Roostertail Talk
A show dedicated for preserving the history, breaking down the racing and looking to the future of the incredible sport of Unlimited Hydroplane racing. My name is David Newton, and I will be bringing you a weekly show in which we will discuss the boats, drivers, owners, crew members, legends, fans and anything that is involved with the sport that I love; hydroplane racing.
Fans you can now sign up for a subscription service for the podcast! As you can imagine, running a podcast can be pricey (from hosting fees, website fees, travel, equipment, etc.). You can help the podcast by subscribing to our new service, Roostertail Talk+. The podcast is still free to all on our website and through all major podcast platforms (such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, Castbox, etc) but with Roostertail Talk+ there is more you can enjoy ! With this service you will get early links to new episodes, enjoy access to extra content, raffle prizes and more. This is a new service that we will be adding to as we move along. As always your support to make this show grow is very appreciated! TOMORROW, there will be an announcement for the first prize for subscribing to Roostertail Talk+.
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Roostertail Talk
Episode 129: Jeff Campbell Part 1
What if you could relive the golden days of hydroplane racing through the eyes of an industry veteran? Join us for part 1 of my chat with Jeff Campbell, the crew chief of Nine Beacon Plumbing and general manager of Strong Racing. Jeff shares candid anecdotes from his storied career. Listen in as he recounts pivotal moments from national events, offering invaluable insights into the highs and lows of his journey, shaped by his father's enduring passion for boat racing. Don't forget part 2 will be available next week, September 10th, 2024. Enjoy!
Help the podcast by subscribing to our new service, Roostertail Talk+. The podcast is still free to all on our website and through all major podcast platforms (such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, Castbox, etc) but with Roostertail Talk+ there is more you can enjoy ! With this service you will get early links to new episodes, enjoy access to extra content, raffle prizes and more. This is a new service that we will be adding to as we move along. As always your support to make this show grow is very appreciated! https://www.buzzsprout.com/434851/supporters/new
Ruchetel Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything about the sport that we all love hydroplane racing. I am your host, david Newton, and it's time once again, so sit back, relax and welcome to Rooster Tail Talk, we'll talk. Hello Reese fans, welcome back to the podcast. It's episode 129, and today you're going to hear part one of my interview with Jeff Campbell. Now, jeff, you may know his name, or you might have heard his name in passing, but he's what I call one of the unsung heroes of H1 Unlimited. He has crewed for many boats over the years, many different teams and racing organizations, but currently he is the crew chief of the Nine Beacon Plumbing and general manager of Strong Racing. This didn't happen overnight. Like I said, he has a lot of experience in the sport and some may know of his beginnings of racing inboards in the 70s and 80s. It's really been a family affair for him, as he works with his brother, mike Campbell, and has crewed with him for many racing teams and raced with him not only in inboards but along with RC scale hydroplanes. I got a chance to race with Jeff and Mike over the years. They're fierce competitors, no matter what they race, and you're going to hear a little bit more about his history and background in hydroplane racing and get to understand why it's so important for Jeff. Now I could go on and on about his victories, his trivia and his accolades in the sport, but you're going to hear that in this interview, so I'm not going to distract us anymore and not go into any more digressions and let's get into that interview, as I sat down with him in his office down in Kent, washington, at Strong Racing Headquarters.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm sitting down here in Kent, washington, at Strong Racing Headquarters, sitting across from Jeff Campbell, crew chief of the nine Beacon Plumbing. Jeff, how are you doing today? Good? Well, thanks for taking your time to talk today. Sure, I know you got a lot to do to get ready for San Diego, but I like talking to people from all corners of the sport and I consider you one of the unsung heroes of the sport, because drivers and owners get all the accolades of the sport. But what crew members really make the boats go and? And you have a long and great history in the sport and have a lot of victories, so I'm excited to talk about that today. But you've done this boat racing thing for a majority of your life. How did this all get introduced to you. How did it get started?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say it's basically all my life. I was born into it. My dad raced outboards before I was born and inboards during my childhood. There was always something boat related going on in the garage, so there was no option.
Speaker 1:That's what I was born to do so your first memories are pretty much around boat racing then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in fact, mom showed me pictures a while back of me playing in the sand with a race boat in the background, so it's basically been my entire life.
Speaker 1:Well, so yeah, you had no choice. I can understand that. My dad was big into hydroplanes when I was a kid, so I was around it, but you got started racing inboards. When did that start for you?
Speaker 2:start for you. 77 was the first year I actually drove a boat. I was 15 years old. Dad gave me an option he would either buy me a car or build me a race boat. I picked the boat because I figured I could buy myself a car. That's how I got into actually racing. What?
Speaker 1:hole, did you start?
Speaker 2:with. It was one that Dad built. It was what they would consider a one liter stock. Now, in the beginning it was a 1200cc and then it went to one liter. It was a T-boat.
Speaker 1:You raced that for a while, but you had some success in boards. I believe you have some records and some victories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I set a kilo record with that boat, set a mile and two-thirds record with that boat and then eventually sold it to Greg Hopp. Oh, and then Dad and I built a one-liter modified now I think that's what you call them. I built a one liter modified now I think that's what you call them was a Y boat and had some success with that, set a record, won the national high point championship with that boat and ended up at the museum up on the wall.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I believe that's with Perkins inboard as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, perkins is up on top and mine's down on the bottom. Yeah, Awesome.
Speaker 1:I know you had some success at inboard nationals. Can you talk about those experiences?
Speaker 2:Custake was 77 nationals and that was my second race I'd ever been at. So you know, here I'm a 15 year old kid and there's all these boats and it was an eye-opener. I ended up second overall. I had the fastest boat but I didn't know how to drive it, so I was late to the start, screwed up, but I ended up second and I got $200, which was a trophy.
Speaker 2:that was probably four and a half feet tall, so for a 15-year-old kid it was the big thing. And then Dayton we went to the nationals in 80, put my boat up on top of Jerry Kelson's boat and towed it back to Dayton and didn't do very well at all. I think I got seventh or eighth or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It wasn't. It wasn't a great experience. And then in 85, I took my one liter back there and again I had a very fast boat, got down to the first turn and somebody had hooked and ran into the side of it and tore the whole right spawns and all.
Speaker 1:Oh geez, so never got out of the first turn. Did you go cartwheeling through the water then?
Speaker 2:No, I stayed in the boat Just tore the right spalding off. I was able to drive it back to the beach, Okay, and then I hurried home and then fixed the boat during the week and then the next weekend we went to Cullaby Lake and I set a mile record with it. So it was a little bit of comfort in my disaster.
Speaker 1:Well, that probably had to have been a highlighted for you to be able to take a wrecked boat and fix it yourself and set a record.
Speaker 2:And that's kind of what I've done over the years is been able to reconstruct stuff and when I was very little I'd take stuff apart, rarely ever put it back together. But over the years I figured out how to fix things and improve things. That's what we've done a lot on the nine over the years yeah, you have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've really transitioned that boat. I want to get to the talking about that in a little bit, but why did you decide to stop racing inboards?
Speaker 2:um, I sold the one liter in 1985 for a couple of reasons. A the mid 80s were very dangerous in inboards. A lot of people were getting killed and I had a two year old and I had another one on the way and I thought, you know, it's probably a good idea to walk away. So I sold everything and walked away.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean probably was a smart decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because the canopies were just starting out in the big boats and they hadn't gotten down to the limits and stuff and nobody knew what it was going to cost or how you're going to do it, so it was just a good time to get out.
Speaker 1:That took a while to get into inboards. Yeah, when was it regulated in inboards? I couldn't even tell you. I feel like it was in the 90s at some point. Yeah, that was a while, but at that time you were busy with Unlimiteds then right, 85?
Speaker 2:No, I was still living in Oregon. I moved to Seattle in 86 and then started working on the Miller a little bit in 86.
Speaker 1:You've crewed for a lot of teams You've crewed correct me if I'm wrong but Miller, American, Mr Pringles, Budweiser, Jones, Racing and Strong Racing. Yeah, Did I miss any on that list?
Speaker 2:There's a few more in there. I did a little bit with the Pietras Pizza, which was the former Budweiser hole. I did work on the us west cellular. Okay, um, there's a lot of guys that just helped out a little bit here and there didn't really crew on them. The ones you have there, those, those are the main ones. Okay, well, tell me, how did you get started with miller um 86? My brother, mike, was working in kent for lacero on the Miller boat. When I moved up here I went to work for Don Kelson building patterns and boat stuff. Then I stopped by the shop because it was on my way home to see what my brother was doing and see the shop. I'd known John Walters and all those guys. I stopped by more and more often. They started giving me things to do and by mid season I was had a uniform and I was going to races. So that's kind of how it all really got started.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, yeah, you got started 86 there, and when did you switch over to the next team?
Speaker 2:Um, for the 88 season my brother had left Miller and went to pringles okay and eventually the phone rang. They needed help. So I started going up helping them get that boat ready to run and then there again ended up with a uniform and going to all the races kind of kind of snowballed into basically a crew guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an interesting experience to go from there because you were. You did you help finish the boat in 88? Yeah, and it was a fast boat, but you had a lot of work on your hands.
Speaker 2:We crashed a lot yeah it, uh, and it was a great learning experience because you know when you crash a lot, you got to fix a lot of things. So I learned how to do a lot of things that I didn't didn't know before and better ways to do it, faster ways, because we needed parts so much faster, yeah, so yeah, that was a tricky boat. It it was either fast or it was upside down. Yeah, one of those things looking back now what we know we could have fixed it, but at the we just didn't know.
Speaker 1:What do you think was the biggest cause back then? What flipped so much?
Speaker 2:Part of it was where the brake was and just weights and balances and so much stuff that we've learned over the years to adjust wings and canards. And it didn't have the full canard, it had the flaps. So there's a lot of things that have evolved since then.
Speaker 1:How long did you work for Worcester then?
Speaker 2:Off and on, probably until about 1993-ish, mike and I decided we wanted to race go-karts. We raced go-karts in the mid-90s up until we started at Budweiser. Did you have much success with go-karts? So we raced go-karts in the mid 90s, so up until we started at budweiser. So did you have much success with go? Yeah, we won a couple of championships and a lot of regional races and stuff. So it was fun. It was a. It was a learning curve. You know, we started with nothing and worked our way up to the top. Yeah, by the end we had full carbon fiber bodies. We had some pretty fancy go karts. At the end it got too expensive and too time-consuming, finally had to just give it up.
Speaker 2:From there you went to Budweiser Racing. Yeah, budweiser 92 started part-time. They had crashed in Seattle. Then they called and said come help us put it back together. So they basically made a night shift. So there was five or six of us that would come in after work and the regular crew guys would set us up with what to do through the night. We'd work till you know nine, ten o'clock at night, you know, get their stuff done for them, and then they come in the morning and finish, and then, uh, that was before san diego, so we'd finish the thing up, sent it down to san diego and then they told us thanks for your, thanks for all your effort and sent us away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and then they crashed in san diego yeah so then they called mike and I back and said, hey, why don't you guys just come after work nights and weekends? We'll put you on the payroll and just kind of help us out. So did that from 92 until 95. It became a full-time job, okay, so I quit my job at kelson's and started working at budweiser. Yeah, and then mike came along.
Speaker 1:I think two years later he came along full-time, okay I didn't know about having night shifts for the to fix that boat, but that that crash in 92 I think it was missing the back half of the boat it was a lot of parts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. We basically saved I think it was the right sponson, the cockpit and a little bit of the bottom, but it was. It was basically a new boat, yeah, and then you, it didn't even last a race and it was upside down again. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:How many crew guys were paid on the Budweiser?
Speaker 2:There was about six people that were there full time. Yeah, yeah, but there were six people that knew what they were doing. You don't need as many people if the guys know what they're doing. I started out the bottom. I got all the crappy jobs and eventually worked my way into being one of the guys.
Speaker 1:It took a while you had a long stint there at Budweiser I was there from basically 1992 to 2004 when they closed it down.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing that I'm always curious about with your Budweiser years, you did something different in 2004. On March 13th 2004, you went down to Oroville, california, trying to get the straightaway record for propeller-driven craft. I know you got the kilo record but didn't get the mile record. Yeah, but you're at like 220 miles an hour on the kilo record and the boat failed. Can you talk about that experience down there? How different was that than a race?
Speaker 2:It was kind of a strange deal because it was basically an outboard kilo deal. So there was lots of outboards and a couple of inboards and it was, would say, not backyard, but it was very it was. It's not the big prominence of an unlimited race, yeah, so it was kind of basic, back to ground, roots, grassroots, you know pretty basic stuff. They had a crane just for us. Nice place, what water was good, um, good, but it was a lot of work because we had to set up the boat just to go fast and try to keep it on the water. We had a different rudder, different skid fin, moved some weight and a super good motor.
Speaker 1:What ultimately failed on that run Propeller let go.
Speaker 2:That took out the back. Yeah, it took out the back of the boat, took out the motor, took out the gearbox. It was a disaster. It was a lot of work because we had to go racing.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right. It was right before the season started.
Speaker 2:It was early in the season, so we had to take it home and put it all back together.
Speaker 1:Fun. So yeah, Well, if you would have gotten the mile record, what do you think you would have gotten up to?
Speaker 2:I think we probably would have got upside down. Oh okay, the boat's not really designed to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you were going to try to go for an all out record, you probably should start from scratch. Um, which is funny because the the U8 that we have, that was originally its intention was to be a straightaway boat. Really. So when it was first conceived and drawn up, it was going to be a straightaway boat. Interesting. So there's. There's some things in that boat that aren't great for what we're doing, because it was set up to go straight. Okay. So I think ultimately, you could probably run 240, 250 if you really wanted to with this type of engine. Yeah, but the problem is propellers don't like to go that fast and motors don't like to go that fast, and it's it's's. It's very hard on equipment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's a huge commitment I think I heard an interview years ago from ken warby said there was a a limit with propellers. You could only get up to just so much. And then the cat starts to cavitate and yeah, it won't work it's.
Speaker 2:It's pretty much beyond the limits, you know, 240, 250, and there is a offshore boat that weren't 240, I believe. Okay, but they had two propellers, so, yeah, that makes it a little bit easier, yeah so maybe not the best experience to go down there. Well, it's, it's all experience. I mean it was. It created a lot of work, but it was interesting. Um, I don't know if anybody will ever try it again.
Speaker 1:Well, after Budweiser ended in 2004, you had a little break there, didn't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, after Budweiser I went to work for Red Dot Corporation Mike and I both did and they were an air conditioning company, so totally different ballgame. Had to relearn everything but still did some boat stuff on the sides and then started racing models during that. So that kept me interested in boats. But I had a regular 9-to-5 job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we raced together for a while. We had some good heats together, so how did you get back into crewing?
Speaker 2:Mike Jones and Mike Hansen called me one day out of the blue and asked me to run the U9 for two races. They were short on people and wanted somebody that had some idea of how to run a boat. So I said, sure, called up a couple of Budweiser guys, said, hey, let's go run this boat, we don't have to win, all we're going to do is put it in the water, let it go around and put it back on the trailer. So that's what we started. And then it's evolved into the mess that we're into today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're still with the same boat. Same boat, technically Same boat. I don't know how much of it's left of the there's still some left in there.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of my heart and soul in there, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, over all these years, you've had a lot of victories as a, as a crew member, as a crew chief.
Speaker 2:Do you have any? Do you have a favorite win out of all those? One of my all-time favorites was the very first one, in 87, san Diego, with the Miller. That was really the first time that I had been at a race with a uniform doing a job and won the Gold Cup. That was a very good impression. Um, I wanted to do that over and over again, so that was the first one. Um, they're all. They're all a little bit special, but I would say that's probably the most memorable one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, have you kept track of how many gold cups and how many?
Speaker 2:victories you've been on Roughly. I have it written down somewhere, but I think total victories is at 66 or 67, somewhere in there. And I just counted ones that I was actually at a race with a uniform doing a job Budweiser stuff when we were just working on the boat didn't go to race. I didn't count any of those. Okay, I think I'm at nine or ten gold cups and I think 15 wins as a crew chief, but nobody's counting.
Speaker 1:No one's counting. Was there one that was the most challenging for you?
Speaker 2:This last one at Seafair was very challenging. Um, they're, they're all hard. They all have their own uh, I don't even want to call it but their own set of problems. Yeah, um, there's always something that comes up. You know, this broke or we didn't get where we needed to be, we missed the start. You know, we had to do certain things. It's all hard and memorable. Um, this last one in Seattle, I mean, jay Michael did not have the fastest boat by far, but he didn't. Yeah, he, somehow in Seattle, he always drives the heck out of the boat. So sometimes the thing falls apart around him, but it doesn't stop him. He, somehow in Seattle, he always drives the heck out of the boat. Sometimes the thing falls apart around him, but it doesn't stop him.
Speaker 1:He really drives hard. Yeah, he's got a knack in. Seattle with that rough water For some reason, Jay.
Speaker 2:Michael in Seattle and Corey in Pasco, we've got the combination. I wish we could get that combination in Madison. We wish we can get that combination in Madison. We just can't seem to win in Madison.
Speaker 1:Well, for some reason, that's right. Madison has been a challenge for strong racing. I don't know why they just haven't found a combination that has worked well. It's a notorious course, and we're going to talk about the next week, because that's all the time we have for this week and tune in for episode episode 130, and hear part two of my interview with Jeff Campbell next week, and we're going to talk more about challenging race courses, his experience with drivers and what the future holds for strong racing and his own career in unlimited hydroplane racing.
Speaker 1:If you haven't checked us out on social media, please do so. We're on Facebook and Instagram, but also check us out on our website, wwwroostertaltalkcom, and on there we have a brand new tab for a subscription service called Rooster Tail Talk Plus. With Rooster Tail Talk Plus, you get early access to episodes. We're going to have a monthly raffle prize drawing. This first one we had last weekend was for a free weekend pass to the San Diego Bay Fair and APBA Gold Cup. We're going to have more raffles each month. We're going to have more prizes and I'm looking to have more access to other features for the subscription service, with a possible photo gallery and other fun things. So look for that in the future, but if you haven't done so, check out the subscription service.
Speaker 1:You can choose your own level and contribute to the show because, as I've said before, I am a school teacher. I don't make a lot of money and I do this on my own dime, and I hope that this podcast has brought you some joy in your life, as it's brought joy into mine, and I really appreciate those who have supported me in the process and continued to make this podcast happen and continue to grow and expand. But that's all I have for this week. I look forward to having you back next week for my second part of my interview with Jeff Campbell and until then, I hope to see you at the races.