1993 Detroit Full Race 

Same here. Bernie knew talent when he saw it and he waived the cash at the drivers he wanted to steal away from other teams and they always went. He did the same thing with Villwock. I lost respect for Hanauer when he did it and I have never forgiven Villwock for crapping on Fred Leland.

Seems that at some point in the 2000’s all the national sponsorship packages went away.

@@musicstewart9744 Sadly true.

@@musicstewart9744 Yeah! Look, they used to have DeWalt tools, Tide (as you mentioned), Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Pringle’s, even Budweiser. If only this sport had NASCAR type sponsors nowadays they’d be in a way better shape.

@@aerospacematt9147 Yes. I’m wondering why they all went away. NASCAR sucked them over? The sanctioning body didn’t have an effective marketing department?

@@musicstewart9744 I believe it’s a result of a number of things. 1. Exposure. NASCAR gets a lot of exposure, and therefore is a more profitable advertising campaign. NASCAR is so popular because average people can identify with driving a car. We do it on a daily basis. Very few people can relate to fast race boats. Also, look at the nascar season. They race 36/52 weekends per year. H1? Used to be 10. Now it’s more like 5. 2. Popularity. Really, there’s only 2 race courses that are used nowadays in major cities: Detroit and Seattle. I know for Seattle it used to be a major sport, after all, SEAFAIR started in 1951, way before the major sports teams were established in the city. The inaugural seasons for them were: Sonics (1967), Seahawks (1976), Mariners (1977), Sounders (2009), Kraken (2021) So, the only major sport from 1951-1966 in Seattle WAS unlimited hydroplane racing. I’ve heard Seafair was the biggest event of the year back then. Now, it’s shrunk in popularity. 3. Boatbuilding. This is the sad part. Most teams nowadays don’t know how to build new hulls. They simply keep the old 20+ year old hulls operational. That’s because, unfortunately, the people with the knowledge to build boats are getting old and passing away, sometimes taking the knowledge with them. From 2010-2018 no new boats were built. In 2018 the Madison/Homestreet team debuted the newest hull in the current fleet. Since then, no new hulls have been built. Back in the sport’s heyday, every 2 years a new boat was debuted. Some teams even had a BACKUP boat! 4. Interest. Kind of circling back to the beginning, with limited exposure comes less popularity, which in turn means less interest. With less interest, fewer people show up to races, and even fewer get involved with the sport. It’s also... not the most welcoming sport (I guess they are similar to NASCAR in that regard) 5. RULES! Sometimes, you just gotta let ‘em race. 4 of the last 5 Seafair races have been changed after the race is over due to a “penalty” like the STUPID 80mph rule. It’s not limited to the Seattle course either, almost every final heat, one of the leaders gets a “penalty”. The worst case of this being the 2019 Seafair. Jimmy Shane & Homestreet won, and received the trophy. An hour later, after the crowd had left, they CHANGED the standings, saying Shane had broken the 80mph rule, and gave the trophy to the 2nd place team. It should be mentioned that Homestreet was the race sponsor, which is why I question whether it really was Covid that sidelined Seafair for 2 years, or a lack of race sponsorship. (2021 season had several races, but not Seafair.) It’s gotten to the point that you don’t know who will win, even after the checkered flag flies! So, with a limited amount of exposure due to less races, big sponsors don’t necessarily want to pursue something that is viewed by them as not being profitable (if they even KNOW about the sport at all) Race sponsors haven’t really been easy to find either. Heck, Seafair used to be sponsored by Chevrolet! Other races used to be sponsored by TEXACO, RC Cola, etc.