Villwock played game of poker to win 11th Gold Cup. ‘Don’t count the old man out.’

Dave Villwock had a message for his opponents after last week’s Gold Cup victory — a record-tying 11th win, putting him even with Chip Hanauer.

“Don’t let the old man in,” the 71-year-old veteran driver of the U-27 Miss Apollo told the crowd at the victory stand. “Don’t count the old man out.”

Villwock didn’t have the fastest boat in the fleet last weekend on the Columbia River.

But he’s a veteran driver who has pretty much experienced every scenario in his career.

Career victory No. 68 didn’t come easy.

“I got a little lucky,” he admitted this week, getting ready for this coming weekend’s Apollo Seafair Cup in Seattle. “You try to create a scenario. Make (the other drivers) have knee-jerk decisions.”

That’s what happened last Sunday in the Tri-Cities.

Three drivers and their boats — Corey Peabody in the U-8 Miss Beacon Plumbing, J. Michael Kelly in the U-8 Miss Beacon Electric, and Gunnar O’Farrell in the U-21 Spirit of America — jumped the gun at the start.

That left Villwock, Jamie Nilsen in the U-11 FLAV-R-PAC, and Andrew Tate — who was in the U-91 Goodman Real Estate way back as the trailer boat — all legal at the start.

Villwock looked at the race as a poker game.

“Part of this whole Gold Cup thing, everybody is pretty psyched up for it,” said Villwock. “I left the pits at 3 minutes, and I figured everybody would be asking ‘Where’s Dave?’ There’s a bit of a psychology involved, and I was not showing much of a hand.”

Villwock said he knew both Peabody and Kelly race in a lot of smaller-boat limited races. A lot of times in those races, he said, drivers tend to jump the gun at the start trying to get a good lead.

The only thing Villwock felt he could do was bluff his way at the start.

“J. Michael and Corey were predisposed with going with the field,” said Villwock. “I started to pick things up at the top of the course, and Corey picked up on the gas. So did J. Michael. They go, I stepped off of the gas. They reacted by speeding up.

“Now, it didn’t hurt that Gunnar took off (in Lane 5). I adjusted early.”

Villwock already figured he’d be in Lane 4.

Now, it wasn’t much longer after the start that Villwock had lost his radio headset — it became unplugged. And It wasn’t until he got back to the dock that he knew he’d won Gold Cup No. 11.

“I knew at the starting line there should have been a number of people over early,” he said. “I was pretty sure we’d done five laps when I saw everyone head back to the pits. I got out of the boat and asked the team ‘What Happened?’”

It was Villwock’s first unlimited victory in 13 years. In recent years, Villwock has had a rough go, flipping a few boats. But last weekend, he was Gold.

“It was good for the haters. I was like, rationalize this, buddy,” he said. “You just try to pick something out that you’re going to use.”

Villwock learned that strategy from standout Chip Hanauer, when he was the crew chief for Hanauer and Circus Circus.

Before finals, the two of them, with John Rice, would sit in the trailer and figure out what each opponent would do during the final.

Villwock will be inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame in Daytona Beach next March. Usually, when someone gets inducted into that prestigious hall, they’re normally done winning in racing. Not Villwock.

All that aside, Villwock was happy to give Kennewick’s Bruce Ratchford his first Gold Cup win, and his second unlimited victory in as many tries.

“It was great for Bruce, his family, and all of the Apollo employees here right at home,” said Villwock.

Ratchford was still ecstatic a few days after the race, as his teams prepare for Seafair.

“We didn’t tear the boats up going into Seattle,” said Ratchford. “I want everyone to know that I appreciate them.”

But he was excited for Villwock.

“I hear everyone say ‘He’s getting too old, too slow.’ No, he’s not,” said Ratchford. “Sure, he doesn’t have the reflexes of a 35-year-old. But he can still do it.”

And Ratchford is now 2-for-2 in winning boat races. What a nice way to start an owner’s career.

“I’m just doing my best job of putting this team together,” said Ratchford.

Seafair

Now the bad news for Ratchford’s team: they’ve lost the lead in the H1 Unlimited national high points race.

Tate in the U-91 had the lead going into Tri-Cities.

Now the two Strong Racing teams — Peabody in the U-9, and Kelly in the U-8 — are ranked 1-2 in the standings.

Here are the standings: 1, U-9 and Peabody, 2,809 points; 2, U-8 and Kelly, 2,486; 3, U-91 and Tate, 2,375; 4, U-27 and Villwock, 2,319; 5, U-11 and Nilsen, 2,275; 6, U-21 and O’Farrell, 1,175; 7, U-12 Graham Trucking and Jeff Bernard, 490.

And here’s the weekend schedule at Seafair’s Apollo Mechanical Cup:

Saturday — 8:45 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., qualifying; 11:25 a.m., Heat 1A; 11:40, Heat 1B; 2:40 p.m., Heat 2A; 2:55, Heat 2B.

Sunday — 11:10 a.m., Heat 3A; 11:25, Heat 3B; 2:50 p.m., Apollo Mechanical Cup final.

Jeff Morrow is former sports editor for the Tri-City Herald.

This story was originally published August 2, 2025 at 9:29 AM.