontrolled.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
And then a key thing for me right now in the
unlimited sport, I've alreadyhad this conversation with two
really big hitters wanting tocome into the sport and they
both went wait a minute, I'mgoing to have to go buy an
engine from one of thecompetitors and they'll call him
up and they won't sell him oneand he goes besides.
How do I know if it's any good?
Who builds the hull?
(24:56):
So this sport has no resourcesfor new people to come in.
So that's why recently I bustedmy butt with Murdo Cameron.
He popped a mold off ofUnlimited and he was wanting to
try to cut the price clear inhalf, make it affordable.
And then we worked with anotherengine guy.
(25:22):
I think it's got potential tobring in a new owner, especially
if you could go to someone thatdoesn't race and buy the hull
and even put it together.
There was a reallywell-sponsored offshore group
that actually was going to sendtheir guys up to Murdo's and
look at the molds and theywanted to do all the work and
put it together, which would begreat, and they ran some
fantastic big engines and I wasso hoping that would work and
(25:46):
that fell through.
Their sponsor pulled.
So I still think it can work.
I would really like to try it.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Well, I saw a great picture of both of you and I
think there was another guy ortwo in the picture.
I think it was a John Walkerwith the Elan boat.
He had a big old engine there.
Did that project just fallthrough because you couldn't get
a deal on the whole?
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, eric Elstrom, I'm going to throw him under the
bus, I don't care, he would notcooperate.
He was just wishy-washy.
There's another guy that has agiant engine, tim Gross out of
Michigan, and he built the thing.
It's almost done, 3,000horsepower with an amazing
(26:29):
amount of torque.
So we're right in the range ofthe turbines.
And he sent the block out.
We put it at Mitch's shop.
I set up the whole shop.
We started mounting it in.
We got a gearbox.
It was fit right in there.
We were on a roll.
But again, I wish Eric wouldhave cooperated.
But the sponsor that I had andthe engine guys they knew that I
(26:53):
didn't have anything signedthey said, listen, we can't go
any farther unless we know youactually own that hull.
You have a lease for a coupleof years.
I just couldn't get anythingfrom Erickson.
So it's back over there sittingin the field.
Unfortunately.
That's too bad.
That's sad yeah but I don't know.
There's a couple guys out there.
I've got a couple big projectsI'm finishing up right now.
(27:15):
Maybe this winter, if I take adeep breath and think about it
some more, I might give it a tryjust well.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
There's a guy over in detroit sitting on I don't know
how many boats.
Oh gosh, like what 10 or 12yeah, I know, can I just?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
give you one.
I bet you you know that's agood idea.
I hadn't even thought of beingthere first yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
All right, it's just that two million dollar part
that I need.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
It's just a small, small little heck up there,
golly, yeah, it's such a shamethat that couldn't happen yeah,
I was close.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
We were just about to get on a roll and what we were
going to do, we weren't going toget up on the soapbox and say
we're coming out.
We weren't even going to go toa race, we're just going to go
right out here make sure we gotup on plane.
I mean, we were willing to spendthat much time and money to
just see if it would get up onplane and do a few laps and if
we could see the potential, thenwe were going to go to the next
(28:08):
level and start pursuing things.
We weren't even going to pursuea sponsor and try to get to a
race without testing it.
Yeah, that's smart.
Yeah, we were really close, butmaybe someday We'll see.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
We'll keep holding on Under hope someday we'll see.
All right, well, we'll keepholding on under hope for that.
That would be fun to see.
Yeah, because I mean that's agood point.
I mean anyone who's not in thesport now wants to get in.
I mean props, yeah, like what.
I mean you can count likegearboxes, motors, all the stuff
there and can't go to somewhereother than a competitor to get
that stuff.
But I don't know of any othersport in the world that is
anywhere near that.
(28:42):
I don't.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Well, actually, if they want, you know what that's
that ended our career with theu57 here a few years ago.
I blew that gearbox tosmithereens down there in san
diego.
We went to detroit.
You had to order three of themat 65 000 bucks a piece and that
the gordon family.
But then, uh, one of theGordons passed away and that
ended the whole gearbox thing.
So there is no gearbox, thereis none.
(29:07):
Someone would have to startover and boy, a new person.
So back to these gearboxes, theoffshore boys.
There's a gearbox out there.
It's a two speed for $13,000.
That is already proven thatthey're using.
Of course, yeah, they aren'tputting that pressure on the
corners like we do, but they'rein and out of the water.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
So I mean that alone right there, that's a lot, of, a
lot of work.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Yeah, so that just convinces me even more to try it
.
Yeah, see if it works.
Wow, and that ego engine stillsitting back there.
Tim calls me up about everymonth.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Hey, I got that boat ready to go so close.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
Knuckleheads, tune in next weekon Christmas Eve as we continue
my talk with Mark and MitchEvans and at part three of four.
Don't forget we're on socialmedia.
We're on Facebook, instagram,online, our website, richardtel
talkcom, and on there you canfind a Richard tell talk plus
(30:06):
subscription service where youget early access to all episodes
and you get entered into amonthly raffle drawing.
This month we had a prize, aChristmas present, which I'm not
going to give away for our, ourwinner, stephen Gibson.
I don't want to give away causeI don't know if he's open,
waiting till christmas to openit up.
But next month we've got moreprizes to give away.
(30:27):
I got some fun things on thehorizon for the subscription
service, so you get to chooseyour monthly donation and all
the donations go back to all thehidden fees and costs that come
up with the podcast and reallyappreciate all the support I'm
getting from the subscribers.
But not too late to become partof that subscription list.
(30:50):
That's all I got for you thisweek, so until next time, I hope
to see you at the races.
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