November Director's Corner
Weather is starting to turn cold…and its time to bring your pets inside for the winter. With that in mind, we made a trip up to the Mike Jones Racing property during the last week of October to retrieve one of the Museum’s last boats that we had to store somewhere else.
This is the U-74 hull that raced from 1974-1982. Built originally as Valu-Mart, Billy Schumacher won the 1975 Drivers Championship with it as Weisfields, and the President’s Cup the following year as Olympia Beer. Stints as Anhauser Busch Natural Light, Circus Circus, and Gilmore Racing followed, but never to the same success as its early years. Stored for many years inside Dave Bartush’s warehouse in Detroit, it was brought out to Seattle in the early 2000s by the U-37 Racing Team with the intent of restoring it for Billy Schumacher. Sadly, instead it languished outside for years—even after the project was donated to the Museum. This is the problem when you don’t have space for everything.
Sadly, the boat has deteriorated to the point where it can be utilized as a ‘pattern’, but very little of the hull itself will be restorable at this point in time. Fortunately we still have the cowlings, the horizontal stabilizer and hardware…at least its something. But at least now it will be indoors as we bring it up north to our storage facility. As I have admitted many times over the years “you can’t save them all.”
Dan Heye and Tim Mattson are making great progress on repairing the right sponson on the Pay’n Pak that was damaged at Tri-Cities over the summer. The sponson itself was a first-generation Ron Jones fiberglass sponson, so as the replacement part has been built up the decision was made to use period-correct materials (mostly so you wouldn’t run into strong-point/weak-point areas due to dissimilar materials). The replacement part turned out fabulous and as of this morning it is being fitted to the sponson. Once glued in place the internal ribs, stringers and battens will be inserted.
John Watkins and the Squire Shop crew are finishing up repairs to the left-side non-trip that was damaged at Tri-Cities as well. Since these photos were taken the non-trip has been shod with replacement aluminum as well.
Sponson skins and running surfaces are in the process of going on the 1979 Miss Circus Circus project. The next step is to get expensive aluminum sheets to go over the plywood (More on an upcoming program for how you can help below!)
The Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians, the Museum’s neighbors on our storage facility in Arlington, Washington recently completed a reclamation project on the Stillaguamish River. The resulting 3,000 yards of crushed rock and fill dirt was donated to the Museum. The tribe spent several days delivering all the material on-site, which has completely leveled out and changed the appearance of the Museum property. This is another building block of developing the property for multi-use Museum activities down the road. A big thanks to the leadership of the Stillaguamish for the ‘donation’.
The Museum’s annual meeting and Christmas party will be held Saturday, December 5th at 6:00. An Italian holiday-themed dinner will be catered by Tony’s Wings & Things. We will have a special guest speaker, present our annual Museum volunteer awards, and Board of Directors elections. RSVPs are required to attend and please make your reservations by December 1st. You can email Teri Fornwalt or call 206-764-9453. Tickets can also be purchased online for $30 per person. Bring a new, unwrapped toy (to benefit the local “Last Minute Santa” program) and get entered into a special drawing. Please come join us and help celebrate a very successful 2026!
In a few days we will be rolling out our holiday merchandise…including updates of the very popular advent calendars and hydroplane christmas lights. And as 2026 comes to a close, the Museum will be having two major fundraising programs—our annual campaign to raise money for Museum operating expenses, and something new and exciting called The 12 Boats of Christmas—each one of the Museum boats has identified a ‘need’ (something specific and tanigble) to address during the winter months. Starting after Thanksgiving, we will be highlighting a boat every couple of days and the project that needs to be completed. This is an opportunity for you to donate to your favorite boat and know that any and all funds for that team go directly to that team to help it keep running. Stay tuned!!!
Until next month….
Brad Haskin – Executive Director