Roostertail Talk

Episode 130: Jeff Campbell, Part 2

September 10, 2024 • David Newton • Season 6 • Episode 18

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Jeff Campbell returns to the podcast for part 2 and the conclusion of his interview.  Jump back into the conversation about setting up hydroplanes for the more challenging courses on the circuit. Jeff shares more about Strong Racing, the future for the team and himself. You’ll also hear about the emotional highs and lows of working with memorable drivers who’ve left an indelible mark on the sport. Enjoy!

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Speaker 1:

Rooster Tail 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. Hello race fans and welcome back to the podcast. It's episode 130 and it's September 10th, and today we're going to conclude my interview with Jeff Campbell.

Speaker 1:

Last week he tuned in and he talked more about his past and previous racing teams he was involved with his inboard career, some other accolades in his career, but we're going to continue that conversation today, as he was mentioning how a strong racing team has just not had luck in Madison and can't find a way, or hasn't found a way, to win there yet. We'll get more in depth with Jeff and I'm going to talk with him more about other challenging race sites, his experience with previous drivers for the racing teams he was involved with and some other surprising facts along the way, but also he'll talk about his future in the sport in strong racing. I know you've been excited and I know you've been waiting a week to listen to part two, so I'm not going to make you wait any longer. So let's jump back into my talk with strong racings, jeff Campbell.

Speaker 2:

I wish we can get that combination in Madison. We just can't seem to win in Madison. Yeah, yeah, you guys always have hard luck in Madison. Yeah, and I don't know if it's us, if it's self-inflicted or we just bad luck. I love going to Madison. I love the parade. The fans are great. They're a little biased, but they're great. I can appreciate where they're coming from. I'm by far one of the least popular people in that town, but I would certainly like to win again at Madison. Yeah, that would be fun.

Speaker 1:

Well, that is something that's interesting about hydrofine racing. Every body of water is different and Madison just has its own nuances that have bitten you sometimes and bitten others.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, madison is a lot like Detroit. You're not racing the other people, you're racing the water and the pit area. I mean, everything's a challenge in Madison.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Well, watching the videos over the years, it seems for that first turn it was pretty gnarly and a lot of other things you have to consider.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you never really know what's going to happen down the first turn, at least in Detroit. You know it's tight. You know it's going to be rough. Yeah, but it's fairly predictable. Madison, you never quite know where the hole is Right. Sometimes it's in lane one, sometimes it's in lane three. We just seem to have a knack for finding it.

Speaker 1:

Well, do you have a favorite race site you've gone to?

Speaker 2:

You've been to a few over all the years. I like Madison as an event. I hate racing there, I hate the water, I hate the pit area, but I love the town and I like the people and the parade. As far as just a racing venue, guntersville has some really good water most of the time. You can go fast. Very nice water. Pit area is nice, but it's so far from the fans so there's a big disconnect there. Detroit is spectacular to go through the Rooster Hill Turn. So I really don't say I have a favorite or least favorite.

Speaker 1:

But those ones are more enjoyable for you.

Speaker 2:

Those are nice. San Diego is very nice from a spectator standpoint and the pit area is nice for us, but the salt water is just horrendous for us. It creates so much work and costs so much equipment to go down there, and then this year, being the cold cup, makes it even harder, so it's a real challenge, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, more time on the water, a little bit more pressure down there. What would you say is the most challenging venue to go to to set the boat up and perform well?

Speaker 2:

As far as the boat itself or just in general.

Speaker 1:

I would probably just say from your your experience, like from your your vantage point um, madison is very difficult, not only because the pit area is is slope.

Speaker 2:

You end up having to block the boat up and the course is, you know, so small on one end and long straightaways. So it's hard to get a balance between the two. Um and detroit's kind of. The same way too, you've got a little tiny corner and a big corner, so trying to set the boat up for both corners gets kind of challenging.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I imagine that you have to probably run through a lot of different combinations to find what works.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, trying to find the right gear ratio and the right propeller and the right skid fin. So it's a challenge.

Speaker 1:

Well, another variable I want to talk to you about with boat racing is drivers. You've got to work with a lot of drivers over the years. I'm sure some are probably more memorable than others. Is there any drivers that stand out for one end of the spectrum or the other that are just more memorable for you?

Speaker 2:

Well, they're all memorable. They all have their little quirks and are fun to deal with and difficult to deal with. If I could, I'd just replace them with an RC unit and be done with it. I'm kind of stuck with them. Hanauer was good. He was unpredictable. Sometimes he would get off on the boat's not fast enough and then I said you're fine, just race the boat. So there's a little bit of that. They all have their challenges. I wish Zimmerman could have won a race with us. He came so close so many times for him.

Speaker 2:

I wish we could have got one for him. He kind of helped build the thing up from the ground. When we first started he was there working on the boat every day. That was good for him to help us out and get a feel of the boat. He came to the same conclusion. He had a young child and decided hey, I want to spend some time with my kid. He walked away.

Speaker 1:

Do you think he could have developed into being a top-tier driver? It's hard to say.

Speaker 2:

Some people get up to a certain point and that's all there is. I think John was not super competitive. I think he was having fun, so originally the boat was faster than he was and then towards the end he was just as fast as the boat was. Jay michael's a challenge. He's a lot like han hour. Okay, um, he's a great driver sometimes and then other times he's got the wrong mindset in his head and we've got to talk him into. You know, you're fine, got good equipment, just do the best you can. Um, and he in Seattle, he's, he's unstoppable. I don't know what it is how. I wish I could bottle it up and say, hey, you need this all the time. Yeah, but I think just winning in Seattle for him means a lot to him and Corey's learning. This isn't an easy task. It took about three years to get Andrew to the point where he was as fast as the boat was and Corey's close. He's getting there. He's still making a few mistakes here and there, but it's a big learning curve.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is, and I would say I'm pretty impressed with how fast he's excelled with the team Because in my mind it's different than it was 20 years ago. You have a four or five race schedule for the year. There's not as much time on the water that he would have gotten, maybe like 20, 30 years ago, when he had eight, nine, ten races, right yeah, and for some reason we haven't been getting a lot of testing time lately at race sites.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so it it makes it very difficult because he needs to get his timing marks and I need to get data on the boat for gear ratios and propellers and stuff. It's difficult. There's just not a lot of seat time nowadays.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's one thing I didn't think much about. How much time would you say you have on the water now in testing than a few years ago maybe?

Speaker 2:

I'd say we've lost a couple hours a race just in testing time. That's hard, yeah. So we have to go back to our notes from the previous year and go okay, this is what we ran last time. We at least start there Makes it a little more difficult.

Speaker 1:

Well, I would say you're probably happy with what Peabody's done. He's won three of the four or three races in Tri-Cities, I think. Out of four years he's definitely pushed the boat. He seems like an aggressive driver willing to do what it takes to win.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think he needs to be a little more patient sometimes and a little more consistent, but he's getting there.

Speaker 1:

Well, going back to your history with with HydroPen, Racing and crewing for different teams and working for different teams, um, all over the place, you've built some holes over the years and probably rebuilt many holes as well. Did you ever keep a count on how many holes you've built?

Speaker 2:

I never did Um. I know I only built a couple of limiteds, unlimiteds. I mean, I've worked on a number of unlimiteds but as far as building from scratch, the only ones would be the budweiser t5 and t6. Okay, um t3, we totally rebuilt the first year, 95. So I've rebuilt a lot as far as building from scratch, not all that many.

Speaker 1:

Well, sometimes the rebuilds, I think, might even take longer than the actual builds.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think you're right and I had that conversation with myself when the 9 crashed in Madison. It's like is it really worth the time and effort to put it back together, or do we?

Speaker 1:

just take some parts off and start over. Yeah, so what led to that decision to rebuild the boat? Because that was the boat kind of disintegrated there in Madison.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we brought it back, put it up on the jig and decided that it was still pretty straight and still enough structure there to just put it back together.

Speaker 1:

And were you able to make a lot of changes to the boat? Yeah, we did.

Speaker 2:

We made a lot of. There were subtle changes. Most people wouldn't notice them, yeah, but it made a big difference. We moved some stuff around, tried to keep it a little bit closer to the water, changed a couple angles. It seems to work real well now.

Speaker 1:

I would say so. It's up there in qualifying speeds. Yeah for a 32-year-old boat.

Speaker 2:

it's not too bad. Yeah, yeah, it's actually a legal vintage boat. Now I keep threatening I'm going to take it over to Mahogany and Merlot and run it.

Speaker 1:

It qualifies.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they changed the rule that you can have canopied boats now, so that's pretty funny.

Speaker 1:

What? Yeah you, you made. Yeah, like you said, there's a lot of subtle, subtle changes to the boats and I think you've tried to mirror on both boats what you can for those.

Speaker 2:

I I try to make changes on the nine first because I I have such a big history with that boat and I know what it likes and what it doesn't like and and what reacts differently. So if I try something new I can pretty much tell whether or not it worked or not and then incorporate that into the eight. So both boats have the same uh slope decks now on both the eight and the nine. So whether it does it or anything or not, it's hard to say, but I think it looks cool. Yeah, it does.

Speaker 1:

One thing I was curious about. I've noticed that on the cockpit, on the spar, there's a little tiny canard there. Does that? Does that help much?

Speaker 2:

There again, it's hard to say without wind tunnel testing and stuff. We think it does, it looks cool, it does. Yeah, it was a lot of work to engineer all that stuff. A lot of that came from my brother. That was his idea. Okay, a lot of the engineering to make it happen was mine, but it was his idea to do the flaps. It's kind of a throwback to the mid 90s when everybody had the spar adjustable spars instead of canards. Yeah, so it's like well, it worked pretty good back then. Why not put it on here? Yeah, so we were going to do it on the eight last winter but we just ran out of time, so that that might be a project for for this winter.

Speaker 1:

Well, we'll just don't bring back that huge wing on the right spots in that Budweiser. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was ugly, don't need those. Well, you mentioned your brother Mike, and you've shared this passion and love and whatever you want to call it hydroplane racing with him for so many years and recently, at the Hydroplane and Race Pump Museum's annual auction, they presented you with an award for being one of the most influential brother duos in the sport. What did that mean to you to get that award?

Speaker 2:

That was a great honor. I mean, the museum does a great job. Those people that were there, the brothers they've all influenced this basically my entire life. I raced against Mike Hansen for years in the 70s, learned a lot. He was running Mike Jones' boat before I got there and he handed me the torch and taught me a lot of things. And Dixon Smith, great guy he stops by once in a while. Just a wealth of information. Evans Brothers they're hilarious. I don't know if I've ever learned anything from them, but they're a great bunch of guys. And Mark drove for us at Budweiser while I was there and that was entertaining. I mean, he's a cool guy. Yeah, it was a great honor. I mean I don't think of it as contributing all that much and it's just my passion. It's what I do, but there isn't very many people out there that do it anymore.

Speaker 1:

No, there's not Especially at your level. I have as much expertise, I would say.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'd like to pass the torch to somebody, but I'm having trouble finding somebody that will take it.

Speaker 1:

But sharing this passion with your brother, what is it meant to just share? Because you've raced inboards, you've ridden hydroplanes with him and even raced scale remote control hydroplanes with him. What is it meant to share that with him?

Speaker 2:

It's hard to describe because we both have a passion to win and racing go-karts together and racing RC boats together. It's hard because you're trying to beat your brother, and part of it I'm the little brother, so I always have to try twice as hard, so it's fun. I would say we don't really have, um, a real great family relationship outside of of working together. We don't really socialize that much outside of boat racing um, but you know we we're together every day working and we do have lots of arguments, um, for some reason he doesn't think I'm always right but uh, it's, it's.

Speaker 2:

It's funny because the the knowledge that I don't have he has and some of the ability that I have he doesn't have. So we work very well together. We're kind of a complete package with with the both of us and he doesn't get nearly the credit that I do for the. You know I I'm the crew chief, I get the accolades, but he's in the back doing all the work. So, yeah, but he's, you know, more of a quiet. You know back deal and I'm more the loud one up front causing the trouble well, I'd love to hear how well you complement each other though yeah, we work.

Speaker 2:

We work great together. Um, sometimes it's my idea and he figures out how to make it work, and sometimes it's his idea and I figure out how to make it work. And sometimes it's his idea and I figure out how to make it work, but in the end we've come up with an idea that works.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's a good theme that's been in the sport, though, as family racing together, and I'm glad to hear that you keep it together with your brother and have done so for so many years. Well, you've been a crew chief for several years now, on the nine with Strong Racing, and it's taken a while to build up this great program. Can you talk a little bit more about what it's taken you to get it to be a top contender?

Speaker 2:

That's a long project and it started. It had some decent bones to it, but there was a lot of things that just weren't quite right. Um, the first year that we ran it um, the two races it it was it was a good boat and Zimmerman did a good job of driving it. But I thought, well, if we're going to make this thing go faster, the first thing we need to do is make it safer. So we put a new cockpit in it. So once we did that, it's like, okay, now we can start working on making it go faster. So every year we just started making it a little bit better here, a little bit better there, and it evolved.

Speaker 2:

It didn't just happen. Um, it was 700 pounds overweight when we started. Oh wow, and currently we're right at the weight. So over the years we've taken a lot of weight out of the boat, moved things around, tried things that that mike and I wanted to try at budweiser, but you just couldn't do things like that at budweiser. So that's where the drop decks came from and some of the fins and some of the styling points that came that are on the boats now we wanted to do back then but just couldn't do it why?

Speaker 1:

why couldn't you back then?

Speaker 2:

well, because, bud Budweiser, they've got their set ways and we were the last ones to the party. We weren't the 30-year-old, 30-year crew members, we were the new guys. They didn't quite listen to us the way they would have With Mike Jones. He didn't care. Whatever made the boat go, better do it. So that's why we started adding strange things that people are starting to copy now. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'd love to see innovations in sports. Even though it's not in your face different, it is different. I'm glad to see that some changes are on the hulls.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I like to put my trademark on it. You notice the tail fin that's on the cowling. That was my dad's tail fin on all his limited boats so we transitioned that into the big boat. So it's kind of our signature that we worked on these boats.

Speaker 1:

And that's what it's taken. It's taken all these little steps to get, and that's the way that's one of the big misconceptions of budweiser.

Speaker 2:

I mean, yes, we had money to do things, to hire the right people and buy the right equipment, but every single component on the budweiser was the best it could be. So there was no one thing that made that boat go fast. It was a thousand things that made that boat go fast, and that's what we've done with both the 8 and the 9. We've made little improvements here and there and it's steadily growing and getting better.

Speaker 1:

Well, the boats are performing very well right now, I would say, and you had two victories this year won a championship last year and the Gold Cup for the team. How do you feel like were your chances this year going down to San Diego for the Gold Cup?

Speaker 2:

I think we're in a difficult situation this year. It's kind of a cycle in racing that I've noticed over the years that some years you're very prepared, you know you're going to run good. This year has been a challenge A. I had prostate cancer. I spent a lot of time away from the shop in the winter and early spring, so we're behind where I would have liked to have been, and then we've had a couple of crew guys that have had some surgery. We're just not where I wanted to be at this point in the season. We're going to give it a shot. We're going to put everything we've got in the boats and go down there and do the best we can, but we'll see what happens.

Speaker 1:

Well, that is one thing to bring up. Those fans don't understand how much work it takes to get the boats out and it's easy to get behind in the off season because there's so much work that happens outside of racing. I would say you have a pretty good chance, but got a couple of fast boats, some aggressive drivers, uh. But it'll be interesting to see. Down in San Diego that's a fast course on saltwater. Yeah, A lot of variables down there.

Speaker 2:

I really wish the Gold Cup was somewhere other than on saltwater. Yeah, it just adds that little bit extra element that gets in trouble. Gold Cups are very strange. You never know what's going to happen in a Gold Cup. You don't have to have the fastest boat to win the Gold Cup. Sometimes all you do is finish. So it's it's going to be an adventure. Um, hopefully we'll get through it, everybody will get through it and we can move on for next year?

Speaker 1:

yeah well, do you have any big plans for next year? Do you have? Do you have any thoughts of what you could change to the team or build? A new hole or something.

Speaker 2:

We've talked about building a new boat. I don't think we're at that point yet. Hopefully we can get some more races and some more boats to make it worth building another boat. I'd like to get caught up to where I thought we should have been this year. I'd like to get caught up to where I thought we should have been this year. Um, there's still a lot of stuff to do on the eight that we want to do.

Speaker 2:

The nine needs some attention. It's it's showing its age. Um, it really needs the decks taken off and some work done inside, cleaned up and lightened up a little bit here and there, maybe some more little changes, but it all takes time. Um, we, we don't have a lot of people at the shop day to day. Um, mike and I are here most of the time. Uh, cory's here a lot, but beyond that, you know the rest of the guys come on on Saturdays and get done what we can. It's a big project. Two boats is a huge project. Twice the glory or twice the headache, it's more than twice. It's quadrupled. It's a challenge. It's a lot of equipment. Daryl and Vanessa spend a lot of money doing this and I hope they enjoy it. Um, I wish we had more owners like them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, it's great to see what they brought to the sport. They really, I think, have elevated the past four or five years. They've been part of the sport in this capacity. Well before we go, do you have any other fun crewing stories you want to share with the fans that they don't really get to hear?

Speaker 2:

I have a lot of stories, but I probably can't tell a lot of them. There's definitely been some strange things over the years. No, someday I should probably write a book before I forget all of it. Yeah, um, but it's been an interesting life. I mean it's. It's probably not the smartest thing I ever did, but it's. It's been an adventure and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Um, thankfully I have a a very supportive girlfriend that actually works on the team. She does the motors on the right side and stuff.

Speaker 2:

Oh cool, very helpful. Certainly couldn't do it without her. It's hard to find people that have the passion anymore. Most of them have gotten older and gone on to do other things and it's hard to find younger people that that will make the commitment that it takes to to be a part of a team.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people see the glory of it but don't realize how much time.

Speaker 2:

For every minute on the water it's. It's hundreds of hours in the shop to make that happen. Yeah, it's hard to get anybody to come to the shop just to sweep the floor or empty a garbage can, and that's where I started. I mean, I did all the dirty work and worked my way up to the top. When I was a kid I had never envisioned that I would work on the Budweiser. I had no dream, no aspiration of it. But it's cool, I did it.

Speaker 1:

I don't regret it at all. Well, thinking about your past and all you've done and what you're doing now, how much longer do you feel like you have in you to be crew chief?

Speaker 2:

Well, I have a calendar on the wall and it says January of 27. Okay, so we'll see if that pans out. I doubt it'll happen. I doubt I'll ever give it up completely. I'm sure I'll keep doing something until the end. I know Mike's getting to the point where he wants to retire. I'd like to retire at in 2027, but I got to find somebody that could continue this on, because we we can't afford to lose two more votes. No, hopefully somebody will step up and carry it on Well.

Speaker 1:

In the meantime, you got time to win a few more gold cups and add a few more race wins to your career. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'd like to win a couple more. The numbers really don't matter, it's the challenge of winning it that matters. Yeah, especially when you don't have the greatest equipment or your stuff just isn't that good that day and you can still manage to win. I mean, that means more to me than most of the stuff. This last win in Seattle with Mike, I didn't think we'd win. I thought Corey had a shot, but I didn't figure Mike would win. But somehow he managed to pull it out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I had the same thoughts. Actually, I thought Corey had a good chance, but yeah, jay Michael was down on speed in qualifying and testing, but he found a way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, he can be amazing.

Speaker 1:

Well, I really appreciate your time, jeff. Thanks for talking to the fans out there and good luck this upcoming month for the Gold Cup in San Diego.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if there's anybody out there that wants to work on a boat, give me a call.

Speaker 1:

All right, well, I'll put a link so you can add your resume to give it to Jeff. Well, that's all the time we have this week. I hope you enjoyed my talk with jeff campbell. I really appreciate the time he took because he did take time out of his day. He was working in the shop and when I got down there they just finished. They just finished trailer firing a turbine in the shop and the whole shop smelled like jet fuel. So thankfully he was able to. Thankfully we were able to go into his office and conduct the interview in a different room so we were fragrance-free and didn't have to smell the jet fuel the whole time, even though that's not a terrible smell. Thank you, jeff. Really appreciate your time and hopefully enjoyed some more insight for some unsung heroes of the sport, people that really drive the sport, make it happen.

Speaker 1:

Have you joined our subscription list for Roosterdale Talk Plus? If you haven't, why not Come on? We've got some great stuff going out with that. I just had a free weekend passed that was raffled off to our subscribers to the Bayfair Gold Cup down in San Diego. So one luckily winner was able to get tickets for that and I'll have another one October 1st. I got something in line for that I'm excited to show you. I'm not going to tell you yet, but once it's done I'm going to put pictures up on social media and I'll tell you more about what's next for the raffle. But don't forget, all subscribers get early access to each week's episodes. I'll email that out the night before or the day before so you have early access to the episodes, and I've it out the night before or the day before so you have early access to the episodes. And I've got some other fun things down the way.

Speaker 1:

Still trying to figure out some things with the website, but I'm hoping to get more content for you, the Richdale Talk Plus subscriber. But if you're looking for more information on that, you can find more on social media. We're on Facebook Instagram, but also you can check us out on our website. We're on Facebook Instagram, but also you can check us out on our website, roosterteltalkcom, and on there you can find a button for more information on our subscription service, roostertel Talk Plus. Or if you want to just email me directly, feel free to contact me anytime on email, roosterteltalk at gmailcom. We've got some fun things coming up. We've got the Gold Cup down in San Diego, can't wait to watch that. That's going to be a great race and hopefully you're not like me. Hopefully you're down there and you can enjoy the beautiful weather and enjoy San Diego. It's such a great race, such a great venue and I'm jealous if you are. Hopefully next year I'll see you down there, but until then I hope to see you at the races.