Whether cars or boats (unless you’re a well-funded NASCAR team), volunteer crews, weekend warriors, after work show ups—whatever we call them—we couldn’t race without them. While most top teams have some paid crew, every team I’m aware of in the present, also has highly talented volunteers.

I wanted to share with you a couple of them who have been important to my career as well as our sport as a whole. I’m guessing there have been people just like these in your life, too. They add a depth and richness to our racing experience that spills over to our other lives as well.

Riita and Brooke Tyler from Massachusetts. This husband and wife (and son) have been helping various Unlimited teams for almost 30 years. They started with Jim Harvey in the mid ’80s up to the present with the Formula U-5 and U-7 operations. In regular life, Brooke owns Volvo heavy equipment dealerships in New England. Riita was in retail for much of her life. Their son, Brooke, also is involved in the family business—the third generation of Tylers to do so. He grew up in the sport and helped lead the U-7 Formula to the National High Points championship a few years back. I had the pleasure of having them on my team when I drove for Jim Harvey during the T-Plus years. Later Brooke Jr. lived with us for a while in Florida. He’s now married with a child of his own.

Mark and Julie Hooten and their son Lee. This family from Rochester Hills, Mich., have been fans of Unlimiteds for several decades. Originally avid photographers, they were fixtures in the bleachers at the famed roostertail turn in Detroit. I met them in the early ’90s and invited Mark to join the T-Plus team for an “Excellent Adventure.” Fearing that after one season he might prefer the sport from the outside rather than the inside, the bug bit him hard, as well as Julie and Lee. Mark now oversees both of the Formula Unlimiteds as team manager while holding down a full-time executive position with GM. Lee is a graduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute interning with Apple this summer. We’ve had the pleasure of having the Hootens with us in Lighthouse Point for pleasure boating and they attended Sabrina’s and my wedding.

Bill and Dee Moore from Oregon volunteer on the U-37 team. This boat is owned by famed Unlimited driver Billy Schumacher. By day, Bill and Dee run their family owned window and screen business near Portland. Besides working on the U-37 in their spare time, they also are new grandparents. We’ve had the pleasure of their company at our home for pleasure boating, too.

Jimmy Gilbert of Houston. Truth be told, Jimmy likes offshore more than Unlimiteds. But thankfully he likes our sport enough to have been with our team for well over a decade. He previously helped the Miss Budweiser team and Mike Hanson’s team when Mike won the APBA Gold Cup. He came to the Oh Boy! Oberto team when Mike became our crew chief. During his 30-plus years with NASA, Jimmy was involved in figuring out how to get astronauts and equipment to the moon and back. He’s the electrical and computer whiz for the U-1 Oh Boy! Oberto. His commitment to quality is a pleasure to behold.

These are just four of the families we’ve met through racing that have added joy to our life and made our race teams better because of their commitment. If you’ve met people like this, drop us a line and share your story. I don’t think there is a top competitor in boat racing who would have reached the top without volunteers.

If I believed everything I read on various websites about my particular category (Unlimited Hydros) or boat racing in general, I’d think it’s just a matter of the hearse pulling up to the hospital. Naysayers, know it alls, never knews, have no clues—you name it—all have their forecasts of the dire future of our sport. Thankfully, as it’s been for over 107 years, they are still wrong.

While the internet has proved a valuable tool in so many ways, it’s also given a voice, quite frankly, to some idiots. The kind who have likely never accomplished much, and get their kicks in other people’s challenges. The good news is life goes on, our racing goes on, and you and I won’t let them steal our joy.

Even in these trying economic times, we’ve had positive announcement after positive announcement for both our teams and our race sites.

• For my team, Oberto Sausage Company has stepped up again to sponsor the U-1 for the 10th consecutive year, with even more presence than in prior years.

• Lucas Oil stepped up to sponsor the Madison, Ind., Governors Cup over the July 4th weekend and as an associate sponsor of the entire H1 Unlimited circuit.

• Lamb Weston once again renewed its title sponsorship of the Tri Cities race in Eastern Washington. And Albert Lee Appliance and Boeing signed up for title sponsorship of the annual Seafair event in Seattle held in early August.

• Not only did Albert Lee Appliance become title sponsor of the Seattle Seafair Unlimited race, it increased its sponsorship of the U-21, a virtually new Unlimited driven by up-and-comer Brian Perkins.

• The Qatar Marine Sports Federation is once gain bringing the Unlimiteds back in November for the Oryx World Cup in Doha, Qatar—it’s the second year of a five-year agreement.

• Peters and May, the international shipping company, is underwriting the U-37 team owned by Jane and Billy “The Shoe” Schumacher along with their new driver JW Myers.

The facts speak loudly, and say we’re not only fine, but healthy and growing. We have new sponsors, new boats and race sites that are running anywhere from their 40th annual event to the 101st running of the Detroit APBA Gold Cup.

When I served as APBA President in 1996, I recall some people then forecasting the death of our sport. They would tell me everything we were doing wrong, etc. I wondered then, as I do now, how we can do it so wrong for more than 100 years and still exist. Frankly I hope we continue to fail as bad as we have for another 100 years.

As for the naysayers, well, you know :)

Unlimited hydroplane racing has afforded me the opportunity to travel to some pretty unique places and meet a lot of people. In looking back over my 40-plus years of racing, I realize (sometimes not enough) that it is the people I’ve met along the way that are most important, not the wins and titles.

In the quiet of the night, it is people experiences that fill our minds. Sure we remember some deck-to-deck racing, crashes, championships, etc. But it always comes back to people, really good people. People whose lives have become, in some manner, intertwined in ours solely because of boat racing.

We may have only met them for a minute, or maybe shared dinner with their family, in some instances stayed as guests in their homes. But for however long the encounter, the memory is eternal.

I was reminded of this when a good friend of 30 years recently died. He was Frank Smith from Lake Hopatcong, N.J. Frank and his brother, Ronald, gave me the opportunity to drive their 1-litre hydro T-22 Constant Pressure. From 1988 on we won five consecutive national championships and set every competition record for the class. They retired from racing in the mid-90s and settled into semi-permanent retirement in St. James City, Fla., on the west coast near Captiva.

Whenever we spoke on the phone, their significant friend of long-standing Stella would always say, “Steve, you gotta visit.” Somehow time always seemed to not allow that opportunity. Well, now Frank is gone, and the excuse of not having time to have seen him is a burden I will carry forever. I should have visited—to thank him for all he did for me, to give him one final hug, to tell him in every way possible how much he and Ronald and Stella brought to my life, not to mention my late father’s life and my daughter’s.

If you’re a racer, you know there are people who did the same for you. Please give them a call or visit them soon, because you just never know when today might be too late.

Racing and winning is great—meeting genuine people is far superior.

This past weekend (March 5-6), the Unlimited hydroplane category of APBA held our annual rules meeting and awards banquet at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. The Maloof brothers and the Palms are the sponsors of our Top Qualifier award at each race.

These meetings once again reminded me that after 44 years of boat racing, a lot has not changed. We still circle our wagons and shoot inward, we still eat our young and we still believe “someone” will fix things.

That said, we also have a rich heritage of volunteers who make everything work year after year. In our category’s case and APBA’s, that’s been more than 106 years. Somehow, while the owners and drivers are fighting—much of the time over chicken poop—these volunteers still pull it all together.

Whether they are officials, timers, scorers, pit workers, crane operators, patrol boat divers and drivers, you name it—these people are always there and are truly the unsung heroes of powerboat racing. They could care less for our internal bickering, they like the people and what happens on the water. I think it’s much akin to those of us who like sausage; if we actually saw how it was made, we likely wouldn’t eat it.

Next time you and other racers are gathered together complaining about what’s wrong, who did what to who, how the rules need to be changed (to accommodate you), what we need on TV, etc., take a look around. You’ll find your discussion group is small, as in tiny.

NASCAR works because one guy, Bill France, told the good ol’ boys how it was going to be, and made them rich by following his lead. And no one, including the likes of Roger Penske, argued with him. (Penske did with Indy Car and CART and we can all see how well that worked.)

In boat racing, we’ve rarely enjoyed a benevolent big daddy like France. It’s been our own wallets or those of our owners that have entitled each of them to determine what was best for the sport. As we know, these folks come and go and leave their crap in the wake.

We’ve had moments of greater vision, from folks like the late Gene Whipp in offshore or Gary Garbrecht in our category. Gene and Gary have both passed on. In their time, many assailed them as dictators, uncooperative, etc. So we returned to leadership by the group … and you can clearly see what that’s led to. Gene and Gary made national TV happen, brought out large fields, many races, lots of repeat events and so forth.

This might sound like a frustrated racer, it’s not. I’m pragmatic—this is the way it is and will likely always be. I would ask of you the same I do of myself. Look around, we’re a small group. We can only keep shooting each other so long until no one is left standing. It’s like the last two cannibals who finally realize what they’ve arrived at, albeit too late. We need to embrace and never quit thanking the people outside of our tiny group of insiders who are always there.

The men and women who show up, make the race site raceable, close it up when it’s done, and find great joy in the doing thereof. For me, thank you to everyone who makes what we do on the water possible, in spite of ourselves. You’re my heroes.