Miss Budweiser running its final races
The Miss Budweiser has stirred up almost as much controversy as victory in more than four decades storming through the unlimited hydroplane racing circuit, a journey that is about to come to an end.
So why should figuring out the boat's legacy be any different?
As the Bud prepares for its final laps in Seattle this weekend, the debate rages on.
Has the Bud simply been dominating — winning 23 national titles in its 41 full seasons?
Or has it instead been domineering, lording over the circuit with its money and its influence to get its way at whatever cost to the good of the sport?
The real answer, as with many great dynasties (think New York Yankees, a comparison often made in the pits), may be a combination of each.
"They've been both the best and worst things you could have," said Ken Muscatel, owner and driver of the U-25 as well as a lifelong hydroplane aficionado.
"They've been so dominant as a team that it's been difficult for a lot of other teams to keep their heads above water. I'm sure there have been some people reluctant to enter the sport because they were so dominant. But they've also been so excellent that they've been an asset (in terms of gaining recognition for the sport). They've just been doing the job right."
The Bud, in fact, has loomed so large over hydroplane racing for so long that some in the sport seem unwilling to believe it is really leaving.
"That's assuming this is the last time," said Muscatel, when asked to reflect on what is expected to be the Bud's final appearance in Seattle at this weekend's Seafair race.
What is known is that Anheuser-Busch has announced it is leaving the sport and won't sponsor a hydroplane next season for the first time since 1963.
That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that the Miss Budweiser team, headed by driver and team manager Dave Villwock and owner Joe Little, is breaking up.
The team holds out hope that another sponsor can be found to keep them together. One owner pointed out this week that he hasn't seen Bud crew members asking around for jobs for next year, which he took as a sign that maybe they know something everyone else doesn't about the team's future.
Villwock says only that there are so many possibilities — and so many things that have to happen to make any of them come true — that it's not really worth speculating about right now.
Even if the team stays together, however, the Miss Bud — with its ubiquitous red-and-white paint job and legions of fans proudly holding up its product as it powers its way to another win — will apparently never race in Seattle again after Sunday.
And no matter whether they think the passing of the Bud will be a good or bad thing for the sport, no one disputes that the future will be different without it.
"They have always been the boat that everyone has loved to hate," said longtime hydroplane driver Scott Pierce, who piloted the Bud to three wins in 1991. "And I emphasize the word love as much as the word hate.
"They're like the Yankees. Everybody wants to beat the Yankees yet nobody sells more seats than the Yankees, nobody has better TV numbers than the Yankees. It's the same with the Bud. When I tell people I drove unlimited hydroplanes, a lot of times they ask 'What is that?' And when I say the Miss Budweiser, they say 'Oh yeah, now I know what you're talking about.' "
Much like the Yankees, who went 20 years before winning their first pennant, the Bud rose from humble beginnings.
Team founder and longtime owner Bernie Little was a self-made millionaire — mainly in aircraft and transportation sales in Florida — who became enamored with hydroplanes in the early '60s.
He got his first hydroplane in a trade for another boat. In his first race, Little generated only laughter in the pits when it was found his boat couldn't run because his crew had put the crankshaft in backward in one of his engines.
By then, Little had already created a friendship with August Busch III, the future president of Anheuser-Busch brewing, and convinced the company to sponsor his boat in 1963.
Pierce says the team got $5,000 in sponsorship money that first year.
Thus was born the relationship that would change hydroplane racing.
It took four years for the Bud to win its first race, in 1966 in the Tri-Cities. In 1969, it won its first season national points title and Gold Cup and from then on has been the most visible face of the sport. While other boat teams have come and gone — the Pay 'n Pak, the Circus Circus, the Atlas Van Lines, the Winston Eagle — the Bud has remained.
And always with Little using the Anheuser-Busch checkbook to bring on board the best drivers, the best crew and the best equipment.
"You were always given every tool you needed to get the job done," said Chip Hanauer, who won 22 races in the Bud from 1992-95. "As the driver of the Bud, you always felt that if you didn't win, there was no excuse."
The 1970s were a more competitive era, and the Bud's financing had yet to grow to later levels.
The Bud won only three national titles and two Gold Cups in the 1970s.
A turning point came in 1979 when the team unveiled a new hull using Rolls-Royce Griffon power, reputed to have 1,000 more horsepower than the more common Merlins. After a year to work out the bugs, the Bud won national titles in 1980 and 1981 and has won all but five national titles since.
Tragedy, however, has also been a big part of the Bud's legacy, especially in its early days. Driver Don Wilson died in 1966 and Bill Brow in 1967. The most crushing blow came in 1982 when Dean Chenoweth, winner of 23 races in two stints in the Bud from 1970-73 and 1979-82, was killed in a qualifying run in the Tri-Cities.
Out of that death, though, may have come the Bud's greatest moment.
Determined to find an answer to make boats safer, the Bud crew — spearheaded by crew chief Jeff Neff — helped develop the enclosed cockpit that soon became mandatory on all boats. The Bud was the first boat to use a canopy in 1985, and only one driver has died since then.
As the years passed, Little's influence at Anheuser-Busch grew, as did the Bud's team budget.
"You have to remember how close they were," Hanauer said. "It was Bernie who introduced August to his wife. He was going to give Bernie whatever he needed to dominate."
And that's what the Bud did from the mid-'80s on, the time when Pierce says "the money really started getting spent." That was also around the time that Little hired noted hydroplane builder and mechanic Ron Brown to be his crew chief. Hanauer says Brown "is the one who built the race team you see today."
Little also lured Hanauer — the second-winningest driver in history — out of semi-retirement in 1992, starting a string of four straight national titles.
And when Hanauer quit the team in 1996 after suffering four flips and saying that the boat wasn't as safe as it should be, Little hired rising star Villwock to drive and manage the team.
Villwock's arrival started the Bud's most dominating stretch. The Bud has won every national title since 1997 — and 37 of the 62 races in that time — despite increasing attempts the past few seasons to even the playing field, such as pre-assigned lanes and fuel restrictions.
The success has continued the past two years even after the death of Bernie Little, who was succeeded as owner by son Joe.
But many critics, while acknowledging the greatness of the Bud crew and Villwock, say it's hard to look past the team's budget, which has been rumored as much as $3 million a year.
Villwock says that figure is "way, way, way too high" and that teams that have complained about the Bud's spending ways "would be embarrassed if they really knew what our budget was."
Villwock, though, acknowledges the budget is enough this year to pay for six full-time crew members. Every other team essentially works with volunteer crews.
Hanauer says the Bud's money "skewed the economics" of the sport.
"The money they put into it made no financial sense whatsoever for the return they got in exposure," Hanauer said.
Hanauer is among those who hope that now that Anheuser-Busch is out of the sport that other sponsors — long scared off by the Bud's vast budget — will be more receptive to get in.
Pierce, though, says the sport is so troubled at the moment with the dispute between race sites and Hydro-Prop that "the Budweiser being gone is the least of their problems. I don't mean to minimize it — the Bud going is a big problem. But they've got a lot of others."
The Bud team has mostly tried to stay out of the fray this year.
It decided before the season it would race at every site — whether sanctioned by Hydro-Prop or not — to allow fans in each city one last look.
It's a look that Pierce says hydro fans should take in deeply.
"They were the one constant," Pierce said. "The one boat that was there every year. They won't be replaced. The only way they'd be replaced is if somebody else did the same thing for the next 40 years. And that's not going to happen."
Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com
| Miss Bud by the numbers | |
| 364 | Races entered |
| 238 | Top-three finishes |
| 173.384 | Best lap, San Diego, 1999 |
| 140 | Races won |
| 23 | Season titles |
| 16 | Seafair wins |
| 14 | Gold Cups |
| 10 | Most consecutive wins ('99-00) |
| Above are unlimited hydroplane records. | |
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