Bothell racer to become first Black unlimited hydro driver

SEATTLE — Brent Hall’s dream is finally about to come true.

Hall has been trying for years to land a seat in an unlimited hydroplane, which would make him the first Black driver to qualify in an unlimited.

He came close in 2023, as he was one lap away from qualifying in the 440 Bucket List Racing.

H1 Unlimited Hydroplane Racing Series announced Tuesday that Hall will drive for a revamped team, U-37 Legacy Racing, the renamed Schumacher Racing team.

“The name decals came in the mail, and we’re going to slap those on real quick,” said Hall, referring to the stickers that go outside the boat’s cockpit.

Schumacher Racing last competed in 2014 in Qatar as the U-21 Miss Seattle. Billy Schumacher, known as Billy the Kid when he was driving hydros to Gold Cups and national championships, died last year. He ran the team with his wife, Jane Suzick. She and Crystal Weiding will co-own the team, forming the only all-female ownership team in unlimited hydroplane racing.

Jeff Weiding, who has a background in sprint-car racing, is the team principal and is working on staffing up the team, including finding a crew chief. He was a crew chief for Schumacher Racing, so he knows the boat well.

There’s plenty of work to do for a boat that’s been in storage for a decade. The team will need to find a shop to call home, which is planned to be around Puget Sound, and get to work on the gear. Finding a sponsor is high on the list. Hall said his phone has been blowing up all day with people interested.

Hall was a lap short at Seafair in 2023 because he was driving a boat not really competitive in unlimited hydroplane racing. It’s a modified Grand Prix boat that is smaller and less powerful than the unlimiteds. A balky gear box, which proved stubbornly hard to fix, ended Hall’s run in it.

The 440 didn’t race in 2024 as Bucket List Racing ditched its two-boat team in favor of just racing the U-40 Flav-R-Pac, which finished third in the seasonlong points race.

For a rookie driver to qualify to race in the unlimited class, they need 15 laps and 10 of them need to be over 130 mph. Hall has nine laps over 130 mph. He said he had one lap that was 129.8 mph in 2023.

“I’m one of those people who believes if it takes a lot of work, it means something,” Hall said. “We really had to earn it.”

Hall, who lives in Bothell, will be getting a much more competitive boat this time as the U-37 has four race wins, including a Gold Cup win.

Hall will have to start over in terms of qualifying, but it should be much easier this time around, and it’s likely Hall will quickly knock it out in preseason testing in June in the Tri-Cities.

Hall, who runs call centers for Premera Blue Cross, grew up on Lake Washington. He was inspired by Harold Mills, who became the first Black driver to race at Seafair in 2004 when he was in the unlimited lights class. Hall was part of his crew.

He started racing boats in 2007 and has raced in many classes. In 2022, he second in the nation in the F500 Tunnel Hull class, finishing behind J. Michael Kelly, the reigning Seafair champ.

Getting the U-37 back on the water will be a boon to a sport that has struggled with boat counts in recent years, especially coming out of the pandemic. There were eight boats racing at Seafair last summer, up from five in 2022.

Last year, Wiggins Racing returned to racing after its rebuild that started after a crash in the 2018 Seafair final was complete. Bert Henderson, who hasn’t driven the U-7 Spirit of Detroit, owned by Dave Bartush, at a race since before the pandemic, told Hydro News last month his goal is to race the boat in 2025.

And Hall, 55, hopes to be a boon for the sport as well. He hopes his story and his camera-ready personality will be a draw. Of course, he doesn’t want his story to be the only thing that’s a draw.

Mills’ voice always rings in his head when he’s talking about race and racing: “It’s not just because Brent’s a Black driver, he’s a good driver who happens to be Black,” is what Hall hears.

“If I’m the only one, we didn’t do this right.”