By CHRIS CHANCELLOR
Port Orchard Independent
A conversation with Unlimited Hydroplane racer Dave Villwock is about as diverse as a buffet.
He uses a lot of metaphors to compare his craft to the accomplishments of others. On Tuesday, the 1972 South Kitsap High School graduate and Auburn resident drew from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” to talk about some of the things his younger competitors do wrong.
“One thing you never do — at least in a military setting — is take a hill you can’t hold,” Villwock said. “A guy runs to the inside and doesn’t have the boat speed to defend it. He usually gets a worse result than he would have if he picked a place he could defend. A lot of it’s strategy to be played.”
Faulty planning has not been an issue for 57-year-old Villwock, who enters Sunday’s race at Seafair as the circuit’s winningest driver. He earned that distinction July 10 with his 63rd career victory, passing Bill Muncey, who was killed at 52 in a blow-over crash during the Thunder on the Ohio race in 1981.
For 10 years, dating back to Villwock’s time behind the wheel of the Miss Budweiser, there’s been a lot of talk about his pursuit of the record.
He’d prefer not to talk about it.
“When the media surrounding the race was always (discussing) the record and what I was doing, that probably was not the best thing for the sport,” Villwock said. “Now we can focus on the sport again.”
Though Villwock has driven for his U-96 Spirit of Qatar team since crew chief Erick Ellstrom fired driver J.W. Myers for crashing his boat during the 2005 Gold Cup, he has not won the National High Points title since ’07. But he enters Seafair first in those standings, having garnered 4,300 points, with two races remaining in San Diego and Doha, Qatar. U-5 driver Jeff Bernard enters the race in second place with 3,568 points.
Despite that, Villwock said he is not that concerned with the National High Points standings. He attributed his inability to win it in recent years to poor luck, noting some crashes he said others caused and officiating decisions that went against him. Villwock said U-1 Oh Boy! Oberto driver Steve David, who has won that title the last three seasons, has suffered a similar fate this year.
“No matter what we did, something always seemed to be stacked against us,” Villwock said.
He has not been quite as successful under Ellstrom as he was for the late Bernie Little, former owner of the Miss Budweiser. After his boat blew over and landed on its back in the first turn of the final in 1997 in the Tri-Cities — an accident that nearly killed him and resulted in the loss of his right pinky and ring fingers — he became the sport’s most dominant racer. He won the national championship every year from 1998 to 2004, placing first at Seafair six times. Bud also won 22 of 28 races at one point with Villwock.
While rivals have never questioned Villwock’s knowledge of hydroplanes — he has worked on them since he was a boy riding the foot ferry to Bremerton to help his uncle, Al Villwock, with his 136 hydroplane — some competitors have dismissed his success as more of a byproduct of superior resources than his competition.
Ken Muscatel, who drives the U-25 Superior Racing and has competed on the Unlimited Hydroplane circuit since 1991, disagrees with that sentiment.
“Dave is winning because Dave is great,” he said. “He’s a great driver and he deserves everything he’s got. I’m very proud of him.”
But Muscatel said Villwock will have to be better in Seattle than on Sunday in the Tri-Cities, where he trailed for half the race before passing David to win the Columbia Cup.
“He’s got a super speedway boat,” he said. “This is a smaller track, and he can’t afford to let what happened in the Tri-Cities happen here. Otherwise, he’ll lose the race.”
Villwock begs to differ.
“We’ll still be able to make up time,” he said. “We really worked on the boat ride, so we were able to get it through rough water. Everybody has the same stuff, so it’s a question of how you can adjust it, and how quickly you can adjust it.”
In addition to a $25,000 winner purse — the first time a reward has been offered since 1999 — according to Muscatel, boats no longer are assigned lanes based on qualifying times. They now fight for the inside lane and start trolling at 5 mph before the race, parked in their lanes.
“It’s not going to be predetermined by who’s got the fastest boat,” Muscatel said. “It’s fight, fight, fight all the way. I know the driver likes it.”
Except Villwock.
“I’m not a big fan of the start,” he said. “If we were going to run Daytona with 42 cars, we would put a clock up and tell them, ‘Just go get your lane.’ You never, ever would get a decent start there, so they learned a way to do it orderly.”
Difficulty starting races is just another challenge for Villwock, one that he has routinely overcome as he has joined Muncey and Chip Hanauer “as sort of the Mount Rushmore of this sport” after winning Seafair for a record 10th time in 2009.
Albert Lee Cup at Seafair
At Stan Sayres Pits on Lake Washington
Friday
8:30 a.m.: Gates open
8:30 a.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane testing session
9:50 a.m.: Unlimited Hydroplane testing session
12:30 p.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane driver autograph session
1 p.m.: Unlimited Hydroplane driver autograph session
1:35 p.m.: U.S. Navy Blue Angels practice
2:35 p.m.: Vintage hydroplane qualifying session
2:45 p.m.: Unlimited Hydroplane qualifying session
5:25 p.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane qualifying session
Saturday
8:30 a.m.: Gates open
8:30 a.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane testing session
9:30 a.m.: Unlimited Hydroplane testing session
11:05 a.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane Heat 1A
11:20 a.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane Heat 1B
11:30 a.m.: Vintage hydroplanes
12:30 p.m.: Unlimited Hydroplane driver autograph session
1 p.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane driver autograph session
1:35 p.m.: U.S. Navy Blue Angels
2:50 p.m.: Vintage hydroplanes
3:05 p.m.: Unlimited Hydroplanes Heat 1A
3:25 p.m.: Unlimited Hydroplanes Heat 1B
4:45 p.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane Heat 2A
5 p.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane Heat 2B
5:15 p.m.: Vintage hydroplanes
Sunday
7:30 a.m.: Gates open
8:30 a.m.: Unlimited Hydroplane testing session
9:20 a.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane testing session
10 a.m.: Opening ceremonies
10:25 a.m.: Vintage hydroplanes
10:40 a.m.: Unlimited Hydroplanes Heat 2A
11 a.m.: Unlimited Hydroplanes Heat 2B
Noon: Unlimited Hydroplanes Heat 3A
12:20 p.m.: Unlimited Hydroplanes Heat 3B
12:35 p.m.: Vintage hydroplanes
3 p.m.: Unlimited Hydroplane provisional heat
4:20 p.m.: Unlimited Lights Hydroplane final
4:40 p.m.: Unlimited Hydroplane final
5:15 p.m.: Awards presentation
