June 24, 2025 • 38 mins
The legendary voice of hydroplane racing, Steve Montgomery, takes us on a nostalgic journey through his extraordinary career and lifelong passion for the sport in this captivating conversation. Steve shares the path that led him to becoming a broadcasting legend. This episode is packed with insider stories and connections that shaped hydroplane racing for decades. Don't miss part two next week as Steve continues sharing tales from his broadcasting career and sponsorship adventures.
The Miss Spokane Restoration Website
*Photo from the Steve Montgomery Collection
Help the podcast by subscribing to our new service, Roostertail Talk+. The podcast is still free to all on our website and through all major podcast platforms (such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, Castbox, etc) but with Roostertail Talk+ there is more you can enjoy ! With this service you will get early links to new episodes, enjoy access to extra content, raffle prizes and more. This is a new service that we will be adding to as we move along. As always your support to make this show grow is very appreciated! https://www.buzzsprout.com/434851/supporters/new
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Ruchetel Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything
about the sport that we all love, hydroplane racing.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I am your host, david Newton, and it's time once
again to sit back, relax andwelcome Rooster Tail Talk talk,
bill, we've got to come back andget a little more dope from you
, but right now we have tointroduce the rest of our crew
(00:54):
and we've got a brand new pairof pit reporters this year and
one of them now you people areused to hearing Mike Fitzsimmons
talk about boats and historyand everything like that One of
the few people that can staywith Mike off the top of his
head is a brand new pit reporterfor us this year and we're just
tickled to death to have him onthe crew and I'm going to bring
him in right now and that isSteve Montgomery.
(01:16):
Thank you, rod.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Hi everybody, I'm Steve Montgomery.
Hello everybody, I'm SteveMontgomery.
I'm Steve Montgomery.
I'm Steve.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Montgomery.
Any Hydroplane fan recognizesthat voice and name, steve
Montgomery.
He is joining the podcast todayon episode 150.
And this is going to be partone of a multiple part episode
and I talked with Steve not toolong ago.
We talked via Zoom.
He's living over in Coeurd'Alene, idaho now.
Long ago we talked via Zoom.
(01:46):
He's living over in Coeurd'Alene, idaho now, and he's
enjoying retirement after manyyears of his voice talents on
the air, radio, television andnotably around the sport of
hydroplane racing.
When I think of hydroplaneracing and the icons around the
sport, I always go towards thedrivers and the boats, but the
announcer should also fit inthat category and there's been
some great voice talents overthe years, including Jim
(02:08):
Hendricks, don Poyer, billO'Meara, pat O'Day and many
others, and definitely not inany order.
But when you think hydroplaneracing and announcing, steve
Montgomery should come to yourmind because he knows the sport
in and out and had a truepassion for the sport and that
came out when he was talkingabout it.
(02:30):
Now, like I said, this is amultiple part episode and we're
going to start with thebeginning of his career, how he
got involved with hydroplaneracing as a fan and an announcer
, and you're going to hear thatstory and we're going to go into
much more detail here, but youdon't need to hear me talking
anymore.
Let's listen in to my interviewwith Steve Montgomery.
(02:50):
I'm sitting down in myRichertel Talk office and I'm
talking via Zoom with SteveMontgomery.
Steve, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Very good, david, good to talk to you again.
I'm sure you hear this fromeverybody you talk to, but your
dad was one of my favorite guysin the 40 years I hung around
the sport and I'm sure I'm notthe first to tell you that huh,
yeah, no, I've heard that a fewtimes and I appreciate hearing
that.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Still, it's been almost 20 years, it's like 18
years since he's passed.
It's sad and it's uh, it's sadbut um, it's and it was a
shocker.
It was, yeah, cause he wasn'ttoo old.
He had a heart attack andpassed.
But I appreciate hearing thestories and and that cause it
feels like he's still still withme in some sense.
So I appreciate hearing thatWell.
(03:40):
Well, it's been a little whilesince we've talked, but I'm glad
to catch up with you and hearand talk more about your
legendary career as a radiobroadcaster, tv broadcaster.
You've done a lot for the sportof hydroplane racing but a lot
of different things you've donewith media and I think you're
(04:06):
gonna have some great stories toshare with that.
But before we get into that,I'm always curious where it
began for people with hydroplaneracing, because at some point
or another you fell in love withthe sport and I'm curious how
it started for you.
How were you introduced tohydroplane racing and where did
that start for you?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Well, I came from the only hydroplane racing fan
family in Yakima, washington.
At least I never found anotherone.
In the time we were there, in1950, I was six years old and I
was part of the only hydroplaneracing fan family in Yakima,
washington.
My parents went to Sela HighSchool and they had friends from
(04:41):
high school who lived inSeattleattle and we would go see
them every summer.
So in 1950 we were actually inwest seattle when slow motion
four won the race in detroit,the gold cup, and word spread
through the neighborhood thatwhat had happened and and with a
race, the gold cup was comingto seattle and the place that
was going crazy, there werepeople in the streets.
(05:02):
And so my mom and dad want toknow what's all this about.
And so they explained to my dadcoming to Seattle and the place
that was going crazy, therewere people in the streets.
And so my mom and dad want toknow what's all this about.
And so they explained to my dadwell, what was going on with
this race boat?
Well, my dad had been a B-29mechanic in World War II, okay,
and when they told him the thinghad a, an airplane engine, he
said well, I got to see this.
(05:26):
So the next year we were therefor the 51 gold cup and many
after that, and there one of thefamilies had a son about my age
.
We became hydro geeksimmediately and that was where
it all began.
Right there we were two of thekids with our noses poked
through the fence trying to geta look at a driver.
Back then it was a you know,when the crowds were huge and
all that going on.
I'm really glad I'm old enoughto have done that, because it
(05:46):
was really something was.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
It wasn't really.
I've heard stories of like halfa million people being on the
beaches and it just like wall towall.
Was it really that that packedback then?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
yeah, it's hard to uh , it's really hard to describe,
but you got a picture of thewhole stan sares pit area the
beach all the way up to the uh,the bridge and quite a way South
, because the race course wentdown there a ways and it was.
It was a shoulder to shoulder.
You had to get there early,spread out a blanket and then
protect your turf so you hadroom for your family to sit and
(06:18):
watch the race.
Yeah, a lot of a lot of myearly memories are from that
vantage point.
Right there we were a littlebit South of the pits, the place
we chose to sit.
So a lot of the videos in mymind are boats coming by that
area.
I remember things like BillyShoemaker coming by and I think
it was Miss Everett or somethingand I thought, wow, he's only a
(06:38):
little bit older than me.
And then the Miss U Districtcoming by and trying to get on a
plane.
Yeah, videos like that.
I wish they all had timestampson them so I knew what year?
that was you know.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, yeah, pretty wild to think back on and I've
talked to other people that havegone, that were there at the
beginnings in Seattle with HydroTwin Racing, and just seems
like a magical time.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
You know, I always tell people back then there were
half a million people on thebeach and maybe 120 in the pit
area working on the boats andstuff.
Yeah, and now there's 120people on the beach and a half a
million in the pit area.
Everybody has a has a pit pass.
I remember dreaming of beingable to go into the pits and get
up closer to the boats, yeah,and I finally had a chance in
about 1964.
(07:33):
I think it was.
Yeah, I was.
I was working at a KIMA radioand TV in Yakima and somebody I
don't even remember who it wascame in and said would you want
to go to the seafair race?
And I said, well, yeah, howwould I do that?
He said King TV in Seattle hada piece of equipment they wanted
to borrow from KIMATV in Yakima.
(07:55):
It was a special effectsgenerator which you used to
split the screen and things likethat.
Oh, okay, and King used it toput the clock up in the corner
of the picture.
Oh that, and King used it toput the clock up in the corner
of the picture.
Every station had one of those,but King's was a big one, built
into their wall or whatever thecontrol board, and ours was
smaller and portable, so theytook it out of the control room
(08:16):
and put it in the passenger seatof my 59 MG and I took off for
Seattle and it was an incredibleexperience.
I went straight to King TV, metall the people and they treated
me great and I had a pit passfor me and my hydro geek friend.
So that was a big deal.
I'll never forget that weekend,wow.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, that's a big deal right there.
So it was 1964?
.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I think so yeah just about Okay.
I went to Yakima Valley Collegefor two years.
I had stumbled into radio mysenior year in high school,
which was 62.
So then I did two years atYakima Valley College and went
to Pullman and talk about aplace where nobody knew hydro
racing.
Pullman Washington was, uh wasone of those places.
(09:02):
So it took me a while.
I was kind of.
I was kind of away from thesport there for a couple of
years.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, I guess at that time that was very isolated
from hydropon racing becausethey weren't racing in
Tri-Cities then.
But I guess they would beracing in Coeur d'Alene, but I
guess that's not close enoughfor them to know.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Well, that's another story.
Coeur d'Alene.
Um, I was, uh.
We moved back to Spokane.
My dad and his company kepttransferring him around the
state of Washington as theypromoted him from truck driver
all the way to general managerand several stops in between.
So the races were happening inCoeur d'Alene.
I believe it was 1959.
(09:41):
And my timestamp on that isbecause Norm Evans got thrown
out of the Miss Spokane right infront of us on the beach in
Coeur d'Alene.
So my dad took a friend and Iover to Coeur d'Alene the night
before and our job was to sleepin the park and get up early and
go stake out a space on thebeach and then, and that's what
(10:02):
we did, and the neat part wasthe night before the pits were
pretty much open and a lot ofpeople were working on their
boats, so we got to wanderaround in there and that was
pretty cool.
Then the next day the onlything I remember about that
whole day is Norm Evans and theMiss Spokane, but at least it
jogs the old memory and I canremember that happening.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah.
And interesting that Now I'm nowI'm coming to you from Coeur
d'Alene, idaho actually postfalls.
Yeah, debbie and I built ahouse over here two years ago
and I am a member of a groupcalled the uh diamond cup hydro
maniacs.
It's a bunch of the guys thatwere involved way back then and
it's a group that tried to puton the race here in uh in 2013.
(10:42):
Good people, and it was good toknow them right away, because
Debbie and I love the area, butI didn't know anybody over here,
and as soon as I met those guys, I did, and they're a good
group.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Well, and I think you're a part of.
Is that same group a part of,or helping at least with Mark
Evans and Mitch Evans with theSpokane, or is that a different
group?
Nope, they're all mixed inthere, Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And, in fact, the maniacs are the ones that are
doing the website.
Okay, I became an amateurwebsite builder so I put that
together for them.
If you go to msspokanehydrocom,you will see the website for
that project and we post thepictures as they, as they go
(11:27):
along.
It's gonna yeah, that one isgonna take a while.
I'll tell you, it's uh thatthat boat had been abused, yeah,
yeah well, I used to.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Well, I race rc models and we used to race over
in spokane and I remember goingum and seeing poncho every once
in a while and my dad and my dadalways pushing him to do more
with that boat and uh, yeah,it's uh, it's been sitting for a
while but I'm glad, glad to seethat it's being restored and I
love seeing all the updates fromthe restoration.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
If you go to the website, you can see, um, you
can see inside the thing.
I, in some ways it was inbetter shape than I thought it
would be.
Okay, I thought all the woodwould be rotten and all that
stuff and that's not the case.
But, man, every little piece ofit has to be redone somehow and
it's huge.
Yeah, we've got the bottom offand the top off, and Poncho
(12:21):
works on the framework with guysthat he doesn't have.
If he had a crew of nine peopleworking every day, I'd say this
could happen in a year or two.
Yeah, but it's mostly Ponchoand a friend now.
And then, of course, the Evansbrothers have the motor in
Chelan, so they're going torebuild the Merlin engine.
Yeah, we will see.
(12:42):
In the meantime, my job is awebsite and I'm glad.
That's all it is.
Well, it's a labor of love andpassion.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
That's for sure I'm not much of a boat builder.
Well, you can talk about boatsall day, though, and uh, but
I'll.
I'll make sure to put a link inbelow on the bio for for the
website, and that's.
That's exciting to see thatrestoration happen, and
hopefully it doesn't take morethan a few years to see that
back out on the waters.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That was.
If you asked me my favoriteboat of all time, that would be
it.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I was going to ask that Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Because we were living in Spokane.
My dad sold welding supplies tothat crew and we loved all the
boats in the fifties and sixties.
Anybody that could beat theDetroit boats.
We loved them.
You know Thriftway and allthose boats.
But once the Miss Spokane camealong, that was it for us.
We were totally hooked.
(13:37):
Yeah, bought a, bought a one ofthose.
I think I owned a square inchof it or something.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Okay, as a kid.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, I took one of those.
I took one of those Thriftwaymodel kits that were so popular
and build it and put thedifferent tail on it, turned it
into Miss Spokane Perfect, yeah,had it on my dresser well into
my adulthood.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Oh, I was going to ask if you uh, cause in the
Seattle area was a big thingback then to tow a little model
boat behind your bike.
I was going to ask if you evergot into that.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
but the funny thing is when I never did do that.
But but you know what we did?
My Denny, my friend, and Icarved Balsa hydroplanes that
were probably three, four incheslong, okay, and they were, and
they were.
I mean they really looked likelittle, tiny scale model boats
painted them up with thedifferent colors of the boats.
You could put one on the rugrunner in your hallway and stick
(14:33):
your finger in the cockpit andgive it a shot and it would zoom
down the hallway and catch alittle air and walk from sponson
.
It was pretty cool.
Yeah, we did that forapproximately 2000 hours hours,
I think, back then, but theywere really neat little boats.
He lived up by Northgate andthere was a hobby shop in
Northgate.
We spent a lot of time in thereand that's where we got our
(14:55):
balsa wood.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, well, for me, when I was a kid, it was Legos,
so I always made Legos, well,you know that's.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
That's another story.
My sons, Craig and Brian, builtincredible Lego hydroplanes.
They were pretty good sized, Infact.
I had a stop action videocamera and they raced those
things by moving them a coupleinches and taking another
picture and another picture.
They actually, they actuallymade an animated video of Lego
(15:27):
hydroplanes going around theliving room.
I had forgotten about that onethat's fun.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, hopefully you can dig that up and find it.
That'd be fun to watch, allright.
Well, one thing with this, missSpokane, I got to know, is it
going to be a mahogany deck or apainted deck?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
when it's finished, I hadn't ever asked that question
.
I think it's going to bepainted um.
The deck will be new becausethe old one is long gone.
Yeah, and you know, poncho is acraftsman, he's a wood, he's a
wood guy.
It's amazing the work he doesand I haven't asked him that
question, I think.
I think it'll be painted.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
If you look at the website, you'll see the the most
of the pictures are are thepainted deck right, right, yeah,
I think I think it's going tolook like that, yeah I know, I
think I believe it raced, moreso with the painted deck, and
those are the pictures you'reusing.
I'm partial to the mahoganydeck.
I think it just looks cool withon it.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Well, there are some of those on the website, so you
will like them.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
All right.
Well, I can't wait to look formore of those.
Well, fast forward a little bit.
You touched on it.
You did go to Pullman.
You're a Cougar alumni and yougot a degree in communications.
Did you know that you wanted towork in communications and
broadcasting at a young age?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
How did that pan out for you?
In high school I had a kind ofa flair for mechanical drawing
and I thought I was going to bean architect.
That was actually my plan untilmidway through my senior year
when fate stepped in.
I got myself elected studentbody president of Eisenhower
High School in Yakima, andtoward some, at some point in
(17:10):
the senior year the viceprincipal called me in and said
the radio station has a featurecalled the student report.
A student from each high schoolcomes out on their selected
night and gives a little reporton what's going on.
Go do the Eisenhower report.
It's Monday night.
And I said okay, so I go outand do a report.
(17:30):
And then, uh, the DJ said I didOkay, felt good about that.
About the second or third time Idid that, the phone rang in the
control room.
Don Lewis was on at night andhe said the program director
wants to talk to you.
And I went oh no, what'd I do?
So I had a phone.
He says hi, steve, this is johngoodman, I'm the program
director.
Have you done some radio?
(17:51):
And I said no, sir, I have not.
And he said would you like to?
And I said well, sure, he'dcome and see me.
So I did, and that saturdaymorning they started training me
to be the weekend morning dj.
Oh okay.
So the architect thing suddenlywent by.
The sun, you know, went away,and the rest of my life was in
radio and TV, never, never, hada real job.
(18:14):
Well, that's a start of your,your career there, you reminded
me of something, one of myfavorite stories I get out of
Washington state.
I graduated in the spring of1966.
My first job out of college wasat Creme TV in Spokane.
We were live.
Things weren't recorded the waythey are now, so I was a booth
(18:36):
announcer, which meant everyhalf hour I opened a microphone
and said TV to Spokane, whichwas pretty exciting for my mom
because she lived in Spokane andshe could hear me.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Well, in 1966, there was a diamond cup and word came
through the building that KremTV was going to cover that
diamond cup and I thought, ah,my dream come true, I'm going to
be on the broadcast crew for anunlimited hydroplane race.
Well, it was a union shop and Iwas the bottom guy on the totem
pole.
I did not make the list ofpeople that were going to work
(19:11):
on the diamond cup.
They found out how much I knewabout the hydros and they had me
work with the other two peoplewho had the same job I did and
they were going to be the pitinterview guys.
And they were.
I didn't get a pit pass and Isat at home and watched the race
and it broke my heart.
Oh man, years later I said Ihope Walt Scharr and Chuck
(19:33):
Cromwell are watching ESPN andthey go.
That's the guy we didn't evenuse on our hydroplane race.
That was a that was a tough one.
Yeah, and I stayed there aboutanother three months and then
went back to Yakima and on toSeattle.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Okay, Okay, Wow.
Well, somewhere along the way,I believe, you did get to uh
broadcast your first hydroplanerace in Seattle 1974, if I'm not
mistaken.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
And I hadn't planned.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I hadn't planned on doing that actually.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
How did that opportunity come up?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
I was program director of Cairo Radio 50,000
watts, 710, big station.
I'd been playing music and Iwas in the process of changing
it to news talk and the generalmanager, jack Adamson, came into
my office and said the salesdepartment would like us to
cover a seafare.
And I said, wow, great idea, weshould do that.
Well, my sports director was awonderful guy named Pete Gross.
(20:33):
You probably remember the name,yeah, voice of the Seahawks.
So I called Pete in and I saidwe're going to do the seafare
race and Pete said I'm not.
And I said, oh, really, no, Idon't do boat racing.
And I said, oh dear.
So I went back into Jack'soffice and I said Pete doesn't
want to do the seafair race.
And I hadn't thought beyondthat.
(20:54):
And Jack said do you knowanybody that could do it?
And I thought, well, you know,I watched Bill O'Meara once and
I do know the sport.
Why don't I give it a shot?
So that's how I ended up doingthe 1974 race.
Yeah, and I sat.
I sat a few feet down from PatO'Day and, um, I have a few.
(21:16):
I don't have a great memory.
That's one of the things Idon't have that really good
sportscasters have, but I dohave some memories of that day,
including meeting BillyShoemaker, who became a good
friend, and it was momentousbecause right behind me on that
Sandpoint Tower was a couplefrom the Tri-Cities, ken Maurer
(21:36):
and his wife, who had put thatrace together years ago.
So I got to know them a littlebit, which was a key.
A lot of times it's being inthe right place at the right
time.
The next year I'm over in theTri-Cities and I don't really
have anything to do except I wasfeeding some reports back to
Cairo in Seattle.
Ken walked up to me and saidwhat's your job over here?
And I said I'm a spectator andI'm doing some reports back to
(21:58):
Seattle.
And he said well, you know, webuild a PA system all up and
down the beach and, um, I needsomebody to talk on it.
Could, could you do that?
And I said I think I could.
So for the next I don't know 10or 12 years I was the PA
announcer for the tri-citiesrace and then you got to mix in
Jim Hendrick because Jim had uh,he he had put his network on
(22:23):
Cairo while I was there.
Later he put it on Country KOwhile I was in sales over there.
So I got to know Jim reallywell and that was my entree into
the television work, becausethey needed a pit reporter to
begin with.
I was the third person.
So Dick Crippen and JimHendrick were the anchors on
ESPN in the beginning and I didthe pit interviews ESPN in the
(22:46):
beginning and I did the uh, thepit interviews.
So it all.
It all kind of grew out of thatexperience in 1974, where we
needed somebody to do theseafair race and I didn't have
anybody so I did it myself.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Well, thinking back on that first race you did, how
would you rate yourself?
Do you think it was a goodbroadcast?
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I would not want to hear a tape of it.
Um, that was, althoughsometimes I find an old tape of
me on the radio and it's not.
I didn't, I didn't, I didn'tdevelop as much over the years
as I thought I might've, so, butI can't imagine that it was
great stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Well, it's hard, hard for me to think it wasn't great
, because you have a iconicvoice for the sport.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Um, I think when you think of broadcasters and the
hydropon racing years is one ofthe first that pops up, uh you
can probably tell, the voicejust turned 81 years old, and so
although that's another thing Ifound, I came across a tape of
me on the air in Yakima in 1963or so, uh-huh, and it really
doesn't sound much different.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
No your voice Than it does right now.
No, it doesn't.
Yeah, it still sounds like youknow, 1980s, 1990s, steve
Montgomery, yeah, yeah, yourvoice hasn't changed in my, in
my, my ear at least.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Sounds different to me, okay, but that's how it
works, you know?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Oh yeah.
Well, do you like listening toyour own voice, because I hate
hearing my voice on recording.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah, but I got used to it.
In the beginning it's toughbecause what you hear in your
head is not what goes out there.
But after you've done 270commercials which is what I did
for 25 years in Seattle and allthose races, you get used to the
sound of your voice.
Finally, yeah, you know my wifehas a beautiful voice and she
(24:29):
does not like to hear itrecorded.
Right, typical of most people.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Well, I want to talk about sponsorships for a little
bit, because you had notablesponsors that came into the
sport because of your own doingsand you brought some people
into the sport.
I think one of those when youthink of Seafair and Heisman
Racing, it kind of goes hand inhand nowadays is KISW, the Rocks
radio station, and I believeyou had a big part of bringing
(24:54):
them in as a sponsor.
I believe you had a big part ofbringing them in as a sponsor.
So how did you convince a radiostation and keep them doing it
to be a sponsor?
Speaker 3 (25:06):
It was the easiest one ever out of everyone I
worked on, because I didn't haveto convince anybody.
Really, I had arrived back atthe station, it probably was
Monday and I had been in theTri-Cities.
I don't know which job I had atthe time.
It may have been.
I was still on the PA.
I did several years of Konaradio with the folks over there
and it might have been one ofthose races.
So anyway, I'm in my cubicle,I'm a salesperson, a sales
(25:29):
representative, and we had beeninvolved in some things, like we
had a top fuel funny car wewere sponsoring and stuff like
that.
The general manager, steve West, came over and stuck his head
in my cubicle and said do any ofthese boats need a sponsor?
Now, remember, this is Mondayand the race is the following
weekend.
Yeah Right, when I think backon it, I think this couldn't
(25:50):
possibly have happened and Isaid, boy, I think they're all
sponsored, but I will check.
So I made some phone calls.
Every boat that had raced inthe Tri-Cities had a sponsor for
Seattle.
So I started racking my brain,going where do I find a boat?
I was trying to think of boatsthat had raced, maybe the year
before, but we hadn't seen themthis year and the one that came
to mind was called the ElliottDog Ration.
(26:12):
Doug McIntosh and his sonsdragged that boat all over the
country and he told me laterthat all they ever did is change
the spark plugs and put it backin the water.
And I wondered whateverhappened to that boat.
Well, somebody said it'ssitting down by Ron Jones shop.
I got ahold of Doug McIntoshand I don't know how somebody
gave me a contact for him.
He said, yeah, the boat's downat Jones shop, we could run it.
(26:35):
And I said, really, yeah, Ithink.
So Meet me down there tomorrowand we'll take a look.
So Tuesday I'm standing by thisboat and it it didn't look a lot
better than Miss Spokane doesright now.
It had a deck and a bottom.
There wasn't a motor in sight,some of the hardware was on it,
some wasn't, and I I said is it?
I tell the story that therewere.
(26:56):
There were plants growing inthe sponsons with little animals
living in them, but we wedecided to give it a shot.
Yeah, so on Wednesday, the salesdepartment and the program
director, bo Phillips and SteveWest, the general manager, mark
Jeffries and Nick Neil Mayberry,we all went down and looked at
the thing and they all said doyou think this can race?
(27:18):
And I said, well, doug says itcould.
So we went to work on it, justrubbing stuff off and cleaning
it up and all of that.
And I said to Doug well, it'sgoing to need a motor.
Well, his sons, kelly and Scott, were experienced motor guys
from all the time they had spentwith their dad on the circuit.
(27:38):
So I said I'll have the boysbuild a motor.
And I said okay, then we'll dothe boat.
So on either Wednesday orThursday we had cleaned it up
enough that we could paint it.
Mark Jeffries said yeah, Ipainted a car when I was a kid.
I'll go rent the spray paintthing and all that stuff.
(27:58):
And we went and bought a coupleof gallons of black paint.
Yeah, we painted the boat andit looked pretty swoopy.
It was just solid black and Idon't know remember if that was
Wednesday night or it must havebeen.
Must've been Wednesday becauseit looked fantastic.
So Thursday we had hired thissign painter who did the KISW
logos.
(28:19):
There was no vinyl back then.
It was all paint Right.
So we had the sign painter withus and we went down and he was
going to put some red and yellowstripes on it and all that
stuff.
Well, it wasn't shiny blackanymore, the dew had settled on
the finish and now it lookedlike velvet.
But we said you know, when you,when you look back, when you
get back from it, it looks okay.
So we added some red and yellowand some logos and the hole was
(28:42):
ready to go.
We got the, we found a rudderfor it and all the hardware was
on it.
And um, and the boys, we didn'tsee them at all.
Doug assured me that they werefinding parts and they would
have a motor together.
So now it's um Thursday nighttime to go into the pits and uh,
and we're not ready.
The boat is close.
(29:03):
So we drag it down to the pitarea and there isn't a motor in
sight.
But Friday morning the boyspull in with a friend in his
pickup and there's a Merlinengine sitting in the back of
this pickup and they go to workgetting it installed in the boat
.
Then is when I found out thatthe ownership on the boat had
been a bit of a question andBrian Keogh from Detroit was one
(29:23):
of the owners.
So when he was asked, could thething run.
He said yes, if I drive it, sohe got on a plane headed for
Seattle and the rest of thestory.
Gosh, it would take hours.
Brian was trying to qualify it.
I think it was saturday morning.
He had made a couple ofqualifying attempts and he had
(29:44):
been just under I think it wasthe hundred mile an hour mark
that he had to reach to qualify.
We had we had time to do onemore shot.
So I told him, if he came by acouple of times when it looked
like he was really close to him,he did a couple of qualifying
laps at 99.6.
Oh, wow, he's going out for thelast shot and I said if you
(30:06):
think you're close to, but notover, the a hundred miles an
hour park, it turn it off up inthe North turn.
So they have to tow it down thebeach in front of all the
people, right, well, he he had.
He went by us and the thing wasrunning good.
I think he was on a hundredmile an hour lap, plus in the
North turn we hear a cup boomand the thing just blew exactly
(30:27):
where I wanted him to stop.
So he told her down the beachand he kept back to.
Brian was from Detroit, hedidn't know a thing about K I S
W.
He got back to the pits andsaid you guys are pretty popular
, aren't you?
And I said you got a sense ofthat.
And he said there were guysswimming out with a beer for me.
So that was that was Ms.
Rock's first, uh, first attempt.
(30:48):
The other funny part of it wasthe parade back then.
I think was Saturday night,right, and they used to take all
the boats out of the pit areaand take them up, you know, line
them up and go through theparade.
Well, I think you had to pay anextra thousand dollars for that
or something and we didn't payit, didn't even mention it to
the guys.
I'm sitting at home watchingthe parade and here comes Miss
(31:11):
Rock down Fourth Avenue and thecrew is on the boat and they are
covered with.
Most of the boats in the paradehad their crews in their shiny
uniforms.
Yeah, we had Doug and his sonsand their friends in their
greasy t-shirts on Miss Rock inthe middle of the parade.
So I talked to Doug yesterday,the next day.
(31:31):
I said that was pretty cool,but I don't think we were
supposed to be in a parade.
And he goes well, you didn'ttell me that.
I figured it was the whole dealand when they said line up the
boats, we lined up.
Nobody said anything.
That was a.
That was a fun deal.
Yeah, miss Rock in the parade.
Yeah, the other one was manyyears later.
In fact it was after I leftKISW late eighties when Fred
(31:54):
Leland's Miss Rock had a fireand it was a fairly bad one.
So Fred called um or both.
Yeah, fred called Bo Phillips,fred was the owner and, of
course, bo was the programdirector and said, um, we had a
fire and uh, so the boat won'tbe in the parade.
(32:15):
And Bo said this is famousquote.
He said I want the ashes in theparade.
So they took this badly burnedboat up to the start of the
parade and went through it.
That year the Christmas cardfor KISW was a picture of the
boat on fire and it said missrock roasting on an open fire.
(32:37):
We had a sense of humor.
Yeah, we ran some ads that wereclassics.
They keep popping up on some ofthe Facebook pages and things
and bring back great memories.
Fred was a Fred Leland was anamazing guy, but he was not a
type A personality who needed tobe out there and in front of
the cameras and everything.
So, yeah, and the beginning.
(32:57):
I know we skipped a littlecameras and everything.
So, yeah, and the beginning ofthe beginning.
I know we skipped a little, butI'll go to the beginning of
that story.
Yeah, yeah, we can go back andfill in.
Um, yeah, we, uh, we went fromthe uh, the original big log to
bob miller's ute 29 and bob wasjust a great guy, ran the, ran
that old sled of his with a itwas a cab over and it looked
(33:17):
like it was 90 feet long and hegot it qualified, which put us
in a whole different class.
And then I was looking toupgrade one more step and I got
a phone call from Jim Hendrickback East and he said, hey, fred
Leland's going to need asponsor.
And I said what's up?
And Fred had American speedyprint back East and Jim was real
close to that company In facthe owned a franchise and he said
(33:42):
, well, the sponsor is movingover to RB Bob Taylor.
When Fred gets to Seattle hewon't have a sponsor.
And I said, interesting, thankyou.
So I called his wife at the timeand I said, hey, I need to talk
to Fred.
And she said, well, what about?
And I said sponsorship.
And she said, well, what about?
And I said, yes, sponsorship.
(34:02):
And she said, well, he has asponsor, yeah, and I said, okay,
please write down my name andmy number in case he ever needs
one, right?
So Fred gets back to Seattleand I get a phone call and Fred
said who are you guys?
What do you do, and that wasour first conversation.
He came in, he came into theradio station and looked around
(34:25):
and wasn't amused and we toldhim what we wanted to do and
that became the.
It was the boat that fred hadbuilt that scott pierce
originally drove.
I think it might have been inoberto at one time or something,
but uh yeah, it started out.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
82 was the oh boy, boy Alberto, and ran as a lot of
different names.
Yeah, yep, yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
So Scott was no longer the driver, though Fred
was driving it himself.
I remember that pretty well.
And, um, he got thrown out ofthe boat in the south turn.
He ran over the wake of missBudweweiser, which was lapping
him at the time, and heimmediately was back on the deck
and in the pits.
(35:04):
I said, well, you got back onthat boat fast and he said I
can't swim.
No, that's when I found out wasa non-swimmer.
If he hadn't had a life jacketon, we would have lost him.
Jeez that that day.
That's crazy.
One interesting note about thatboat and sponsors was companies
(35:25):
that were co-sponsors of MissRock before.
They had their own boat,included the Squire Shop, miller
Beer and 7-Eleven, and they allwent on to be full-time
sponsors or boat owners.
So we started some good stuffwith uh, with that program, yeah
yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
Knuckleheads, make sure youcome back next week as well.
Part two of my interview withsteve montgomery, and he's going
to continue his talk about therock days, his sponsorships,
other involvements in the sport,and he's got lots and lots of
tales to tell.
And I really want to say thankyou again to Steve Montgomery,
(36:06):
taking time out of his busyschedule to talk to me and share
his years around the sport ofhydroplane racing.
Until next week, don't forget,we're on social media.
We're on social media.
We're on instagram, facebook.
You can check us out online atroostertelltalkcom and don't
forget to put thatroostertelltalk plus
(36:26):
subscription.
I've got a fun thing coming out.
I'm going to share that thisweek that all members will get.
There's not going to be araffle in july because
everyone's going to get this.
It's something fun and new.
I'm trying out something forthe fans.
We've got some racing coming upMadison Regattas on the 4th of
July weekend.
We're in the middle of summerhydroplane season.
(36:47):
I'm excited.
I hope you are too.
But until next time, I hope tosee you at the races.
Ruchetel Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything
about the sport that we all love, hydroplane racing.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I am your host, david Newton, and it's time once
again to sit back, relax andwelcome Rooster Tail Talk talk,
bill, we've got to come back andget a little more dope from you
, but right now we have tointroduce the rest of our crew
(00:54):
and we've got a brand new pairof pit reporters this year and
one of them now you people areused to hearing Mike Fitzsimmons
talk about boats and historyand everything like that One of
the few people that can staywith Mike off the top of his
head is a brand new pit reporterfor us this year and we're just
tickled to death to have him onthe crew and I'm going to bring
him in right now and that isSteve Montgomery.
(01:16):
Thank you, rod.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Hi everybody, I'm Steve Montgomery.
Hello everybody, I'm SteveMontgomery.
I'm Steve Montgomery.
I'm Steve.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Montgomery.
Any Hydroplane fan recognizesthat voice and name, steve
Montgomery.
He is joining the podcast todayon episode 150.
And this is going to be partone of a multiple part episode
and I talked with Steve not toolong ago.
We talked via Zoom.
He's living over in Coeurd'Alene, idaho now.
Long ago we talked via Zoom.
(01:46):
He's living over in Coeurd'Alene, idaho now, and he's
enjoying retirement after manyyears of his voice talents on
the air, radio, television andnotably around the sport of
hydroplane racing.
When I think of hydroplaneracing and the icons around the
sport, I always go towards thedrivers and the boats, but the
announcer should also fit inthat category and there's been
some great voice talents overthe years, including Jim
(02:08):
Hendricks, don Poyer, billO'Meara, pat O'Day and many
others, and definitely not inany order.
But when you think hydroplaneracing and announcing, steve
Montgomery should come to yourmind because he knows the sport
in and out and had a truepassion for the sport and that
came out when he was talkingabout it.
(02:30):
Now, like I said, this is amultiple part episode and we're
going to start with thebeginning of his career, how he
got involved with hydroplaneracing as a fan and an announcer
, and you're going to hear thatstory and we're going to go into
much more detail here, but youdon't need to hear me talking
anymore.
Let's listen in to my interviewwith Steve Montgomery.
(02:50):
I'm sitting down in myRichertel Talk office and I'm
talking via Zoom with SteveMontgomery.
Steve, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Very good, david, good to talk to you again.
I'm sure you hear this fromeverybody you talk to, but your
dad was one of my favorite guysin the 40 years I hung around
the sport and I'm sure I'm notthe first to tell you that huh,
yeah, no, I've heard that a fewtimes and I appreciate hearing
that.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Still, it's been almost 20 years, it's like 18
years since he's passed.
It's sad and it's uh, it's sadbut um, it's and it was a
shocker.
It was, yeah, cause he wasn'ttoo old.
He had a heart attack andpassed.
But I appreciate hearing thestories and and that cause it
feels like he's still still withme in some sense.
So I appreciate hearing thatWell.
(03:40):
Well, it's been a little whilesince we've talked, but I'm glad
to catch up with you and hearand talk more about your
legendary career as a radiobroadcaster, tv broadcaster.
You've done a lot for the sportof hydroplane racing but a lot
of different things you've donewith media and I think you're
(04:06):
gonna have some great stories toshare with that.
But before we get into that,I'm always curious where it
began for people with hydroplaneracing, because at some point
or another you fell in love withthe sport and I'm curious how
it started for you.
How were you introduced tohydroplane racing and where did
that start for you?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Well, I came from the only hydroplane racing fan
family in Yakima, washington.
At least I never found anotherone.
In the time we were there, in1950, I was six years old and I
was part of the only hydroplaneracing fan family in Yakima,
washington.
My parents went to Sela HighSchool and they had friends from
(04:41):
high school who lived inSeattleattle and we would go see
them every summer.
So in 1950 we were actually inwest seattle when slow motion
four won the race in detroit,the gold cup, and word spread
through the neighborhood thatwhat had happened and and with a
race, the gold cup was comingto seattle and the place that
was going crazy, there werepeople in the streets.
(05:02):
And so my mom and dad want toknow what's all this about.
And so they explained to my dadcoming to Seattle and the place
that was going crazy, therewere people in the streets.
And so my mom and dad want toknow what's all this about.
And so they explained to my dadwell, what was going on with
this race boat?
Well, my dad had been a B-29mechanic in World War II, okay,
and when they told him the thinghad a, an airplane engine, he
said well, I got to see this.
(05:26):
So the next year we were therefor the 51 gold cup and many
after that, and there one of thefamilies had a son about my age
.
We became hydro geeksimmediately and that was where
it all began.
Right there we were two of thekids with our noses poked
through the fence trying to geta look at a driver.
Back then it was a you know,when the crowds were huge and
all that going on.
I'm really glad I'm old enoughto have done that, because it
(05:46):
was really something was.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
It wasn't really.
I've heard stories of like halfa million people being on the
beaches and it just like wall towall.
Was it really that that packedback then?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
yeah, it's hard to uh , it's really hard to describe,
but you got a picture of thewhole stan sares pit area the
beach all the way up to the uh,the bridge and quite a way South
, because the race course wentdown there a ways and it was.
It was a shoulder to shoulder.
You had to get there early,spread out a blanket and then
protect your turf so you hadroom for your family to sit and
(06:18):
watch the race.
Yeah, a lot of a lot of myearly memories are from that
vantage point.
Right there we were a littlebit South of the pits, the place
we chose to sit.
So a lot of the videos in mymind are boats coming by that
area.
I remember things like BillyShoemaker coming by and I think
it was Miss Everett or somethingand I thought, wow, he's only a
(06:38):
little bit older than me.
And then the Miss U Districtcoming by and trying to get on a
plane.
Yeah, videos like that.
I wish they all had timestampson them so I knew what year?
that was you know.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, yeah, pretty wild to think back on and I've
talked to other people that havegone, that were there at the
beginnings in Seattle with HydroTwin Racing, and just seems
like a magical time.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
You know, I always tell people back then there were
half a million people on thebeach and maybe 120 in the pit
area working on the boats andstuff.
Yeah, and now there's 120people on the beach and a half a
million in the pit area.
Everybody has a has a pit pass.
I remember dreaming of beingable to go into the pits and get
up closer to the boats, yeah,and I finally had a chance in
about 1964.
(07:33):
I think it was.
Yeah, I was.
I was working at a KIMA radioand TV in Yakima and somebody I
don't even remember who it wascame in and said would you want
to go to the seafair race?
And I said, well, yeah, howwould I do that?
He said King TV in Seattle hada piece of equipment they wanted
to borrow from KIMATV in Yakima.
(07:55):
It was a special effectsgenerator which you used to
split the screen and things likethat.
Oh, okay, and King used it toput the clock up in the corner
of the picture.
Oh that, and King used it toput the clock up in the corner
of the picture.
Every station had one of those,but King's was a big one, built
into their wall or whatever thecontrol board, and ours was
smaller and portable, so theytook it out of the control room
(08:16):
and put it in the passenger seatof my 59 MG and I took off for
Seattle and it was an incredibleexperience.
I went straight to King TV, metall the people and they treated
me great and I had a pit passfor me and my hydro geek friend.
So that was a big deal.
I'll never forget that weekend,wow.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Yeah, that's a big deal right there.
So it was 1964?
.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I think so yeah just about Okay.
I went to Yakima Valley Collegefor two years.
I had stumbled into radio mysenior year in high school,
which was 62.
So then I did two years atYakima Valley College and went
to Pullman and talk about aplace where nobody knew hydro
racing.
Pullman Washington was, uh wasone of those places.
(09:02):
So it took me a while.
I was kind of.
I was kind of away from thesport there for a couple of
years.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, I guess at that time that was very isolated
from hydropon racing becausethey weren't racing in
Tri-Cities then.
But I guess they would beracing in Coeur d'Alene, but I
guess that's not close enoughfor them to know.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Well, that's another story.
Coeur d'Alene.
Um, I was, uh.
We moved back to Spokane.
My dad and his company kepttransferring him around the
state of Washington as theypromoted him from truck driver
all the way to general managerand several stops in between.
So the races were happening inCoeur d'Alene.
I believe it was 1959.
(09:41):
And my timestamp on that isbecause Norm Evans got thrown
out of the Miss Spokane right infront of us on the beach in
Coeur d'Alene.
So my dad took a friend and Iover to Coeur d'Alene the night
before and our job was to sleepin the park and get up early and
go stake out a space on thebeach and then, and that's what
(10:02):
we did, and the neat part wasthe night before the pits were
pretty much open and a lot ofpeople were working on their
boats, so we got to wanderaround in there and that was
pretty cool.
Then the next day the onlything I remember about that
whole day is Norm Evans and theMiss Spokane, but at least it
jogs the old memory and I canremember that happening.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah.
And interesting that Now I'm nowI'm coming to you from Coeur
d'Alene, idaho actually postfalls.
Yeah, debbie and I built ahouse over here two years ago
and I am a member of a groupcalled the uh diamond cup hydro
maniacs.
It's a bunch of the guys thatwere involved way back then and
it's a group that tried to puton the race here in uh in 2013.
(10:42):
Good people, and it was good toknow them right away, because
Debbie and I love the area, butI didn't know anybody over here,
and as soon as I met those guys, I did, and they're a good
group.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Well, and I think you're a part of.
Is that same group a part of,or helping at least with Mark
Evans and Mitch Evans with theSpokane, or is that a different
group?
Nope, they're all mixed inthere, Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And, in fact, the maniacs are the ones that are
doing the website.
Okay, I became an amateurwebsite builder so I put that
together for them.
If you go to msspokanehydrocom,you will see the website for
that project and we post thepictures as they, as they go
(11:27):
along.
It's gonna yeah, that one isgonna take a while.
I'll tell you, it's uh thatthat boat had been abused, yeah,
yeah well, I used to.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Well, I race rc models and we used to race over
in spokane and I remember goingum and seeing poncho every once
in a while and my dad and my dadalways pushing him to do more
with that boat and uh, yeah,it's uh, it's been sitting for a
while but I'm glad, glad to seethat it's being restored and I
love seeing all the updates fromthe restoration.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
If you go to the website, you can see, um, you
can see inside the thing.
I, in some ways it was inbetter shape than I thought it
would be.
Okay, I thought all the woodwould be rotten and all that
stuff and that's not the case.
But, man, every little piece ofit has to be redone somehow and
it's huge.
Yeah, we've got the bottom offand the top off, and Poncho
(12:21):
works on the framework with guysthat he doesn't have.
If he had a crew of nine peopleworking every day, I'd say this
could happen in a year or two.
Yeah, but it's mostly Ponchoand a friend now.
And then, of course, the Evansbrothers have the motor in
Chelan, so they're going torebuild the Merlin engine.
Yeah, we will see.
(12:42):
In the meantime, my job is awebsite and I'm glad.
That's all it is.
Well, it's a labor of love andpassion.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
That's for sure I'm not much of a boat builder.
Well, you can talk about boatsall day, though, and uh, but
I'll.
I'll make sure to put a link inbelow on the bio for for the
website, and that's.
That's exciting to see thatrestoration happen, and
hopefully it doesn't take morethan a few years to see that
back out on the waters.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That was.
If you asked me my favoriteboat of all time, that would be
it.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I was going to ask that Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Because we were living in Spokane.
My dad sold welding supplies tothat crew and we loved all the
boats in the fifties and sixties.
Anybody that could beat theDetroit boats.
We loved them.
You know Thriftway and allthose boats.
But once the Miss Spokane camealong, that was it for us.
We were totally hooked.
(13:37):
Yeah, bought a, bought a one ofthose.
I think I owned a square inchof it or something.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Okay, as a kid.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, I took one of those.
I took one of those Thriftwaymodel kits that were so popular
and build it and put thedifferent tail on it, turned it
into Miss Spokane Perfect, yeah,had it on my dresser well into
my adulthood.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Oh, I was going to ask if you uh, cause in the
Seattle area was a big thingback then to tow a little model
boat behind your bike.
I was going to ask if you evergot into that.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
but the funny thing is when I never did do that.
But but you know what we did?
My Denny, my friend, and Icarved Balsa hydroplanes that
were probably three, four incheslong, okay, and they were, and
they were.
I mean they really looked likelittle, tiny scale model boats
painted them up with thedifferent colors of the boats.
You could put one on the rugrunner in your hallway and stick
(14:33):
your finger in the cockpit andgive it a shot and it would zoom
down the hallway and catch alittle air and walk from sponson
.
It was pretty cool.
Yeah, we did that forapproximately 2000 hours hours,
I think, back then, but theywere really neat little boats.
He lived up by Northgate andthere was a hobby shop in
Northgate.
We spent a lot of time in thereand that's where we got our
(14:55):
balsa wood.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, well, for me, when I was a kid, it was Legos,
so I always made Legos, well,you know that's.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
That's another story.
My sons, Craig and Brian, builtincredible Lego hydroplanes.
They were pretty good sized, Infact.
I had a stop action videocamera and they raced those
things by moving them a coupleinches and taking another
picture and another picture.
They actually, they actuallymade an animated video of Lego
(15:27):
hydroplanes going around theliving room.
I had forgotten about that onethat's fun.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Well, hopefully you can dig that up and find it.
That'd be fun to watch, allright.
Well, one thing with this, missSpokane, I got to know, is it
going to be a mahogany deck or apainted deck?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
when it's finished, I hadn't ever asked that question
.
I think it's going to bepainted um.
The deck will be new becausethe old one is long gone.
Yeah, and you know, poncho is acraftsman, he's a wood, he's a
wood guy.
It's amazing the work he doesand I haven't asked him that
question, I think.
I think it'll be painted.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
If you look at the website, you'll see the the most
of the pictures are are thepainted deck right, right, yeah,
I think I think it's going tolook like that, yeah I know, I
think I believe it raced, moreso with the painted deck, and
those are the pictures you'reusing.
I'm partial to the mahoganydeck.
I think it just looks cool withon it.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Well, there are some of those on the website, so you
will like them.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
All right.
Well, I can't wait to look formore of those.
Well, fast forward a little bit.
You touched on it.
You did go to Pullman.
You're a Cougar alumni and yougot a degree in communications.
Did you know that you wanted towork in communications and
broadcasting at a young age?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
How did that pan out for you?
In high school I had a kind ofa flair for mechanical drawing
and I thought I was going to bean architect.
That was actually my plan untilmidway through my senior year
when fate stepped in.
I got myself elected studentbody president of Eisenhower
High School in Yakima, andtoward some, at some point in
(17:10):
the senior year the viceprincipal called me in and said
the radio station has a featurecalled the student report.
A student from each high schoolcomes out on their selected
night and gives a little reporton what's going on.
Go do the Eisenhower report.
It's Monday night.
And I said okay, so I go outand do a report.
(17:30):
And then, uh, the DJ said I didOkay, felt good about that.
About the second or third time Idid that, the phone rang in the
control room.
Don Lewis was on at night andhe said the program director
wants to talk to you.
And I went oh no, what'd I do?
So I had a phone.
He says hi, steve, this is johngoodman, I'm the program
director.
Have you done some radio?
(17:51):
And I said no, sir, I have not.
And he said would you like to?
And I said well, sure, he'dcome and see me.
So I did, and that saturdaymorning they started training me
to be the weekend morning dj.
Oh okay.
So the architect thing suddenlywent by.
The sun, you know, went away,and the rest of my life was in
radio and TV, never, never, hada real job.
(18:14):
Well, that's a start of your,your career there, you reminded
me of something, one of myfavorite stories I get out of
Washington state.
I graduated in the spring of1966.
My first job out of college wasat Creme TV in Spokane.
We were live.
Things weren't recorded the waythey are now, so I was a booth
(18:36):
announcer, which meant everyhalf hour I opened a microphone
and said TV to Spokane, whichwas pretty exciting for my mom
because she lived in Spokane andshe could hear me.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Well, in 1966, there was a diamond cup and word came
through the building that KremTV was going to cover that
diamond cup and I thought, ah,my dream come true, I'm going to
be on the broadcast crew for anunlimited hydroplane race.
Well, it was a union shop and Iwas the bottom guy on the totem
pole.
I did not make the list ofpeople that were going to work
(19:11):
on the diamond cup.
They found out how much I knewabout the hydros and they had me
work with the other two peoplewho had the same job I did and
they were going to be the pitinterview guys.
And they were.
I didn't get a pit pass and Isat at home and watched the race
and it broke my heart.
Oh man, years later I said Ihope Walt Scharr and Chuck
(19:33):
Cromwell are watching ESPN andthey go.
That's the guy we didn't evenuse on our hydroplane race.
That was a that was a tough one.
Yeah, and I stayed there aboutanother three months and then
went back to Yakima and on toSeattle.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Okay, Okay, Wow.
Well, somewhere along the way,I believe, you did get to uh
broadcast your first hydroplanerace in Seattle 1974, if I'm not
mistaken.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
And I hadn't planned.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I hadn't planned on doing that actually.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
How did that opportunity come up?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
I was program director of Cairo Radio 50,000
watts, 710, big station.
I'd been playing music and Iwas in the process of changing
it to news talk and the generalmanager, jack Adamson, came into
my office and said the salesdepartment would like us to
cover a seafare.
And I said, wow, great idea, weshould do that.
Well, my sports director was awonderful guy named Pete Gross.
(20:33):
You probably remember the name,yeah, voice of the Seahawks.
So I called Pete in and I saidwe're going to do the seafare
race and Pete said I'm not.
And I said, oh, really, no, Idon't do boat racing.
And I said, oh dear.
So I went back into Jack'soffice and I said Pete doesn't
want to do the seafair race.
And I hadn't thought beyondthat.
(20:54):
And Jack said do you knowanybody that could do it?
And I thought, well, you know,I watched Bill O'Meara once and
I do know the sport.
Why don't I give it a shot?
So that's how I ended up doingthe 1974 race.
Yeah, and I sat.
I sat a few feet down from PatO'Day and, um, I have a few.
(21:16):
I don't have a great memory.
That's one of the things Idon't have that really good
sportscasters have, but I dohave some memories of that day,
including meeting BillyShoemaker, who became a good
friend, and it was momentousbecause right behind me on that
Sandpoint Tower was a couplefrom the Tri-Cities, ken Maurer
(21:36):
and his wife, who had put thatrace together years ago.
So I got to know them a littlebit, which was a key.
A lot of times it's being inthe right place at the right
time.
The next year I'm over in theTri-Cities and I don't really
have anything to do except I wasfeeding some reports back to
Cairo in Seattle.
Ken walked up to me and saidwhat's your job over here?
And I said I'm a spectator andI'm doing some reports back to
(21:58):
Seattle.
And he said well, you know, webuild a PA system all up and
down the beach and, um, I needsomebody to talk on it.
Could, could you do that?
And I said I think I could.
So for the next I don't know 10or 12 years I was the PA
announcer for the tri-citiesrace and then you got to mix in
Jim Hendrick because Jim had uh,he he had put his network on
(22:23):
Cairo while I was there.
Later he put it on Country KOwhile I was in sales over there.
So I got to know Jim reallywell and that was my entree into
the television work, becausethey needed a pit reporter to
begin with.
I was the third person.
So Dick Crippen and JimHendrick were the anchors on
ESPN in the beginning and I didthe pit interviews ESPN in the
(22:46):
beginning and I did the uh, thepit interviews.
So it all.
It all kind of grew out of thatexperience in 1974, where we
needed somebody to do theseafair race and I didn't have
anybody so I did it myself.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Well, thinking back on that first race you did, how
would you rate yourself?
Do you think it was a goodbroadcast?
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I would not want to hear a tape of it.
Um, that was, althoughsometimes I find an old tape of
me on the radio and it's not.
I didn't, I didn't, I didn'tdevelop as much over the years
as I thought I might've, so, butI can't imagine that it was
great stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Well, it's hard, hard for me to think it wasn't great
, because you have a iconicvoice for the sport.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Um, I think when you think of broadcasters and the
hydropon racing years is one ofthe first that pops up, uh you
can probably tell, the voicejust turned 81 years old, and so
although that's another thing Ifound, I came across a tape of
me on the air in Yakima in 1963or so, uh-huh, and it really
doesn't sound much different.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
No your voice Than it does right now.
No, it doesn't.
Yeah, it still sounds like youknow, 1980s, 1990s, steve
Montgomery, yeah, yeah, yourvoice hasn't changed in my, in
my, my ear at least.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Sounds different to me, okay, but that's how it
works, you know?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Oh yeah.
Well, do you like listening toyour own voice, because I hate
hearing my voice on recording.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah, but I got used to it.
In the beginning it's toughbecause what you hear in your
head is not what goes out there.
But after you've done 270commercials which is what I did
for 25 years in Seattle and allthose races, you get used to the
sound of your voice.
Finally, yeah, you know my wifehas a beautiful voice and she
(24:29):
does not like to hear itrecorded.
Right, typical of most people.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Well, I want to talk about sponsorships for a little
bit, because you had notablesponsors that came into the
sport because of your own doingsand you brought some people
into the sport.
I think one of those when youthink of Seafair and Heisman
Racing, it kind of goes hand inhand nowadays is KISW, the Rocks
radio station, and I believeyou had a big part of bringing
(24:54):
them in as a sponsor.
I believe you had a big part ofbringing them in as a sponsor.
So how did you convince a radiostation and keep them doing it
to be a sponsor?
Speaker 3 (25:06):
It was the easiest one ever out of everyone I
worked on, because I didn't haveto convince anybody.
Really, I had arrived back atthe station, it probably was
Monday and I had been in theTri-Cities.
I don't know which job I had atthe time.
It may have been.
I was still on the PA.
I did several years of Konaradio with the folks over there
and it might have been one ofthose races.
So anyway, I'm in my cubicle,I'm a salesperson, a sales
(25:29):
representative, and we had beeninvolved in some things, like we
had a top fuel funny car wewere sponsoring and stuff like
that.
The general manager, steve West, came over and stuck his head
in my cubicle and said do any ofthese boats need a sponsor?
Now, remember, this is Mondayand the race is the following
weekend.
Yeah Right, when I think backon it, I think this couldn't
(25:50):
possibly have happened and Isaid, boy, I think they're all
sponsored, but I will check.
So I made some phone calls.
Every boat that had raced inthe Tri-Cities had a sponsor for
Seattle.
So I started racking my brain,going where do I find a boat?
I was trying to think of boatsthat had raced, maybe the year
before, but we hadn't seen themthis year and the one that came
to mind was called the ElliottDog Ration.
(26:12):
Doug McIntosh and his sonsdragged that boat all over the
country and he told me laterthat all they ever did is change
the spark plugs and put it backin the water.
And I wondered whateverhappened to that boat.
Well, somebody said it'ssitting down by Ron Jones shop.
I got ahold of Doug McIntoshand I don't know how somebody
gave me a contact for him.
He said, yeah, the boat's downat Jones shop, we could run it.
(26:35):
And I said, really, yeah, Ithink.
So Meet me down there tomorrowand we'll take a look.
So Tuesday I'm standing by thisboat and it it didn't look a lot
better than Miss Spokane doesright now.
It had a deck and a bottom.
There wasn't a motor in sight,some of the hardware was on it,
some wasn't, and I I said is it?
I tell the story that therewere.
(26:56):
There were plants growing inthe sponsons with little animals
living in them, but we wedecided to give it a shot.
Yeah, so on Wednesday, the salesdepartment and the program
director, bo Phillips and SteveWest, the general manager, mark
Jeffries and Nick Neil Mayberry,we all went down and looked at
the thing and they all said doyou think this can race?
(27:18):
And I said, well, doug says itcould.
So we went to work on it, justrubbing stuff off and cleaning
it up and all of that.
And I said to Doug well, it'sgoing to need a motor.
Well, his sons, kelly and Scott, were experienced motor guys
from all the time they had spentwith their dad on the circuit.
(27:38):
So I said I'll have the boysbuild a motor.
And I said okay, then we'll dothe boat.
So on either Wednesday orThursday we had cleaned it up
enough that we could paint it.
Mark Jeffries said yeah, Ipainted a car when I was a kid.
I'll go rent the spray paintthing and all that stuff.
(27:58):
And we went and bought a coupleof gallons of black paint.
Yeah, we painted the boat andit looked pretty swoopy.
It was just solid black and Idon't know remember if that was
Wednesday night or it must havebeen.
Must've been Wednesday becauseit looked fantastic.
So Thursday we had hired thissign painter who did the KISW
logos.
(28:19):
There was no vinyl back then.
It was all paint Right.
So we had the sign painter withus and we went down and he was
going to put some red and yellowstripes on it and all that
stuff.
Well, it wasn't shiny blackanymore, the dew had settled on
the finish and now it lookedlike velvet.
But we said you know, when you,when you look back, when you
get back from it, it looks okay.
So we added some red and yellowand some logos and the hole was
(28:42):
ready to go.
We got the, we found a rudderfor it and all the hardware was
on it.
And um, and the boys, we didn'tsee them at all.
Doug assured me that they werefinding parts and they would
have a motor together.
So now it's um Thursday nighttime to go into the pits and uh,
and we're not ready.
The boat is close.
(29:03):
So we drag it down to the pitarea and there isn't a motor in
sight.
But Friday morning the boyspull in with a friend in his
pickup and there's a Merlinengine sitting in the back of
this pickup and they go to workgetting it installed in the boat
.
Then is when I found out thatthe ownership on the boat had
been a bit of a question andBrian Keogh from Detroit was one
(29:23):
of the owners.
So when he was asked, could thething run.
He said yes, if I drive it, sohe got on a plane headed for
Seattle and the rest of thestory.
Gosh, it would take hours.
Brian was trying to qualify it.
I think it was saturday morning.
He had made a couple ofqualifying attempts and he had
(29:44):
been just under I think it wasthe hundred mile an hour mark
that he had to reach to qualify.
We had we had time to do onemore shot.
So I told him, if he came by acouple of times when it looked
like he was really close to him,he did a couple of qualifying
laps at 99.6.
Oh, wow, he's going out for thelast shot and I said if you
(30:06):
think you're close to, but notover, the a hundred miles an
hour park, it turn it off up inthe North turn.
So they have to tow it down thebeach in front of all the
people, right, well, he he had.
He went by us and the thing wasrunning good.
I think he was on a hundredmile an hour lap, plus in the
North turn we hear a cup boomand the thing just blew exactly
(30:27):
where I wanted him to stop.
So he told her down the beachand he kept back to.
Brian was from Detroit, hedidn't know a thing about K I S
W.
He got back to the pits andsaid you guys are pretty popular
, aren't you?
And I said you got a sense ofthat.
And he said there were guysswimming out with a beer for me.
So that was that was Ms.
Rock's first, uh, first attempt.
(30:48):
The other funny part of it wasthe parade back then.
I think was Saturday night,right, and they used to take all
the boats out of the pit areaand take them up, you know, line
them up and go through theparade.
Well, I think you had to pay anextra thousand dollars for that
or something and we didn't payit, didn't even mention it to
the guys.
I'm sitting at home watchingthe parade and here comes Miss
(31:11):
Rock down Fourth Avenue and thecrew is on the boat and they are
covered with.
Most of the boats in the paradehad their crews in their shiny
uniforms.
Yeah, we had Doug and his sonsand their friends in their
greasy t-shirts on Miss Rock inthe middle of the parade.
So I talked to Doug yesterday,the next day.
(31:31):
I said that was pretty cool,but I don't think we were
supposed to be in a parade.
And he goes well, you didn'ttell me that.
I figured it was the whole dealand when they said line up the
boats, we lined up.
Nobody said anything.
That was a.
That was a fun deal.
Yeah, miss Rock in the parade.
Yeah, the other one was manyyears later.
In fact it was after I leftKISW late eighties when Fred
(31:54):
Leland's Miss Rock had a fireand it was a fairly bad one.
So Fred called um or both.
Yeah, fred called Bo Phillips,fred was the owner and, of
course, bo was the programdirector and said, um, we had a
fire and uh, so the boat won'tbe in the parade.
(32:15):
And Bo said this is famousquote.
He said I want the ashes in theparade.
So they took this badly burnedboat up to the start of the
parade and went through it.
That year the Christmas cardfor KISW was a picture of the
boat on fire and it said missrock roasting on an open fire.
(32:37):
We had a sense of humor.
Yeah, we ran some ads that wereclassics.
They keep popping up on some ofthe Facebook pages and things
and bring back great memories.
Fred was a Fred Leland was anamazing guy, but he was not a
type A personality who needed tobe out there and in front of
the cameras and everything.
So, yeah, and the beginning.
(32:57):
I know we skipped a littlecameras and everything.
So, yeah, and the beginning ofthe beginning.
I know we skipped a little, butI'll go to the beginning of
that story.
Yeah, yeah, we can go back andfill in.
Um, yeah, we, uh, we went fromthe uh, the original big log to
bob miller's ute 29 and bob wasjust a great guy, ran the, ran
that old sled of his with a itwas a cab over and it looked
(33:17):
like it was 90 feet long and hegot it qualified, which put us
in a whole different class.
And then I was looking toupgrade one more step and I got
a phone call from Jim Hendrickback East and he said, hey, fred
Leland's going to need asponsor.
And I said what's up?
And Fred had American speedyprint back East and Jim was real
close to that company In facthe owned a franchise and he said
(33:42):
, well, the sponsor is movingover to RB Bob Taylor.
When Fred gets to Seattle hewon't have a sponsor.
And I said, interesting, thankyou.
So I called his wife at the timeand I said, hey, I need to talk
to Fred.
And she said, well, what about?
And I said sponsorship.
And she said, well, what about?
And I said, yes, sponsorship.
(34:02):
And she said, well, he has asponsor, yeah, and I said, okay,
please write down my name andmy number in case he ever needs
one, right?
So Fred gets back to Seattleand I get a phone call and Fred
said who are you guys?
What do you do, and that wasour first conversation.
He came in, he came into theradio station and looked around
(34:25):
and wasn't amused and we toldhim what we wanted to do and
that became the.
It was the boat that fred hadbuilt that scott pierce
originally drove.
I think it might have been inoberto at one time or something,
but uh yeah, it started out.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
82 was the oh boy, boy Alberto, and ran as a lot of
different names.
Yeah, yep, yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
So Scott was no longer the driver, though Fred
was driving it himself.
I remember that pretty well.
And, um, he got thrown out ofthe boat in the south turn.
He ran over the wake of missBudweweiser, which was lapping
him at the time, and heimmediately was back on the deck
and in the pits.
(35:04):
I said, well, you got back onthat boat fast and he said I
can't swim.
No, that's when I found out wasa non-swimmer.
If he hadn't had a life jacketon, we would have lost him.
Jeez that that day.
That's crazy.
One interesting note about thatboat and sponsors was companies
(35:25):
that were co-sponsors of MissRock before.
They had their own boat,included the Squire Shop, miller
Beer and 7-Eleven, and they allwent on to be full-time
sponsors or boat owners.
So we started some good stuffwith uh, with that program, yeah
yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
Knuckleheads, make sure youcome back next week as well.
Part two of my interview withsteve montgomery, and he's going
to continue his talk about therock days, his sponsorships,
other involvements in the sport,and he's got lots and lots of
tales to tell.
And I really want to say thankyou again to Steve Montgomery,
(36:06):
taking time out of his busyschedule to talk to me and share
his years around the sport ofhydroplane racing.
Until next week, don't forget,we're on social media.
We're on social media.
We're on instagram, facebook.
You can check us out online atroostertelltalkcom and don't
forget to put thatroostertelltalk plus
(36:26):
subscription.
I've got a fun thing coming out.
I'm going to share that thisweek that all members will get.
There's not going to be araffle in july because
everyone's going to get this.
It's something fun and new.
I'm trying out something forthe fans.
We've got some racing coming upMadison Regattas on the 4th of
July weekend.
We're in the middle of summerhydroplane season.
(36:47):
I'm excited.
I hope you are too.
But until next time, I hope tosee you at the races.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.