July 8, 2025 • 39 mins
The voice that defined an era of hydroplane racing returns for the captivating conclusion of our three-part interview with legendary broadcaster Steve Montgomery. Take a nostalgic journey through the golden age of unlimited racing as Steve shares extraordinary stories from his decades behind the microphone.
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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 love, Hydroplane Racing.
I am your host, david Newton,and it's time once again.
So sit back, relax and welcometo Rooster Tail Talk talk.
(00:48):
Hello race fans, welcome backto the podcast.
It's episode 152.
And today you're going to betreated with part three of my
interview with Steve Montgomery.
Now this is the conclusion, thelast part of my interview with
Steve.
I had a great talk with SteveMontgomery.
Now this is the conclusion, thelast part of my interview with
Steve.
I had a great talk with Steve.
(01:08):
Hope you were able to listen toparts one and two.
If you haven't listened to that, please go back.
Listen to episodes 150 and 151,as you're going to hear Steve
talk more about the beginningsof his career.
But we're going to jump in andhe's going to talk more about
more of the locations that he'straveled throughout his career
broadcasting races for H1Unlimited.
(01:30):
Back in the day it was calledUHRA, urc and it's had a lot of
names, but he was the voice formany years and he's got he has
more stories to share.
So let's jump back in to mytalk with Steve Montgomery to
share.
So let's jump back in to mytalk with Steve Montgomery
Thinking about broadcasting withthat.
Like you said, you've traveledto so many different races, and
(01:51):
especially in the 90s when theyhad nine, 10, 11 race seasons,
traveling from places all aroundthe coast to coast.
Did you have any favorite racesites that you would go to to
broadcast?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
You know if it was a race site.
I loved it period.
Detroit was great.
I had great friends in thepress room and on the committee.
I always loved going to SanDiego Good friends down there.
Certainly among my favoritesall time would be Hawaii and
talk about being in the rightplace at the right time.
(02:24):
Don Jones was commissioner andI was in his office, um, over in
uh, what do they call that area?
Lower Queen Anne, the seafairoffice and he had just gotten
off the phone and he said comein, sit down.
We're going to Hawaii.
And I said who is?
And he said we're going to run,we're going to run on Pearl
Harbor.
And I said wow, how are yougoing to do that?
(02:49):
And he explained to me howthey're going to ship the boats
and everything and I said uh, dothey have an announcer?
And Don said uh just a minuteand he dialed a number.
He said hi, it's me again.
He said do you guys haveannouncers you want to use or do
you want me to bring one?
Okay, and he hung up the phone.
He said you're the uh hydro.
You're the announcer forhonolulu hydro fest.
(03:09):
And I said wow, and that was a.
That's a good chapter in thebook.
There were wonderfulexperiences connected.
I mean talked about gettingtreated well.
Yeah, we were working with thenavy and when you go put on a
new race, it was always astruggle getting all the
logistics and you know all thepeople doing the.
The Navy didn't have any ofthat.
(03:30):
It was like you know, stand bythis gate.
If they have a blue badge theycan come in, a yellow one has to
go over there.
The thing went smoothly fromday one and they were the first.
I went over with Don Jones Ithink it was probably a
Wednesday when we got there thefirst time and we went out to
the uh Ford Island.
You had to take a boat to getthere.
They put a bridge in later, butoriginally we had to boat it
(03:52):
all the time.
So we're standing on thisisland.
No civilian had been theresince World War II.
And we're looking around andDon said, okay, well, this will
be a pit area right here, thislong cement thing and I'm going
to, I need a over over to.
There is where the race coursewill be, so I need some kind of
a tower or something there forthe officials.
(04:12):
And the people said okay, andDon said now we're going to have
spectators here, so this threefoot grass has to be cut down.
They said, all right, well, byThursday night the grass was
three inches long and they had atower that they used for
painting ships.
It was a barge with a tower onit and they had dragged that
(04:34):
over and put it there.
And they put that whole thingtogether in no time at all.
The funny part of that story wasthat the captain of Pearl
Harbor and I didn't know Navyranks, but captain is a pretty
big rank in the Navy Captain ofPearl Harbor was Doug Porter and
he was with us setting all thisup.
(04:54):
Bob Fendler had beeninstrumental in that whole thing
.
Bob actually started theprocess with the previous
captain of Pearl Harbor, dennyBlair, who was from West Seattle
, which was one of the reasonsthat that race happened.
Denny was gone.
He had, uh, whatever they callit done his three years and he
(05:15):
was in Washington DC.
So captain Porter had takenover.
So we get the race underway,we're qualifying and all that
stuff.
And captain Porter and I werestanding on the tower and he
said how are you getting outhere tomorrow?
And I said, oh, I'll catch oneof the boats.
He said, well, I'm going out atsuch and such a time.
Meet me in that parking lot andyou can ride on my boat.
(05:36):
And I said, okay.
So I still don't understandwhat a captain is, right?
Yeah, so we get on this neatlittle gig.
It's a crewman and the captainand his dad, who was in town,
and me.
We're heading over to theisland and I notice that every
boat that meets us is salutingthe boat that I'm on and I
thought something's going onhere.
(05:57):
This is kind of a big deal,yeah.
So I mentioned that to somebodylater and they said Steve, the
captain of Pearl Harbor is incommand of Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
This is the guy.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
The next guy above him is in charge of the whole
Pacific fleet.
So I told Doug Porter thisstory and he said well, don't
feel bad, when I came out here Icame from the Pentagon, but
before that I had ships.
So they had a party for me onone of the ferries that goes
back and forth to the island,had it all decorated up and all
(06:32):
that stuff.
My wife heard two guys standingin the corner on this ferry and
one of them said you know, dougmust've really screwed up.
He had a heavy cruiser and nowhe's got this damn ferry.
So don't feel bad about notunderstanding all of the ranks
in the Navy, but we had awonderful time working with the
(06:54):
Navy.
It was a.
They needed a place for me tostay and so they put me in
something called the BachelorOfficer's Quarters, which
sounded pretty nice.
Me in something called thebachelor officer's quarters,
which sounded pretty nice.
It was like a very old motel,six okay, with no, no air
conditioner or anything.
But I was happy I was in hawaii.
Yeah, so I'm.
(07:14):
I'm standing there on my firstday and, um, tom burke, who, uh,
who I had met earlier.
Well, I guess I met him.
Then somebody brought him.
Frank de Frank DeSilva from MWRNavy, brought this guy over,
introduced him as Tom Burke.
Tom ran the Outrigger Hotels inHonolulu.
(07:34):
He said are you staying with us?
And I said, oh no, I'm overhere in this.
Tom said, well, is it nice?
I said, well, I can't say that,but it works.
And Tom said, well, come intotown, we'll put you in a room.
And I said really, Sure, okay,he said.
He said I'll check back withyou, so he comes back in about
an hour.
And he said go to go intoHonolulu, find the Outrigger
(07:55):
Tower I think it was called andgive them your name.
They have a room for you.
I said well thank you very, verymuch.
It was going to be quite anupgrade, right?
So I go into town, find thetower, they give me a key and I
go up to my room and I don'tremember the floor it was on,
but it was next to the elevatorshaft and it was kind of a funny
shaped little room and allnight the elevator went up and
(08:16):
down.
So the next day Tom Burke comesup to me and says did you stay
with us?
And I said yes, sir, thank youvery much.
And I said he said well, howwas the room?
And I said you know it's justfine.
He said well, what do you?
You don't sound like it wasgreat.
And I said well, it was rightnext to the elevator.
Tom said oh no, do we havepermission to move your stuff?
(08:39):
I said yes, you certainly do.
They said go to the desk again,give me your name.
So I did that.
They handed me a key and itsaid like 2102 on it.
So I go over to the elevatorsand the elevator goes up to 20.
So I go up to the 20th floorand I get off and there's two
(09:01):
little elevators out of thatfloor and one of them says 2102.
So I take that one and now I'mon the roof of the hotel, like
like the opening of HawaiiFive-0.
And I'm up there by myself andI've got this suite and I
thought I was there for aboutfour or five days.
I didn't know anybody thatwould want to come up and see my
(09:23):
suite, so I spent that wholetime by myself in this
incredible suite.
Then the other story that wasgreat was Frank DeSilva brought
a guy over and he said Steve,you need to meet Todd nicely, he
needs your help.
And I said how do you do?
What can I do for you?
He said, well, I'm putting onthe award ceremony and I need an
emcee.
(09:43):
Could you help us out?
And I said I'd be happy to, sir.
And Frank said well, you, youshould know that Todd's job is
he runs the golf course.
I said, oh, so, todd nicely, andI became good friends and I
played many happy rounds of golfon the Pearl Harbor golf course
.
In fact, debbie and I actuallywent over years later.
(10:04):
He was still there.
Oh, wow, and put us on thecourse.
So I met a lot of great peopleTom Burke and Larry Warnken and
Frank DeSilva from MWR, whichwas Morale, welfare and
Recreation, kind of like the oldUSO.
Okay, and Bob Fendler and hiswife, great people who were
(10:25):
wonderful hosts, some of myfavorites, good memories there.
We had a party.
We were invited to a party atthe Admiral's house.
This guy was Sink Pack Fleet,which is short for
Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet.
Okay, that's big.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
That's half the world .
He lived in a house up on thehill above Pearl Harbor Pacific
fleet Okay, that's big.
Okay, that's half the half halfthe world.
He lived in a house up on thehill above Pearl Harbor and it
was the house where AdmiralNimitz had stood on the deck and
watched the bombing of PearlHarbor.
So we're out there with theAdmiral and he says this is
where Nimitz stood, right hereand right down there is where
the planes came in, and that,wow, wow, little bit of history
(11:04):
right here.
You know great memories, but wegot treated.
We got treated great over thereand they were really great
trips.
Debbie says well, why didn't Iknow you then?
Cause she came a little laterand I said, boy, that would have
been great yeah man?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, it's, it's.
It's fun to recall thosememories and think back to the
places the sport went to andraced at, and they were there
for a decade or so.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Someone the other day asked me that there was
something about one year becauseof the way the APBA schedule
was.
I think we did two races in thesame calendar year or something
like that.
It ended up being like 11 racesin 10 years.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Boy, they went by fast.
Yeah, speaking of the golftournament, the golf course, for
long time we had a tournamenton Thursdays and a lot of the
drivers played in it.
It was really fun back then,but I was doing something and I
couldn't.
I couldn't get there untilThursday morning.
I took a plane out of Seattle,so I told Todd and um and Frank
(12:09):
that I would try to make it, butI didn't know what time I was
going to get to Hawaii.
Well, I get off the plane inHawaii and there's a sailor with
a sign that says Montgomery.
He said that's me and he saidcome on, let's go golf.
So they had a, he had a rigoutside and he uh, it was a
military police.
(12:30):
So he puts my clubs in the backof my suitcase, turns off his
flashers, drives me to the golfcourse.
Now you know, things like thisjust wouldn't happen if I didn't
have this job.
Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
That is amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
But favorite, favorite, favorite places always
involves favorite people likeBob Hughes and Madison and I
became very good friends and Imet Bob the night before Jerry
bangs was killed.
So it's a it's very wellingrained in my moment.
And actually that night Jerryand his wife were going to go
(13:07):
with Bob to see BarneyArmstrong's machine in Federal
Way.
Jerry decided he wanted to stayhome and rest, so Hannah Bangs
and I and Bob went to see theband and then the next day we
lost Jerry.
Yeah, and that was really toughon me because he was probably
my best friend in the sport.
And that same year, after thatseason, billy Shoemaker retired.
(13:28):
So the next year Jerry Bangsand Billy Shoemaker were not
around and that was that wastough on me because that was a
big part of my sport.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, yeah, that is the sad part, when you get to
know the people so well and thenwhen, when they're gone,
especially um killed on the raceit's hard.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Jerry was sitting in a chair because he was driving
Jerry Kalin Squire Shop whichwas a turbo charge at Allison,
one of those kit boats thingsand we had helped him get the
Squire Shop onto it.
So Jerry was sitting in a chairnext to the boat and I was
sitting beside him and he woreall kinds of gear.
He had a helmet and a neckbrace and he couldn't hardly
(14:10):
talk right.
So he slapped me on the kneeand got up and went and got in
the boat and never came back.
It was a really tough day, yeah, yeah, no kidding.
Actually, after the boat spunand threw him out, um, anna and
I went over.
They had a they had ahelicopter landing pad at that
(14:31):
time time kind of on the eastside of the pit area and the
helicopter was picking him upout of the water.
So we were standing therewaiting for him to come over to
us and the helicopter went rightover us to harbor view and I
went oh no, what do I do now?
Dave herrensberger came upbehind anna and said come on,
anna, I'll get you there.
He took her to the hospital andI was just uh, I was in a fog
(14:55):
for several days after that one.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's hard Oof.
On a happier note, justthinking about those race sites
uh, was there any ones that youdidn't quite look forward to
going to as much, or is thatsomething you wouldn't want to
share, maybe?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, as race sites go, there were some that were
new and um and having troublegetting their infrastructure
together, and that made it.
You know, we went to Kansascity a couple of times.
Yeah, Great market, not greatrace sites.
Um, I'll tell you, though, I'venever seen one as tough as that
Coeur d'Alene course in 2013.
I've never seen one as tough asthat Coeur d'Alene course in
(15:32):
2013.
It was.
The pit area was 50 feetstraight up in the air from the
water.
Yeah, the course was rough.
The start finish where Debbieand I were was way down the lake
.
We had trouble getting back andforth but logistically that one
was really tough.
Yeah, yeah, but I saw a lot ofthe.
(15:55):
We had startups like in Phoenix,houston.
Poor guy.
This guy in Houston was apromoter who ran a big festival
downtown so he set up the raceat Lake Clear Lake.
Right, yeah, clear Lake, Iguess it was.
I think it rained every minutewe were there.
It was just no, no, nobodybought a ticket.
Yeah, he lost everything he hadput in.
There was a race in Oklahomacity.
(16:16):
This guy was a drag racingpromoter.
When we arrived there onThursday, he had built
grandstands for a hundredthousand people.
They went on forever.
He had.
He had porta potties for 50people at once to use them.
Nobody bought a ticket.
Oh my God.
It was just really sad to see.
(16:38):
That was the year we ran theMiss Rock as the Coors Light
Silver Bullet.
Yeah, mitch Evans drove it.
Yeah, back in 85.
And the interesting thing aboutthat was it was my first
experience with vinyl.
Oh, okay, the boat was blackand white.
I got the color scheme off ofDon Perdomo's funny car.
The front of the car was onecolor and then it had a slash, a
(17:00):
vertical slash, and the back ofit was white and I thought that
would work cool on a hydro andthat's why you see the Miss Rock
with the black and then the redstripe and then the white tail
end.
Yeah, rock with the black andthen the red stripe and then the
white tail end.
Yeah, so we had all that was onit.
Um, mitch and Mark had paintedthe boat in, uh, chelan for Fred
.
So we took it to Oklahoma cityand it was black and white, not
(17:22):
a spot of color on it anywhere.
We took it into this dealership, the Coors Light dealership in,
uh, in Oklahoma city.
The Coors distributor and thislittle guy rolled in with a
trailer, opened it up and it wasall full of this vinyl and he
put stripes on the boat and heput big logos on the cowling and
everything I asked him he had.
I said can you put one of those?
(17:44):
Yeah, I can do that.
Put something on the tail.
That didn't stay.
It was like a griffin orsomething.
Yeah, I thought if these thingswill stick, this is the deal.
Yeah, it took him an hour maybeto do that entire boat.
Wow, and that was my lastexperience with paint.
That's crazy, but can youimagine painting like the rock
(18:06):
logo?
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Oh yeah, that would take On a boat Hours and hours
yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And that guy was so good at it he had done the boat
and the funny car and the van.
Wow, all kinds of stuff for us,wow.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I didn't think we'd ever go this long.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I'm sorry if I'm taking too much of your time.
No, that's fine.
I didn't think I would rememberthat much.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Well, I'm pulling the memories out.
Yep, well, I'm pulling thememories out.
Yep, well, looking back at youknow you broadcasted so many
different heats.
Do you have a favorite heat youlook back on, just, for
whatever reason, that just wasexciting to you and just has a
favorite recall for you?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You know there were so many of them, but there is
one.
It's Detroit, it's a I thinkit's a gold cup, and Chip
Hanauer is driving for FredLeland, okay, and Dave Vilwock
was dominant.
Yes, In the bud.
Now, I think this might've beenin the Garbrecht era, when they
(19:08):
were messing with the fuel flowall the time.
It might've been, but if, yeah,if, you won last week, it got
turned down this week and so on,and all that stuff.
So I loved Fred Leland, ofcourse, and Chip was a good
friend.
And now they're into the lapfour of the gold cup and Chip is
ahead of Dave Vilwock and I hadexpected for three laps for
(19:29):
Dave to go by him and he, hejust couldn't do it, probably
didn't have the fuel flow, andone of the few times that you
can find me on tape reallyshouting and I'm going, dave is
not catching Chip, hanauer andHanauer comes around the final
turn and down to the startfinish line and I had trouble
holding it together.
It was one of the most excitingfinishes that I ever had a
(19:51):
chance to call.
Yeah, but that was the goodthing about the turbine era is
we had close finishes, mm-hmm.
I mean, bill O'Meara told meabout a race he did with slow
motion four, five laps on a hugecourse and all the boats died
on the first lap except theslow-mo.
And he said so I'm doingby-playof the quill shaft wondering is
(20:13):
it gonna hold?
Oh, I think about.
I thought he was slowing down.
Looks like he's okay now.
He said I did that for fourlaps oh yeah, that is something.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, I wouldn't think of it.
One thing too is back, you know, in the 70s, when you're
announcing, everything wasMerlin or Allison or Griffin, so
it probably was the audiolevels compared to announcing a
race with turbines was quitedifferent.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Made a big difference in microphones.
Yeah, because we used to find amicrophone that would pick up
your voice and not pick up muchfrom the other side.
When the boats went by, it justwiped you out voice and not
pick up much from the other side.
Okay, when the boats went by,it just wiped you out.
End of my career.
We were putting a specialmicrophone out to hear the boats
when they went by because theywere so quiet.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Well, did you have a favorite boat driver or crew
member or owner that you wouldalways interview, that you could
always count on to get a goldeninterview?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
In the beginning.
It got better as we went.
Yeah, we had, you know, you hadBill Muncy originally,
obviously.
Oh yeah, who was gold.
But most of those drivers werenot good spokesmen.
And then we had new guys comein and I can I can tell you that
, uh, j Michael Kelly and JeffBernard, and these guys who came
in all at once, they were notspeech makers at all.
(21:34):
Yeah, great, great boat racers,and if you listen to them now
they are so much better.
They've really become very goodat the interview thing.
But Steve David was another onewho came along who was really
fun.
My favorite interview with him.
I was on the dock in theTri-Cities and I don't remember
what he was driving.
(21:54):
He was brand new at the timebut he was going out to qualify
and I said so, what's the planhere, what's the game plan for
the qualifying lap?
And he said I'm going to godown into the first turn, head
up the backstretch and thenabout halfway up I'm going to
take off and once I get up toabout three, four hundred feet,
I'm going to head up for yakimaand do a loop over by the
(22:15):
mountain and come back down andhit the back stretch at about
250 260 miles an hour he said Ithink that's going to give me a
pretty good speed and I saidthis guy is going to be fun to
work with.
Right, I'll tell you my, myfavorite, steve david.
When you when you talk aboutwhich drivers were really good,
(22:36):
the day I found out how goodSteve David was he was not in an
unlimited.
We were in Norfolk, virginia,and at the time the unlimited
lights were a pretty good seriesa whole bunch of boats, oh yeah
and they had an event wherehalf a dozen of the unlimited
drivers got in limited boats andran a little race.
Steve David got in I think itwas the Blockbuster boat and
(23:00):
smoked everybody and I thoughtthis guy knows how to work a
race boat.
You could really tell.
You can tell a lot aboutwatching the guys in the
Limiteds.
But as I was discussing with myson Brian yesterday the
difference, when you get to anUnlimited, you have to be an
expert pilot.
You have to really be able tokeep the boat off the water,
(23:21):
don't set it down too hard whenit does come down and the guys
that are going fast now are theones that are really good at
that.
In most of the limiteds youhave a power to weight ratio
where you can mash the gas andsteer pretty much, you know.
So, that was something that Ilearned that from Dave Vilwock,
because I asked him what's thedifference between the really
(23:42):
good drivers?
And he said well, watch a guywhen he gets loose, does he set
it down gently or does he panicand hit the pedal and get it
back on the water?
Because when you land hard youlose time, you lose a little bit
of momentum.
So I learned to watch you watchMark.
Oh, I said Mark Tate, you watch.
So I learned to watch you watch.
Um, you watch Mark.
Uh, I would have said Mark Tateand you watch Andrew Tate fly a
boat and uh, it's just like.
(24:03):
It's like an airplane close tothe water.
Yeah, no, no friction at all.
Yeah, the fast guys are alldoing that now.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
All the people that you see at the top of the
qualifying ladder.
It's an art form to watch themfloat the boats and keep them on
the water.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Something we said reminded me of the race that I
went to with Bill O'Mara, whereI sat there and didn't say
anything.
Yeah, I was asked years laterto give a talk at the museum to
a group of the guys that hangaround there and I couldn't
think of what the heck to talkabout.
So I sat on the stool with myclipboard and I said here's what
we're going to do.
I have a lousy memory, but Ihave a bunch of videos in my
(24:47):
head.
I'm going to describe a videoto you and you tell me when.
It was Okay.
So I said okay, I'm sitting byBill O'Mara.
One of the Starrett brothers isgoing up the back stretch in a
Notre Dame and he noses it in.
Somebody in the crowdimmediately hollers 1971 or
whatever it was you know whenthe Notre Dame.
(25:07):
So we did that for 45 minutes.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
So, okay, one year I played tennis with Bill Muncy in
uh Tempe, arizona.
It was the first year we racedat Firebird and somebody else
shouted the year.
So I wrote down all the yearsand now I have this, this whole
long list of videos and I hadtimestamps on them Cause those
guys all knew all the dates thatI couldn't remember.
That's fun.
(25:34):
Bill Muncy was a pretty goodtennis player, by the way, was
he?
Was he?
I think I beat him, but it wasa friendly match and we didn't.
Okay, I don't think we keptscore that close.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
All right.
Well, was there anyone that yougot on the microphone?
That was just hard to get themto come out of their shell and
make an interesting interview.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Sure, probably a lot of them over the years, and
maybe that's why I haveforgotten all of them.
Like I said, when the youngguns all came into the sport at
once, most of them were prettytight-lipped yeah, not much to
say, yeah.
And those are the kids that aremen now and they're still
racing and they're greatspokesmen.
So they've really developedthat ability.
(26:18):
Yeah, yeah, they're stillracing and they're they're great
spokesmen, so they've reallydeveloped that ability.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's been fun to watch them grow and
mature, as as behind themicrophones, over the years.
Like you said, it's fun towatch.
Well, with the evolution of thesport, I mean, you've seen so
many different things happenwith hydropon racing so many
different designs, sponsorships,people come and go.
Do you have a golden year ofracing that you can think back
(26:43):
to?
Let's say, maybe this was thepeak of unlimited hydroplane
racing and maybe not from theracing standpoint, but just from
the amount of interest.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
It's probably a group of years and certainly Bernie
would still be here.
Yeah, because the sport wasjust a little bigger and shinier
back then.
Yeah, it was interesting.
You know, I was around throughso many different management
systems, right Started with DonJones and and Buddy Byers and,
(27:13):
uh, ken Muscatel filled in for awhile and then you had the the
Bill Doner era.
Well, bill was, bill was apromoter and he had a lot of the
faults that promoters have, butboy, he made things happen,
really dynamic guy, and therewas a lot of energy Referees.
I was announcing I was on thebeach in Las Vegas on Lake Mead
(27:40):
man.
Bill Newton was the referee,and those were back in the days
when you'd see the refereehaving dinner with Bernie you
know, and all the other owners.
Well, wait a minute, what'sgoing on here?
I remember a heat where I wasstanding on the ground and
beside me there was a littlesingle wide trailer and the
(28:00):
referee was Lee Shaneth and hewas up on top of the trailer.
And here come the boats and theBudweiser is about a rooster
tail ahead of everybody andeverybody else is on time Right,
so he's clear down there.
When the flag drops and theyrun the heat, nobody says
anything.
And I said was that a legalstart?
(28:21):
And Lee Shana said do you havea problem with that?
I said no, sir, that was agreat start.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Oh man, back in the day, back in the day, yes.
Well, just with your knowledgeof the sport, do you think we'll
see a resurgence with the sportcome, come back in some form of
popularity?
I mean, there's some greatthings happening with the sport
now.
Like you said, your son has youknow the drones.
Footage has come in andstreaming has uh been a good uh
(28:56):
kick for the sport.
But do you think we'll ever seethe circuit grow again, have
more races and have more teams?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I think the new stuff that's going on, with new
owners like the Tri-Citiespeople, daryl and the Apollo
folks, I think there's enoughstrength there to keep it alive.
It's hard for me to explain whyit can never be what it was,
because nothing is what it was.
(29:26):
Okay.
My dad was a good example.
He was a mechanic and he lovedanything that you could put a
motor in.
Well, but back then how manythings were being raced Cars and
uh, and now there aresnowmobiles and lawnmowers and
motor sports were huge.
(29:47):
It wasn't just boat racing, itwas any motor sport, anything
with a motor in it.
That's long gone.
You know the the, the thrill ofuh, of watching motorports like
Indy 500 and NASCAR.
Both have struggles financiallyand with sponsorship.
(30:07):
So the answer is no.
It can't go back and be what itwas.
But that doesn't mean it can'tbe good.
Can't be good.
The sport has a huge drawback inthat the arena is so big and so
expensive to set up and run andthere's so many regulations and
(30:28):
all that stuff.
Like Dave Villewalk oncepointed out, he said you know,
we're the one sport that doesn'task you to build us a new
stadium, but if you are in thechamber of commerce in uh, sioux
falls, south dakota, and youdecide you want to put on a race
.
The financial obligation isjust huge and my friends in in
(30:49):
cordelaine the battles that theywent through with um permits
and all that stuff.
Most people would no, it's notworth it.
Yeah, I just can't put thatmuch time and energy and legal
fees into it.
Some of my contacts here arestill paying some of the bills
or making sure everybody getspaid from 2013.
(31:09):
Wow, so that makes it reallyreally tough.
And then look at races likeDetroit.
How can Detroit not be puttingon a race In that city?
You can't find a sponsor bigenough to get the boats back on
the Detroit River when thefacility is completely there.
Yeah, all you got to do is putthe buoys in the water and line
(31:29):
the boats up in the pit area.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a tough one yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
It's the tough one.
Yeah, it's sad to see the sportnot return to some areas, like
you said.
Like Detroit, it has such a bighistory and you would hope that
they could.
It'd be as simple as droppingthe buoys in, but there's so
much that goes to it.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Exactly, the sport started out many, many years ago
as rich guys with fast boats.
You know, I'll have Clara makea picnic and I'll meet you over
at the beach and we'll race ourboats, and that's the way
Unlimited was born, way backthen.
Well, in many ways it's abigger version of that now.
You know, it's some guys thatcan afford to race these big
(32:19):
boats and it's up to otherpeople to put the races on.
And it's hard to do as far asthe finances and the manpower
and all that stuff.
The boat count, which for awhile was looking scary, has
come back a little bit.
People keep a couple ofsurprises.
People with boats that hadn'trun for a while now say they're
going to run them.
Yeah, and you have.
You know, um, daryl Strongcoming along when he did was
(32:44):
great for the boat, for thesport, and I don't know where it
would be without him.
It would probably be around,but it wouldn't have as many
boats, right, right.
And there's a good example ofhow long I've been gone.
I have never met Daryl Strong.
Oh, really, yeah, wow, Icertainly like to.
I certainly respect him forwhat he's done.
And then the new owners, theApollo people same thing there.
(33:11):
You know you asked me aboutannouncers.
Yes, and we would be remiss ifI didn't mention Brad Luce.
Yes, please do.
If Brad hadn't come along whenhe did, I don't know what the
sport would be doing for aplay-by-play guy.
Right, brad is remarkable.
He has a great memory.
He was never in radio, he was ahydro fan and he had a friend
(33:34):
in the Tri-Cities who said well,you know, the boats do some
interviews for me, and that'show he started and he has
developed the announcer side.
If anything, he's never askedme for advice.
By the way, if anything, Iwould say you need to develop an
excitement voice that is not ascream.
Okay, yeah, yeah, but but andJeff Ehler, you got to love Jeff
(33:56):
Ehler.
Okay, yeah, yeah, but but andJeff Aylor, you got to love Jeff
.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Aylor.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Right, jeff.
Jeff has a problem because hesounds like he's from where he's
from, so he's he's kind oflimited geographically, but in a
sport, you know, we know himand love him, so it's fine.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Yeah, it's great when they come, come in and they
have such a knowledge of thesport that it takes it to
another level memories like Inever had.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, but see, I started out doing television so
my delivery was developed for uh, network tv.
So it is by nature a littledifferent than the guys that on
a pa system you can pretty muchsay what you want any way you,
but when your audience is goingto be national, it's a little
(34:41):
different deal.
So that was where I came up.
That's why I have, hopefully, alittle more professional
delivery.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Well, just think, like I've said before, thinking
back on the voices of the sports, I think yours is iconic, Just
how much you've given to thesport and broadcasting.
Like I've said before, thinkingback on the voices of the
sports, I think yours is iconic,Just how much you've given to
the sport and broadcasting andit just it, uh, it enhanced the
races having you there.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Well, you know, that was my goal.
Um, if people ask me, um,people ask me, what exactly were
you trying to do all thoseyears?
And I can honestly say whetherI was announcing the PA system
or doing television or radio, orrunning the PR thing, which I
did for six years In fact, if Iwas a PR director three
different times.
The last time was, uh, at thestart of the Doha races,
(35:34):
speaking of race sites that onewas really something.
Yeah.
Speaking of race sites, thatone was really something.
Yeah, but my goal was to makethis sport look and sound as big
and as good as it possiblycould and I think if you have
that in mind, it'll really steeryou the direction you want to
go with your things you say andthe things you do.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, well, you definitely did that.
You put your touch on the sport.
And before you go, do you haveany other crazy stories you'd
like to share with us?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
You know, this afternoon I'll have many more
memories pop up.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Why didn't I tell him about that?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
But, I think I've taken enough of your time.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
That that was part three, theend of my interview with steve
montgomery.
Had a great time going downnostalgic lane with steve and I
could spend hours and hoursdoing that.
So I hope none of my guests gettoo annoyed with all of that.
But I could go on for hours onend talking about unlimited
(36:35):
hydroplanes.
But but I want to thank SteveMontgomery once again for his
time with this interview.
So much fun, but I'm lookingforward to the next one.
But until then, check us outonline.
Our website is roostertaltalkcom.
We're on social media Facebook,instagram.
And if you haven't heard ofRooster Tail Talk Plus, it's our
(36:57):
subscription service where youcan choose your entry level for
a monthly fee.
You get early access to all newepisodes.
You get extra content on thewebsite.
We have pictures, articles.
I'm gonna be throwing up someother interviews and oddities up
there around the sport ofhydrofin racing as well.
As every member of RoostertailTalk Plus will get a 10-card
(37:21):
trading set that I made for thisyear called Hydro Racing Kids.
It's a fun take on the oldGarbage Pail Kids back in the
80s 90s that some of us used tocollect, and it's been a while
since there's been trading cardsfor the hydroplanes, so I
thought it'd be a fun additionfor the podcast.
Again, these aren't for sale,these are only for Roostertail
(37:45):
Talk Plus members.
Big shout out to Andrew Tate.
Big win over there in Madison,indiana, winning the 75th annual
Madison Regatta.
Fun to see him in the winner'scircle again and we'll see what
can happen when they come out tothe west coast.
Tri-city is just a few weeksaway.
Got some fast boats, a couplenew teams on the circuit.
It's going to be fun.
So until then, I hope to seeyou at the races.
Ruchetel Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything
about the sport that we all love, Hydroplane Racing.
I am your host, david Newton,and it's time once again.
So sit back, relax and welcometo Rooster Tail Talk talk.
(00:48):
Hello race fans, welcome backto the podcast.
It's episode 152.
And today you're going to betreated with part three of my
interview with Steve Montgomery.
Now this is the conclusion, thelast part of my interview with
Steve.
I had a great talk with SteveMontgomery.
Now this is the conclusion, thelast part of my interview with
Steve.
I had a great talk with Steve.
(01:08):
Hope you were able to listen toparts one and two.
If you haven't listened to that, please go back.
Listen to episodes 150 and 151,as you're going to hear Steve
talk more about the beginningsof his career.
But we're going to jump in andhe's going to talk more about
more of the locations that he'straveled throughout his career
broadcasting races for H1Unlimited.
(01:30):
Back in the day it was calledUHRA, urc and it's had a lot of
names, but he was the voice formany years and he's got he has
more stories to share.
So let's jump back in to mytalk with Steve Montgomery to
share.
So let's jump back in to mytalk with Steve Montgomery
Thinking about broadcasting withthat.
Like you said, you've traveledto so many different races, and
(01:51):
especially in the 90s when theyhad nine, 10, 11 race seasons,
traveling from places all aroundthe coast to coast.
Did you have any favorite racesites that you would go to to
broadcast?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
You know if it was a race site.
I loved it period.
Detroit was great.
I had great friends in thepress room and on the committee.
I always loved going to SanDiego Good friends down there.
Certainly among my favoritesall time would be Hawaii and
talk about being in the rightplace at the right time.
(02:24):
Don Jones was commissioner andI was in his office, um, over in
uh, what do they call that area?
Lower Queen Anne, the seafairoffice and he had just gotten
off the phone and he said comein, sit down.
We're going to Hawaii.
And I said who is?
And he said we're going to run,we're going to run on Pearl
Harbor.
And I said wow, how are yougoing to do that?
(02:49):
And he explained to me howthey're going to ship the boats
and everything and I said uh, dothey have an announcer?
And Don said uh just a minuteand he dialed a number.
He said hi, it's me again.
He said do you guys haveannouncers you want to use or do
you want me to bring one?
Okay, and he hung up the phone.
He said you're the uh hydro.
You're the announcer forhonolulu hydro fest.
(03:09):
And I said wow, and that was a.
That's a good chapter in thebook.
There were wonderfulexperiences connected.
I mean talked about gettingtreated well.
Yeah, we were working with thenavy and when you go put on a
new race, it was always astruggle getting all the
logistics and you know all thepeople doing the.
The Navy didn't have any ofthat.
(03:30):
It was like you know, stand bythis gate.
If they have a blue badge theycan come in, a yellow one has to
go over there.
The thing went smoothly fromday one and they were the first.
I went over with Don Jones Ithink it was probably a
Wednesday when we got there thefirst time and we went out to
the uh Ford Island.
You had to take a boat to getthere.
They put a bridge in later, butoriginally we had to boat it
(03:52):
all the time.
So we're standing on thisisland.
No civilian had been theresince World War II.
And we're looking around andDon said, okay, well, this will
be a pit area right here, thislong cement thing and I'm going
to, I need a over over to.
There is where the race coursewill be, so I need some kind of
a tower or something there forthe officials.
(04:12):
And the people said okay, andDon said now we're going to have
spectators here, so this threefoot grass has to be cut down.
They said, all right, well, byThursday night the grass was
three inches long and they had atower that they used for
painting ships.
It was a barge with a tower onit and they had dragged that
(04:34):
over and put it there.
And they put that whole thingtogether in no time at all.
The funny part of that story wasthat the captain of Pearl
Harbor and I didn't know Navyranks, but captain is a pretty
big rank in the Navy Captain ofPearl Harbor was Doug Porter and
he was with us setting all thisup.
(04:54):
Bob Fendler had beeninstrumental in that whole thing
.
Bob actually started theprocess with the previous
captain of Pearl Harbor, dennyBlair, who was from West Seattle
, which was one of the reasonsthat that race happened.
Denny was gone.
He had, uh, whatever they callit done his three years and he
(05:15):
was in Washington DC.
So captain Porter had takenover.
So we get the race underway,we're qualifying and all that
stuff.
And captain Porter and I werestanding on the tower and he
said how are you getting outhere tomorrow?
And I said, oh, I'll catch oneof the boats.
He said, well, I'm going out atsuch and such a time.
Meet me in that parking lot andyou can ride on my boat.
(05:36):
And I said, okay.
So I still don't understandwhat a captain is, right?
Yeah, so we get on this neatlittle gig.
It's a crewman and the captainand his dad, who was in town,
and me.
We're heading over to theisland and I notice that every
boat that meets us is salutingthe boat that I'm on and I
thought something's going onhere.
(05:57):
This is kind of a big deal,yeah.
So I mentioned that to somebodylater and they said Steve, the
captain of Pearl Harbor is incommand of Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
This is the guy.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
The next guy above him is in charge of the whole
Pacific fleet.
So I told Doug Porter thisstory and he said well, don't
feel bad, when I came out here Icame from the Pentagon, but
before that I had ships.
So they had a party for me onone of the ferries that goes
back and forth to the island,had it all decorated up and all
(06:32):
that stuff.
My wife heard two guys standingin the corner on this ferry and
one of them said you know, dougmust've really screwed up.
He had a heavy cruiser and nowhe's got this damn ferry.
So don't feel bad about notunderstanding all of the ranks
in the Navy, but we had awonderful time working with the
(06:54):
Navy.
It was a.
They needed a place for me tostay and so they put me in
something called the BachelorOfficer's Quarters, which
sounded pretty nice.
Me in something called thebachelor officer's quarters,
which sounded pretty nice.
It was like a very old motel,six okay, with no, no air
conditioner or anything.
But I was happy I was in hawaii.
Yeah, so I'm.
(07:14):
I'm standing there on my firstday and, um, tom burke, who, uh,
who I had met earlier.
Well, I guess I met him.
Then somebody brought him.
Frank de Frank DeSilva from MWRNavy, brought this guy over,
introduced him as Tom Burke.
Tom ran the Outrigger Hotels inHonolulu.
(07:34):
He said are you staying with us?
And I said, oh no, I'm overhere in this.
Tom said, well, is it nice?
I said, well, I can't say that,but it works.
And Tom said, well, come intotown, we'll put you in a room.
And I said really, Sure, okay,he said.
He said I'll check back withyou, so he comes back in about
an hour.
And he said go to go intoHonolulu, find the Outrigger
(07:55):
Tower I think it was called andgive them your name.
They have a room for you.
I said well thank you very, verymuch.
It was going to be quite anupgrade, right?
So I go into town, find thetower, they give me a key and I
go up to my room and I don'tremember the floor it was on,
but it was next to the elevatorshaft and it was kind of a funny
shaped little room and allnight the elevator went up and
(08:16):
down.
So the next day Tom Burke comesup to me and says did you stay
with us?
And I said yes, sir, thank youvery much.
And I said he said well, howwas the room?
And I said you know it's justfine.
He said well, what do you?
You don't sound like it wasgreat.
And I said well, it was rightnext to the elevator.
Tom said oh no, do we havepermission to move your stuff?
(08:39):
I said yes, you certainly do.
They said go to the desk again,give me your name.
So I did that.
They handed me a key and itsaid like 2102 on it.
So I go over to the elevatorsand the elevator goes up to 20.
So I go up to the 20th floorand I get off and there's two
(09:01):
little elevators out of thatfloor and one of them says 2102.
So I take that one and now I'mon the roof of the hotel, like
like the opening of HawaiiFive-0.
And I'm up there by myself andI've got this suite and I
thought I was there for aboutfour or five days.
I didn't know anybody thatwould want to come up and see my
(09:23):
suite, so I spent that wholetime by myself in this
incredible suite.
Then the other story that wasgreat was Frank DeSilva brought
a guy over and he said Steve,you need to meet Todd nicely, he
needs your help.
And I said how do you do?
What can I do for you?
He said, well, I'm putting onthe award ceremony and I need an
emcee.
(09:43):
Could you help us out?
And I said I'd be happy to, sir.
And Frank said well, you, youshould know that Todd's job is
he runs the golf course.
I said, oh, so, todd nicely, andI became good friends and I
played many happy rounds of golfon the Pearl Harbor golf course
.
In fact, debbie and I actuallywent over years later.
(10:04):
He was still there.
Oh, wow, and put us on thecourse.
So I met a lot of great peopleTom Burke and Larry Warnken and
Frank DeSilva from MWR, whichwas Morale, welfare and
Recreation, kind of like the oldUSO.
Okay, and Bob Fendler and hiswife, great people who were
(10:25):
wonderful hosts, some of myfavorites, good memories there.
We had a party.
We were invited to a party atthe Admiral's house.
This guy was Sink Pack Fleet,which is short for
Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet.
Okay, that's big.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
That's half the world .
He lived in a house up on thehill above Pearl Harbor Pacific
fleet Okay, that's big.
Okay, that's half the half halfthe world.
He lived in a house up on thehill above Pearl Harbor and it
was the house where AdmiralNimitz had stood on the deck and
watched the bombing of PearlHarbor.
So we're out there with theAdmiral and he says this is
where Nimitz stood, right hereand right down there is where
the planes came in, and that,wow, wow, little bit of history
(11:04):
right here.
You know great memories, but wegot treated.
We got treated great over thereand they were really great
trips.
Debbie says well, why didn't Iknow you then?
Cause she came a little laterand I said, boy, that would have
been great yeah man?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, it's, it's.
It's fun to recall thosememories and think back to the
places the sport went to andraced at, and they were there
for a decade or so.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Someone the other day asked me that there was
something about one year becauseof the way the APBA schedule
was.
I think we did two races in thesame calendar year or something
like that.
It ended up being like 11 racesin 10 years.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Boy, they went by fast.
Yeah, speaking of the golftournament, the golf course, for
long time we had a tournamenton Thursdays and a lot of the
drivers played in it.
It was really fun back then,but I was doing something and I
couldn't.
I couldn't get there untilThursday morning.
I took a plane out of Seattle,so I told Todd and um and Frank
(12:09):
that I would try to make it, butI didn't know what time I was
going to get to Hawaii.
Well, I get off the plane inHawaii and there's a sailor with
a sign that says Montgomery.
He said that's me and he saidcome on, let's go golf.
So they had a, he had a rigoutside and he uh, it was a
military police.
(12:30):
So he puts my clubs in the backof my suitcase, turns off his
flashers, drives me to the golfcourse.
Now you know, things like thisjust wouldn't happen if I didn't
have this job.
Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
That is amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
But favorite, favorite, favorite places always
involves favorite people likeBob Hughes and Madison and I
became very good friends and Imet Bob the night before Jerry
bangs was killed.
So it's a it's very wellingrained in my moment.
And actually that night Jerryand his wife were going to go
(13:07):
with Bob to see BarneyArmstrong's machine in Federal
Way.
Jerry decided he wanted to stayhome and rest, so Hannah Bangs
and I and Bob went to see theband and then the next day we
lost Jerry.
Yeah, and that was really toughon me because he was probably
my best friend in the sport.
And that same year, after thatseason, billy Shoemaker retired.
(13:28):
So the next year Jerry Bangsand Billy Shoemaker were not
around and that was that wastough on me because that was a
big part of my sport.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah, yeah, that is the sad part, when you get to
know the people so well and thenwhen, when they're gone,
especially um killed on the raceit's hard.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Jerry was sitting in a chair because he was driving
Jerry Kalin Squire Shop whichwas a turbo charge at Allison,
one of those kit boats thingsand we had helped him get the
Squire Shop onto it.
So Jerry was sitting in a chairnext to the boat and I was
sitting beside him and he woreall kinds of gear.
He had a helmet and a neckbrace and he couldn't hardly
(14:10):
talk right.
So he slapped me on the kneeand got up and went and got in
the boat and never came back.
It was a really tough day, yeah, yeah, no kidding.
Actually, after the boat spunand threw him out, um, anna and
I went over.
They had a they had ahelicopter landing pad at that
(14:31):
time time kind of on the eastside of the pit area and the
helicopter was picking him upout of the water.
So we were standing therewaiting for him to come over to
us and the helicopter went rightover us to harbor view and I
went oh no, what do I do now?
Dave herrensberger came upbehind anna and said come on,
anna, I'll get you there.
He took her to the hospital andI was just uh, I was in a fog
(14:55):
for several days after that one.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's hard Oof.
On a happier note, justthinking about those race sites
uh, was there any ones that youdidn't quite look forward to
going to as much, or is thatsomething you wouldn't want to
share, maybe?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, as race sites go, there were some that were
new and um and having troublegetting their infrastructure
together, and that made it.
You know, we went to Kansascity a couple of times.
Yeah, Great market, not greatrace sites.
Um, I'll tell you, though, I'venever seen one as tough as that
Coeur d'Alene course in 2013.
I've never seen one as tough asthat Coeur d'Alene course in
(15:32):
2013.
It was.
The pit area was 50 feetstraight up in the air from the
water.
Yeah, the course was rough.
The start finish where Debbieand I were was way down the lake
.
We had trouble getting back andforth but logistically that one
was really tough.
Yeah, yeah, but I saw a lot ofthe.
(15:55):
We had startups like in Phoenix,houston.
Poor guy.
This guy in Houston was apromoter who ran a big festival
downtown so he set up the raceat Lake Clear Lake.
Right, yeah, clear Lake, Iguess it was.
I think it rained every minutewe were there.
It was just no, no, nobodybought a ticket.
Yeah, he lost everything he hadput in.
There was a race in Oklahomacity.
(16:16):
This guy was a drag racingpromoter.
When we arrived there onThursday, he had built
grandstands for a hundredthousand people.
They went on forever.
He had.
He had porta potties for 50people at once to use them.
Nobody bought a ticket.
Oh my God.
It was just really sad to see.
(16:38):
That was the year we ran theMiss Rock as the Coors Light
Silver Bullet.
Yeah, mitch Evans drove it.
Yeah, back in 85.
And the interesting thing aboutthat was it was my first
experience with vinyl.
Oh, okay, the boat was blackand white.
I got the color scheme off ofDon Perdomo's funny car.
The front of the car was onecolor and then it had a slash, a
(17:00):
vertical slash, and the back ofit was white and I thought that
would work cool on a hydro andthat's why you see the Miss Rock
with the black and then the redstripe and then the white tail
end.
Yeah, rock with the black andthen the red stripe and then the
white tail end.
Yeah, so we had all that was onit.
Um, mitch and Mark had paintedthe boat in, uh, chelan for Fred
.
So we took it to Oklahoma cityand it was black and white, not
(17:22):
a spot of color on it anywhere.
We took it into this dealership, the Coors Light dealership in,
uh, in Oklahoma city.
The Coors distributor and thislittle guy rolled in with a
trailer, opened it up and it wasall full of this vinyl and he
put stripes on the boat and heput big logos on the cowling and
everything I asked him he had.
I said can you put one of those?
(17:44):
Yeah, I can do that.
Put something on the tail.
That didn't stay.
It was like a griffin orsomething.
Yeah, I thought if these thingswill stick, this is the deal.
Yeah, it took him an hour maybeto do that entire boat.
Wow, and that was my lastexperience with paint.
That's crazy, but can youimagine painting like the rock
(18:06):
logo?
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Oh yeah, that would take On a boat Hours and hours
yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And that guy was so good at it he had done the boat
and the funny car and the van.
Wow, all kinds of stuff for us,wow.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I didn't think we'd ever go this long.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I'm sorry if I'm taking too much of your time.
No, that's fine.
I didn't think I would rememberthat much.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Well, I'm pulling the memories out.
Yep, well, I'm pulling thememories out.
Yep, well, looking back at youknow you broadcasted so many
different heats.
Do you have a favorite heat youlook back on, just, for
whatever reason, that just wasexciting to you and just has a
favorite recall for you?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
You know there were so many of them, but there is
one.
It's Detroit, it's a I thinkit's a gold cup, and Chip
Hanauer is driving for FredLeland, okay, and Dave Vilwock
was dominant.
Yes, In the bud.
Now, I think this might've beenin the Garbrecht era, when they
(19:08):
were messing with the fuel flowall the time.
It might've been, but if, yeah,if, you won last week, it got
turned down this week and so on,and all that stuff.
So I loved Fred Leland, ofcourse, and Chip was a good
friend.
And now they're into the lapfour of the gold cup and Chip is
ahead of Dave Vilwock and I hadexpected for three laps for
(19:29):
Dave to go by him and he, hejust couldn't do it, probably
didn't have the fuel flow, andone of the few times that you
can find me on tape reallyshouting and I'm going, dave is
not catching Chip, hanauer andHanauer comes around the final
turn and down to the startfinish line and I had trouble
holding it together.
It was one of the most excitingfinishes that I ever had a
(19:51):
chance to call.
Yeah, but that was the goodthing about the turbine era is
we had close finishes, mm-hmm.
I mean, bill O'Meara told meabout a race he did with slow
motion four, five laps on a hugecourse and all the boats died
on the first lap except theslow-mo.
And he said so I'm doingby-playof the quill shaft wondering is
(20:13):
it gonna hold?
Oh, I think about.
I thought he was slowing down.
Looks like he's okay now.
He said I did that for fourlaps oh yeah, that is something.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, I wouldn't think of it.
One thing too is back, you know, in the 70s, when you're
announcing, everything wasMerlin or Allison or Griffin, so
it probably was the audiolevels compared to announcing a
race with turbines was quitedifferent.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Made a big difference in microphones.
Yeah, because we used to find amicrophone that would pick up
your voice and not pick up muchfrom the other side.
When the boats went by, it justwiped you out voice and not
pick up much from the other side.
Okay, when the boats went by,it just wiped you out.
End of my career.
We were putting a specialmicrophone out to hear the boats
when they went by because theywere so quiet.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Well, did you have a favorite boat driver or crew
member or owner that you wouldalways interview, that you could
always count on to get a goldeninterview?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
In the beginning.
It got better as we went.
Yeah, we had, you know, you hadBill Muncy originally,
obviously.
Oh yeah, who was gold.
But most of those drivers werenot good spokesmen.
And then we had new guys comein and I can I can tell you that
, uh, j Michael Kelly and JeffBernard, and these guys who came
in all at once, they were notspeech makers at all.
(21:34):
Yeah, great, great boat racers,and if you listen to them now
they are so much better.
They've really become very goodat the interview thing.
But Steve David was another onewho came along who was really
fun.
My favorite interview with him.
I was on the dock in theTri-Cities and I don't remember
what he was driving.
(21:54):
He was brand new at the timebut he was going out to qualify
and I said so, what's the planhere, what's the game plan for
the qualifying lap?
And he said I'm going to godown into the first turn, head
up the backstretch and thenabout halfway up I'm going to
take off and once I get up toabout three, four hundred feet,
I'm going to head up for yakimaand do a loop over by the
(22:15):
mountain and come back down andhit the back stretch at about
250 260 miles an hour he said Ithink that's going to give me a
pretty good speed and I saidthis guy is going to be fun to
work with.
Right, I'll tell you my, myfavorite, steve david.
When you when you talk aboutwhich drivers were really good,
(22:36):
the day I found out how goodSteve David was he was not in an
unlimited.
We were in Norfolk, virginia,and at the time the unlimited
lights were a pretty good seriesa whole bunch of boats, oh yeah
and they had an event wherehalf a dozen of the unlimited
drivers got in limited boats andran a little race.
Steve David got in I think itwas the Blockbuster boat and
(23:00):
smoked everybody and I thoughtthis guy knows how to work a
race boat.
You could really tell.
You can tell a lot aboutwatching the guys in the
Limiteds.
But as I was discussing with myson Brian yesterday the
difference, when you get to anUnlimited, you have to be an
expert pilot.
You have to really be able tokeep the boat off the water,
(23:21):
don't set it down too hard whenit does come down and the guys
that are going fast now are theones that are really good at
that.
In most of the limiteds youhave a power to weight ratio
where you can mash the gas andsteer pretty much, you know.
So, that was something that Ilearned that from Dave Vilwock,
because I asked him what's thedifference between the really
(23:42):
good drivers?
And he said well, watch a guywhen he gets loose, does he set
it down gently or does he panicand hit the pedal and get it
back on the water?
Because when you land hard youlose time, you lose a little bit
of momentum.
So I learned to watch you watchMark.
Oh, I said Mark Tate, you watch.
So I learned to watch you watch.
Um, you watch Mark.
Uh, I would have said Mark Tateand you watch Andrew Tate fly a
boat and uh, it's just like.
(24:03):
It's like an airplane close tothe water.
Yeah, no, no friction at all.
Yeah, the fast guys are alldoing that now.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
All the people that you see at the top of the
qualifying ladder.
It's an art form to watch themfloat the boats and keep them on
the water.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Something we said reminded me of the race that I
went to with Bill O'Mara, whereI sat there and didn't say
anything.
Yeah, I was asked years laterto give a talk at the museum to
a group of the guys that hangaround there and I couldn't
think of what the heck to talkabout.
So I sat on the stool with myclipboard and I said here's what
we're going to do.
I have a lousy memory, but Ihave a bunch of videos in my
(24:47):
head.
I'm going to describe a videoto you and you tell me when.
It was Okay.
So I said okay, I'm sitting byBill O'Mara.
One of the Starrett brothers isgoing up the back stretch in a
Notre Dame and he noses it in.
Somebody in the crowdimmediately hollers 1971 or
whatever it was you know whenthe Notre Dame.
(25:07):
So we did that for 45 minutes.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
So, okay, one year I played tennis with Bill Muncy in
uh Tempe, arizona.
It was the first year we racedat Firebird and somebody else
shouted the year.
So I wrote down all the yearsand now I have this, this whole
long list of videos and I hadtimestamps on them Cause those
guys all knew all the dates thatI couldn't remember.
That's fun.
(25:34):
Bill Muncy was a pretty goodtennis player, by the way, was
he?
Was he?
I think I beat him, but it wasa friendly match and we didn't.
Okay, I don't think we keptscore that close.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
All right.
Well, was there anyone that yougot on the microphone?
That was just hard to get themto come out of their shell and
make an interesting interview.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Sure, probably a lot of them over the years, and
maybe that's why I haveforgotten all of them.
Like I said, when the youngguns all came into the sport at
once, most of them were prettytight-lipped yeah, not much to
say, yeah.
And those are the kids that aremen now and they're still
racing and they're greatspokesmen.
So they've really developedthat ability.
(26:18):
Yeah, yeah, they're stillracing and they're they're great
spokesmen, so they've reallydeveloped that ability.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's been fun to watch them grow and
mature, as as behind themicrophones, over the years.
Like you said, it's fun towatch.
Well, with the evolution of thesport, I mean, you've seen so
many different things happenwith hydropon racing so many
different designs, sponsorships,people come and go.
Do you have a golden year ofracing that you can think back
(26:43):
to?
Let's say, maybe this was thepeak of unlimited hydroplane
racing and maybe not from theracing standpoint, but just from
the amount of interest.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
It's probably a group of years and certainly Bernie
would still be here.
Yeah, because the sport wasjust a little bigger and shinier
back then.
Yeah, it was interesting.
You know, I was around throughso many different management
systems, right Started with DonJones and and Buddy Byers and,
(27:13):
uh, ken Muscatel filled in for awhile and then you had the the
Bill Doner era.
Well, bill was, bill was apromoter and he had a lot of the
faults that promoters have, butboy, he made things happen,
really dynamic guy, and therewas a lot of energy Referees.
I was announcing I was on thebeach in Las Vegas on Lake Mead
(27:40):
man.
Bill Newton was the referee,and those were back in the days
when you'd see the refereehaving dinner with Bernie you
know, and all the other owners.
Well, wait a minute, what'sgoing on here?
I remember a heat where I wasstanding on the ground and
beside me there was a littlesingle wide trailer and the
(28:00):
referee was Lee Shaneth and hewas up on top of the trailer.
And here come the boats and theBudweiser is about a rooster
tail ahead of everybody andeverybody else is on time Right,
so he's clear down there.
When the flag drops and theyrun the heat, nobody says
anything.
And I said was that a legalstart?
(28:21):
And Lee Shana said do you havea problem with that?
I said no, sir, that was agreat start.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Oh man, back in the day, back in the day, yes.
Well, just with your knowledgeof the sport, do you think we'll
see a resurgence with the sportcome, come back in some form of
popularity?
I mean, there's some greatthings happening with the sport
now.
Like you said, your son has youknow the drones.
Footage has come in andstreaming has uh been a good uh
(28:56):
kick for the sport.
But do you think we'll ever seethe circuit grow again, have
more races and have more teams?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I think the new stuff that's going on, with new
owners like the Tri-Citiespeople, daryl and the Apollo
folks, I think there's enoughstrength there to keep it alive.
It's hard for me to explain whyit can never be what it was,
because nothing is what it was.
(29:26):
Okay.
My dad was a good example.
He was a mechanic and he lovedanything that you could put a
motor in.
Well, but back then how manythings were being raced Cars and
uh, and now there aresnowmobiles and lawnmowers and
motor sports were huge.
(29:47):
It wasn't just boat racing, itwas any motor sport, anything
with a motor in it.
That's long gone.
You know the the, the thrill ofuh, of watching motorports like
Indy 500 and NASCAR.
Both have struggles financiallyand with sponsorship.
(30:07):
So the answer is no.
It can't go back and be what itwas.
But that doesn't mean it can'tbe good.
Can't be good.
The sport has a huge drawback inthat the arena is so big and so
expensive to set up and run andthere's so many regulations and
(30:28):
all that stuff.
Like Dave Villewalk oncepointed out, he said you know,
we're the one sport that doesn'task you to build us a new
stadium, but if you are in thechamber of commerce in uh, sioux
falls, south dakota, and youdecide you want to put on a race
.
The financial obligation isjust huge and my friends in in
(30:49):
cordelaine the battles that theywent through with um permits
and all that stuff.
Most people would no, it's notworth it.
Yeah, I just can't put thatmuch time and energy and legal
fees into it.
Some of my contacts here arestill paying some of the bills
or making sure everybody getspaid from 2013.
(31:09):
Wow, so that makes it reallyreally tough.
And then look at races likeDetroit.
How can Detroit not be puttingon a race In that city?
You can't find a sponsor bigenough to get the boats back on
the Detroit River when thefacility is completely there.
Yeah, all you got to do is putthe buoys in the water and line
(31:29):
the boats up in the pit area.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a tough one yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
It's the tough one.
Yeah, it's sad to see the sportnot return to some areas, like
you said.
Like Detroit, it has such a bighistory and you would hope that
they could.
It'd be as simple as droppingthe buoys in, but there's so
much that goes to it.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Exactly, the sport started out many, many years ago
as rich guys with fast boats.
You know, I'll have Clara makea picnic and I'll meet you over
at the beach and we'll race ourboats, and that's the way
Unlimited was born, way backthen.
Well, in many ways it's abigger version of that now.
You know, it's some guys thatcan afford to race these big
(32:19):
boats and it's up to otherpeople to put the races on.
And it's hard to do as far asthe finances and the manpower
and all that stuff.
The boat count, which for awhile was looking scary, has
come back a little bit.
People keep a couple ofsurprises.
People with boats that hadn'trun for a while now say they're
going to run them.
Yeah, and you have.
You know, um, daryl Strongcoming along when he did was
(32:44):
great for the boat, for thesport, and I don't know where it
would be without him.
It would probably be around,but it wouldn't have as many
boats, right, right.
And there's a good example ofhow long I've been gone.
I have never met Daryl Strong.
Oh, really, yeah, wow, Icertainly like to.
I certainly respect him forwhat he's done.
And then the new owners, theApollo people same thing there.
(33:11):
You know you asked me aboutannouncers.
Yes, and we would be remiss ifI didn't mention Brad Luce.
Yes, please do.
If Brad hadn't come along whenhe did, I don't know what the
sport would be doing for aplay-by-play guy.
Right, brad is remarkable.
He has a great memory.
He was never in radio, he was ahydro fan and he had a friend
(33:34):
in the Tri-Cities who said well,you know, the boats do some
interviews for me, and that'show he started and he has
developed the announcer side.
If anything, he's never askedme for advice.
By the way, if anything, Iwould say you need to develop an
excitement voice that is not ascream.
Okay, yeah, yeah, but but andJeff Ehler, you got to love Jeff
(33:56):
Ehler.
Okay, yeah, yeah, but but andJeff Aylor, you got to love Jeff
.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Aylor.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Right, jeff.
Jeff has a problem because hesounds like he's from where he's
from, so he's he's kind oflimited geographically, but in a
sport, you know, we know himand love him, so it's fine.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Yeah, it's great when they come, come in and they
have such a knowledge of thesport that it takes it to
another level memories like Inever had.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, but see, I started out doing television so
my delivery was developed for uh, network tv.
So it is by nature a littledifferent than the guys that on
a pa system you can pretty muchsay what you want any way you,
but when your audience is goingto be national, it's a little
(34:41):
different deal.
So that was where I came up.
That's why I have, hopefully, alittle more professional
delivery.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Well, just think, like I've said before, thinking
back on the voices of the sports, I think yours is iconic, Just
how much you've given to thesport and broadcasting.
Like I've said before, thinkingback on the voices of the
sports, I think yours is iconic,Just how much you've given to
the sport and broadcasting andit just it, uh, it enhanced the
races having you there.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Well, you know, that was my goal.
Um, if people ask me, um,people ask me, what exactly were
you trying to do all thoseyears?
And I can honestly say whetherI was announcing the PA system
or doing television or radio, orrunning the PR thing, which I
did for six years In fact, if Iwas a PR director three
different times.
The last time was, uh, at thestart of the Doha races,
(35:34):
speaking of race sites that onewas really something.
Yeah.
Speaking of race sites, thatone was really something.
Yeah, but my goal was to makethis sport look and sound as big
and as good as it possiblycould and I think if you have
that in mind, it'll really steeryou the direction you want to
go with your things you say andthe things you do.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, well, you definitely did that.
You put your touch on the sport.
And before you go, do you haveany other crazy stories you'd
like to share with us?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
You know, this afternoon I'll have many more
memories pop up.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Why didn't I tell him about that?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
But, I think I've taken enough of your time.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
That that was part three, theend of my interview with steve
montgomery.
Had a great time going downnostalgic lane with steve and I
could spend hours and hoursdoing that.
So I hope none of my guests gettoo annoyed with all of that.
But I could go on for hours onend talking about unlimited
(36:35):
hydroplanes.
But but I want to thank SteveMontgomery once again for his
time with this interview.
So much fun, but I'm lookingforward to the next one.
But until then, check us outonline.
Our website is roostertaltalkcom.
We're on social media Facebook,instagram.
And if you haven't heard ofRooster Tail Talk Plus, it's our
(36:57):
subscription service where youcan choose your entry level for
a monthly fee.
You get early access to all newepisodes.
You get extra content on thewebsite.
We have pictures, articles.
I'm gonna be throwing up someother interviews and oddities up
there around the sport ofhydrofin racing as well.
As every member of RoostertailTalk Plus will get a 10-card
(37:21):
trading set that I made for thisyear called Hydro Racing Kids.
It's a fun take on the oldGarbage Pail Kids back in the
80s 90s that some of us used tocollect, and it's been a while
since there's been trading cardsfor the hydroplanes, so I
thought it'd be a fun additionfor the podcast.
Again, these aren't for sale,these are only for Roostertail
(37:45):
Talk Plus members.
Big shout out to Andrew Tate.
Big win over there in Madison,indiana, winning the 75th annual
Madison Regatta.
Fun to see him in the winner'scircle again and we'll see what
can happen when they come out tothe west coast.
Tri-city is just a few weeksaway.
Got some fast boats, a couplenew teams on the circuit.
It's going to be fun.
So until then, I hope to seeyou at the races.
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