YEP, IT’S TIME for our annual “In Praise of the Hydros” piece.
Since many of you have read some, if not all, of our previous installments on this topic, this year’s version will be short. Essentially, the hydroplane race is perhaps the most “unique” (to use an overrated LA term) cultural institution Seattle’s still got. Over a quarter-million people gathered on Sunday to watch a sport that exists one week a year here, and is barely noticed anywhere else. KIRO-TV paid a big rights fee to telecast the event, in a seven-hour marathon broadcast utilizing all the hi-tech tricks available to the industry. Advertisers ranging from GM to Mike’s Hard Lemonade commissioned special commercials for the telecast.
Yet, for all its enduring popularity, this may have been the last hydro race as we know it.
To explain why takes a little back-story.
Since the ’80s, the hydro racing circuit was dominated by the Miss Budweiser team, owned by Bernie Little. Anheuser-Busch poured healthy portions of its national ad budget into Little’s operation, as a thank-you for Little’s success as a Bud regional wholesaler. The sport became less and less competitive, especially after other big sponsors (Atlas Van Lines, Procter & Gamble, Kellogg’s) bugged out. As the circuit deteriorated in popularity everywhere except Seattle, Little bought out the whole operation under the name Hydro-Prop.
Little passed away last year. His son took over the Miss Bud team. But soon thereafter, Anheuser-Busch announced it would stop sponsoring the boat after this season.
Hydro-Prop is now in organizational shambles. Little’s heirs haven’t found a new sponsor. Some observers are suggesting the sport physically rebuild itself from scratch, replacing the surplus airplane engines it’s always used with more modern automobile-based engines. And the better-organized Unlimited Lights organization threatens to build its own set of bigger boats, rivaling the “unlimiteds” of Hydro-Prop.
But no matter what happens in the coming years, the 54-year heritage of the hydros will remain an integral (and fun) part of Seattle’s civic psyche.
