Jeff Morrow: 50 years of Columbia River hydroplane racing memories

I have a running joke with my two adult daughters. It has gone on for years.

I always complain about the boat races coming up, about spending a weekend down in Lampson Pits covering the event.

But they see right through it. The call me on it, saying, “Dad, you love this.”

I smile and walk away.

Long-time Tri-Citians know of their neighbors who make sure they leave town so they won’t be around the madness. I was one of those once.

But then I embraced it.

The annual hydroplane races are the single largest community event each year in the Tri-Cities, and it’s estimated that out-of-towners bring in roughly $3 million in revenue.

I may be biased, but this race is the best-run on the H1 Unlimited circuit. It’s a well-oiled machine that takes numerous volunteers hours upon hours to make it happen.

This is an estimate: But I think I’ve attended the races 12 times as a fan — including the 1966 opener. My dad took us to the Pasco side near the Moore Mansion. I was 5. It was hot. We left after two races, and I never came back until my Little League coach and his wife took me in 1974.

When I started working at the Herald, my first race was in 1986.

I have been at every one of them since then — except the 2016 event, which I wanted to stay away because I knew I would want to be down there all weekend if I went. I golfed 72 holes over two days at Wildhorse in Pendleton instead with a friend.

Altogether, that was 37 years covering the races for the Herald. This year, with the Apollo Gold Cup, will be 38. And overall, I’ve been down at the river for 50 of these events.

I have a lot of memories.

As a fan, I remember my college days fondly. The Pasco side was always a great gathering place for a reunion to see kids you knew from your school as well as others. Always fun to reconnect. Don’t know if that’s still the case,

Before I was with the Herald, I worked for Tri-City Beverage (which distributed Anheuser Busch products) in the early 1980s. We would meet at the warehouse in the morning and then caravan into a reserved spot next to the pits, with a police escort. TWe were teated like kings, although we had nothing to do with the Miss Budweiser team.

Sitting in the stands as a 13-year-old in 1974, and raging along with the rest of the crowd, as Bill Muncey came out of the pits just before the final. Muncey was the alternate in the final. But he saw a boat temporary go dead and took off from the docks. That boat restarted, and we ended up having a seven-boat final. Even a big course like Tri-Cities has its limits.

Many highlights

• Getting to sit in Bernie Little’s incredible bus and interviewing as a young reporter.
• Seeing Miss Budweiser winning one year (a lot of those), and then looking for the retired columnist Hec Hancock after the race. Couldn’t find him, until I looked at the Bud team diving in on a garbage can full of beer to celebrate. There was Hec right in the middle.
• Getting to be one of the few people to ride in Mark Evans’ four-seater around the course. Speaking of Evans, admiring his photo book of all of the photos he took while driving the boat.
• Dave Villwock. People love him or hate him. I’ve always thought he was great. One year I wrote a story in which I was a prospective owner with an imaginary $1 million budget to build a boat (OK, maybe it was around 2004). I offered drivers, crew chiefs, and owners anonymity to give me their choices for boat builder, team manager, crew chief, prop specialist, etc. Villwock had four spots: driver, prop specialist, crew chief and team manager. People respected him.
• Getting to talk to J. Michael Kelly every year about his wrestling sons.
• Finally getting invited to the late Niles Mayfield’s Saturday night daiquiri party. I was finally hanging with the cool people.
• Walking up and down the Kennewick shoreline between races to do Jeff’s Excellent Adventures. It was either with Paul T. Erickson or Bob Brawdy, both excellent photographers, who went with me. Then the photos would be posted online. Brawdy got me sitting in a wagon that a 5-year-old girl was pulling, along with her mother. The girl was not too happy. Don’t blame her. I was heavy. Erickson asked one of his cop friends to arrest me for a photo. Man, that hurt.

• I love seeing the Raneys, Scott and Shannon, every year. I lament with Shannon about her Boston Bruins, who have somehow once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory each year.
• Watching Mitch Evans win with a piston boat in 1989, a year that was dominated with turbines, with U-3 Cooper’s Express owners Ed Cooper Sr., and Ed Cooper Jr., hugging and getting congratulations from every person in the pits. Wasn’t a dry eye around.

The best of them belong to the people I’ve met down there over the years. We may only see each other once a year (maybe twice if they come here for spring training). But it’s like we pick up a conversation from the previous year. Like nothing ever happened.

My daughters were right about me.

I do love this.

Race memories

With this being the 60th running of an unlimited hydroplane event on the Columbia River, all of the races can turn into a blur.

The original intent of what I wanted to write was to pick out the 10 races that stood out — whether it was the actual racing on the water, or the events surrounding those races.

I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t keep it to 10 anyway. I had to choose 12.

Here they are:

1966 — The first race. Miss Budweiser and driver Bill Brow won it. It was also Bernie Little’s first unlimited victory as an owner, and he always had a soft spot for the Tri-Cities because of that. Every Sunday morning before the races, he would walk from his motor home down to the docks, reach down and scoop up some Columbia River water. He would kiss it for good luck. This race was successful, which is why there have been many more.

1969 — Dean Chenoweth drove the Myr’s Special to victory on this day, which was July 20, 1969. But what everyone still talks about was it was the day that Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon. The radio broadcast was piped throughout the park on the PA system.

1971 — Some of you may remember the movie Madison, in which driver Jim McCormick drove the Madison to a Gold Cup victory in 1971. The race was hosted by the fans in Madison, Ind. Great story. What’s cooler is that a few weeks later, McCormick came to the Tri-Cities and won this race too. So it wasn’t a fluke.

1974 — I saw this one. Bill Muncey put his Atlas Van Lines into the final when he was supposed to be sitting at the dock. He saw a boat go dead and headed out onto the course. Only the driver got that dead boat going again. It became a seven-boat final, and was eventually won by George Henley in the Pay N Pak.

1980 — I missed this one. But every one of my friends still talk about it. On Sunday morning before the races started, rookie driver John Walters took the Pay N Pak around the course. Suddenly, the boat lifted off and did a tremendous flip through the air before crash landing. Walters survived some serious injuries. Bill Muncey won the race in the Atlas Van Lines.

1982 — Dean Chenoweth died in Saturday qualifying when his Miss Budweiser flipped in qualifying. It cast a pall on the event. Tom D’Eath in the Squire Shop would win. But something good would eventually become of Chenoweth’s passing, as Bernie Little would start to make a push for the enclosed capsule that has saved numerous drivers’ lives since.

1987 — Race weekend as usual, until Sunday, when we heard reports of riots in Pasco late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. Young people were throwing rocks at police and stores on Court Street. It was the end of the Wild West party days. The Water Follies board would hire stronger security, and limit the drinking of alcohol in beer gardens. Partiers were of course displeased. But the decision brought back families.

1989 — Mentioned this one above. Mitch Evans in the Cooper’s Express, a piston-powered boat, would outlast everyone else —many who were faster — for the Columbia Cup crown. The Cooper team would go on down the road and win other races, but this was a major upset at the time.

1997 — The crash didn’t look like much at first. But Dave Villwock almost lost his life when his Miss Budweiser flipped coming out of the west end turn. Mark Evans in the PICO American Dream would win. Villwock, who lost part of his right hand, was done for the season. But he would come back the next season and win the Columbia Cup.

2006 — Another Villwock highlight. It’s called the flip and win. Only the second time it happened back then. Early in the prelims, Villwock flipped the Ellstrom E-Lam Plus going up the Pasco side of the river. It landed right-side up. Villwock got out of the cockpit, looked at the damage — and like Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High — said “I can fix it.” Villwock radioed back to the team to start getting all the spare parts out of the truck. The team got back into the final, and won.

2012 — Usually, a race is close when someone beats another by 30 feet, or a rooster tail. This year, though, it was incredibly close in the final. Jimmy Shane, in the U-5 Graham Trucking, and J. Michael Kelly in the U-37 Miss Beacon Plumbing, went neck and neck for almost the entire final. Kelly handled the turns better than Shane. But Shane had the best straightaway speed. It came down to basically 5 feet at the finish line, with Shane victorious. Long-time fans called it the closest final ever. Kelly said if the finish line was 5 feet closer, he would have won.

2016 — Everyone left the park thinking that Jimmy Shane in the HomeStreet Bank had won the final. But things were afoot in the H1 officials trailer. Shane had been called for an infraction during the final when he collided with Jean Theoret in the U-16 Miss Elam coming out of the east turn. U-16 owner Erick Ellstrom argued that Theoret had the lead in Lane 2, and Shane in Lane 1 should be penalized for coming out. That’s what happened. J. Michael Kelly would be declared the winner in the Graham Trucking. But the HomeStreet team appealed, and five months later the American Power Boat Association agreed with HomeStreet — giving them the win in January.