These rules are for you, Miss Bud
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, August 2, 2001
By John Sleeper
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – Depending on your perspective, Dave Villwock is either a poster boy for those who take one for the team or a wealthy slumlord who’s deservedly getting a good, long look at how the rest of us live.
For the long-term health of a sport teetering on extinction, Villwock and the dominant, well-heeled Miss Budweiser have been toiling on rules specifically designed to slow them down, compliments of new Budweiser Unlimited Hydroplane Series commissioner Gary Garbrecht.
The object: Save the sport through parity, which has been missing, as seen in the 22 victories in the 28 races the Miss Bud won up to the beginning of this season.
“It’s been very difficult for us, mentally, to take all the changes,” Villwock said. “We’re being placed in tough positions when other people weren’t. It’s very difficult from a competitor’s point of view, but it has gotten better racing. Maybe by next year, we’ll come up with a little better method.”
Drastic circumstances require desperate measures. The unlimited hydroplane racing tour is down to six races, the fewest since 1962. Many assert that the Bud’s overwhelming financial advantage is killing the sport. Few have come up with answers, as evidenced by the fact that Garbrecht is the sport’s fourth commissioner in three years.
Thus, Garbrecht’s rules.
The restrictions focus mainly on fuel consumption and lane assignments.
A turbine engine runs faster as it is pumped with more fuel. Cut down on fuel consumption and the engine has less horsepower.
To slow the Bud down last week in Tri-Cities, Garbrecht required the Bud to cut its consumption to 3.85 gallons a minute. As winner of the previous race, Mike Hanson’s U-9 Skyway Park Bowl &Casino boat was limited to 4.2 gallons. The rest of the field could use 4.3 gallons per minute.
Garbrecht alone decides how much fuel consumption the Bud will have, race by race.
Garbrecht also picks lane assignments before each heat, formerly determined by the racers themselves moments before the races started.
This year, Garbrecht may determine lanes based on qualifying speed or points from previous heats or any other means. And sometimes the means change from heat to heat.
“We don’t know what that (fuel) number’s going to be until just before qualifying,” Villwock said. “The lanes are hard to adjust for, too. If we don’t know which lanes we’re going to be in, that takes a setup adjustment. We have to try to catch up. The crew has to stay within the fuel limits and they have to make the setups. If they change us from the inside to the outside, it takes a completely different setup.”
Said Hanson: “In the big picture, it is real good. We’ve had some good, close racing. You have, potentially, eight teams capable of winning a boat race. We haven’t had that in a number of years. There’s got to be a surprise at the end of the day. It’s not a foregone conclusion that the red boat is going to win.”
On the surface, it’s working. The tour has had four different victors in its four races this season, going into this weekend’s General Motors Cup at Seafair. Then, too, is the shrinking gap in qualifying speeds.
Suddenly, it’s a race again.
“I think we’re turning it around, and we’re already seeing it,” Garbrecht said. “We want the best race we can possibly have for the fans, because the fans are what’s going to determine the sport’s future.”
Maybe so, but will fans buy into a sport that’s penalizing excellence? Would golf fans flock to tournaments if the PGA yanked Tiger Woods’ driver? And why can’t other teams get to the Bud’s level instead of the Bud being roped in so severely?
The answer: money’s influence. The wealthy Budweiser team has slanted the playing field so that Garbrecht had to slant it back, at least for now.
“We’d love to be where the Budweiser is,” said Terry Troxell, driver of the Miss Znetix II. “The problem is that no one else has the money to do it. There’s not the sponsorship for it. Hopefully, that will change soon.”
