Dave Vaillancourt joins the podcast in episode 115. Dave is an unsung hero of H1 behind a lot of marketing, sponsor relations and merchandizing decisions in the past 20 years or so. Dave talks about his history in the sport and the beginning of his marketing and merchandising career with H1 in part 1 of a 2 part episode.
You can learn more about Dave's business and access to his website that will house more information about the upcoming 1/25th scale models here: DA Graphics
Dave Vaillancourt joins the podcast in episode 115. Dave is an unsung hero of H1 behind a lot of marketing, sponsor relations and merchandizing decisions in the past 20 years or so. Dave talks about his history in the sport and the beginning of his marketing and merchandising career with H1 in part 1 of a 2 part episode.
You can learn more about Dave's business and access to his website that will house more information about the upcoming 1/25th scale models here: DA Graphics
Roussatel Talk, the podcast dedicated to everything about the sport that we all love. Hi, Jermaine Reese. I am your host, david Newton, and it's time once again to sit back, relax and welcome to Roussatel Talk. Hello, listeners, this is episode 115, and for today's episode, I had the chance to talk to one of the unsung heroes of the sport. In reality, there are so many different people, personalities that really make the sport happen, from drivers, crew members, owners, race venues, people volunteering at the events, people volunteering behind the scenes for the sport itself each one officials, marketing, sponsorships. The list goes on and on and on, with the thousands of people that it takes to pull this sport off and make it happen.
Speaker 1:And I talked to Dave Valencourt. Some of you may know the name, some of you may not, but Dave Valencourt for years has really been a drive behind a lot of the marketing and merchandising that the sport has had, and thanks to him, we've had some great toys and shirts and hats and different things and merchandise people like you and me, the fans, can purchase to represent our sport. This interview became a little bit more of a longer conversation. I really enjoyed talking with Dave, so we're going to put this into two parts. Dave had some exciting things to talk about with upcoming merchandise and items for the sport, but in this episode today we talked a little bit more about his background with Hydropen Racing, what got him interested, some of his favorite things and his connections to his marketing and sponsored relations, as well as bringing visibility to the sport. Well, joining me today on the podcast, I have Dave Valencourt, a marketing, I'll say, guru for the sport, but also sponsor relations and a few other things for H1 and the teams. Dave, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Great thanks, David, for having me on. I appreciate it. I always love to talk about racing and our passions. I guess our similar passions in life, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you're at the right place to talk about this. I'm sure we could talk hours about hydroplanes, but I had a fan reach out and request you make the show and because you've got some new toys we'll talk about later on for the sport. But before we get too deep into what's going on now, I always like to talk about the past, about our passions for hydroplane racing. What got you interested in hydroplane racing?
Speaker 2:Well, I was kind of born into it, since I lived right above the hydroplane pits on 46, right at the top, and ever since I was, you know, four years old, my dad would drag me down and my uncle would drag me down to the races and after about I think I was like seven or eight years old it was one of those kids that we stood on the side of the pin trading area and where the boats used to come in and all the people who used to be able to go through the gates and everything, and you know, we'd just admire people that have pit passes. And then, you know, one year I think we were probably eight or nine somebody handed us a sticker that was a day pass. We're like, wow, this is cool. So we got it right in it was a circle when I think it was like 1977 or 76., so it was like nine years old or something and went into the pits and went, wow, this is incredible.
Speaker 2:The next day we thought it was really cool and we were hanging out and everything. Somebody else gave us another passes and then one thing led to another and then we had a couple extra passes somehow somebody, because we kept on asking people for them. And somehow some adult came up to us and said I'll give you five dollars for that. And we looked at each other in front of ours and we're like, yeah, we'll do that. I think we're the first one selling pit passes.
Speaker 1:Pit pass scalper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, at least I wanted to think I was the first one, so pretty funny. I think the Birdo kids were involved in that craziness as well. I'm not sure if there's any gym involved in that, I can't remember who all in the neighborhood kids, but free a Birdo sponsoring type thing. So yeah, but that's kind of how I got involved. And then my dad worked at the post office with Bob Sr and Bob Kearns was another and he was like an APBA or whatever. It was the URC or one of the league things at the one time and he was the liaison to the military, because he was in the military and he said well, if you're coming down, I'll give you a pit pass, but you got to work. And so I ended up getting thrown in to work out on the water because I could swim. And I was thrown in with another guy named Bob onto his little runabout and we went out basically diving to put the buoys in, and so I'd have to dive down and attach these things down and we were dragging the chain for looking for the buoys you know the markers that were under water at the time and everything else. And Bob was a beer drinker and that's all he could drink all day. So in the cooler was ice water. That was the water from the ice that melted and beer and I was like 13 or something like that and I was like, do you have water or anything I could drink out in the hot sun and he goes no, but I got ice in the cooler and there's water. So yeah, I learned to drink out of the beer cooler Little splash of beer. It was kind of ugly but that was kind of fun. So, wow, good old times of that. That's kind of how I got involved. And then basically how I got involved with the rest of the hydroplane stuff of making all the products. I don't think a lot of people know where all the merchandise comes from the inflatables, the die cap, some of the crew shirts you know basically anything you can think of. That's a hard good type thing has basically come out of my company and I started a company in 1988. Actually, 1989 is when I started it.
Speaker 2:After I graduated school I was working over in Shanghai, china and Hong Kong and through a business program at University Puget Sound and went over there and learned about basically marketing and manufacturing and came back and started my own company after a little thing called Tiananmen Square, kind of lost my job opportunity there and started a company of screen printing and graphics and all that kind of stuff here in Seattle and went over back to China and talked to friends that I knew, and then Hong Kong and started importing stuff for everybody, from Microsoft to I mean, you could name it. We built it and lots of shark tank things and a lot of different things. So the hydroplane stuff is kind of like a secondary thing. It's clearly a secondary thing. It's my passion, so I'm always involved in those projects and I've got a full team of engineers manufacturing engineers and project managers kind of take the lead on the hydroplane stuff, because it's what I like doing and everything else I'll let everybody else do. All right, so I got started.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. Well, you're tiptoe's in pretty deep then, after your rude awakening, to enter in the sport with the diving for the buoys. Well, one question I always love to ask here is what's your all-time favorite hydroplane in hydroplane driver?
Speaker 2:Boy, those are two different boats and two different things. So my all-time favorite person in the sport is Steve David. And Steve is just the most humble guy with a lot of skill and a lot of ability to work with people and his ability to remember people's names and facts about them is unbelievable. That is such a gift. I mean he can talk about. Oh, you know, he sees somebody once a year, maybe once every three or four years, and then he knows something about their mom or how is you know she recovering? And I'm like how does he remember this? I mean and I constantly saw him do this the whole time I'm like unbelievable. So I mean his ability to be an ambassador for the sport and to be a good guy in general. He's successful in business, successful at racing, successful at everything he does. I admire him. As you know, the all-around best person for, you know, for driving the boat.
Speaker 2:My passion I love it is the pay-and-pack, the wing-launcher. I mean I bought a ride from the museum on it a few years ago and some stances like COVID stopped my ride in Manhattan and going to Lowe. Then the next year had something else and then last year I had to. I was in my son's college parents' days and then finally almost got a chance. Well, it was last May. They had the. They took out the, the pay-and-pack and the Notre Dame and the Squire shop and I think it was the Tahoe. Yeah, yeah, I think it was the Tahoe and I was next up to get a ride in the pay-and-pack, all suited up and everything, yeah, and it broke and I guess I was a year ago or two years ago, I can't remember when that was, whatever day that I was like. Oh, I even got my. I even bought a ride for a friend of mine that was another childhood kid that lived there on the Notre. He got the ride on the Notre Dame and he was on cloud nine. So but I'm still waiting for my pay-and-pack ride.
Speaker 1:Oh, man Haven't gotten it right yet, okay. Well, hopefully this year you can make plans, go to Mahogany Lowe and get in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I got a ride in the Bardall in 2000,. 2001 or two out at Mahogany I think. They just had just the Lake Shalamb thing and Mark Evans gave me a ride and he's here for a little while and that's the ultimate. You know, for Elfer again, and I described it as you know, riding at 75 miles an hour over railroad tracks, but the whole ride felt like that's about right.
Speaker 1:I got actually got a ride in the Bardall a couple of years ago at Mahogany Merlot. But I was fortunate though, because I was the last person to go Saturday evening and then the first person that went Sunday they broke a broke a rod in the motor, I think that just on the way out to the course. So I got fortunate for that. But yeah, it's quite an experience, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 2:it is. It's an incredible experience and you know I shared it with my son as well. He got to drive the ride in the Oberto and so he got because he helped. You know he was doing an internship type thing and he was helping with the. We had the J kids. He was the first J kids of helping the drivers be their drivers assistant, so I think he was Jimmy Shane's driving assistant when he was.
Speaker 2:I want to say he was like 13 or 14. And when he turned 18, he got a ride in the Oberto, so he raced J's as well, so for a while. And the larger 300 class.
Speaker 1:So okay, I think I remember him one year the J stocks had wraps up. Well, they have had wraps on it several years, but I think he was helping out home street. Maybe it was 2019 or right before COVID. Yeah, and he my son was with me in the pits and I was trying to give him a tour and your son helped him come back and, like, look around the tree stock, and that was a fun experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he was driving the home street with his J and then my daughter was doing the Oberto. So okay, okay, nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So right Okay.
Speaker 1:So when did they start racing? Well, when did they start racing?
Speaker 2:Um started with the museum hydro playing building their first one. I think my daughter was seven, I mean, so kept Brown's kids daughter. They were all playing in the shop when they were young at first, and then Katie and Andrew, I think, are the same age or no, I think Katie's Sophia's age, I think she's just finishing up, Um, but I think they were nine and I think she drove for the first time when she was nine or 10 and Andrew was 10 or 11 when he drove for the first time. So, and they thought it was pretty cool At first. They weren't.
Speaker 2:They were like ah, you know, I don't know if I want to drive and I go, okay, we spent like five months building the thing and then here's what you got to do Just got to go, take a lap, come back in. If you don't like it, we'll park it and we'll get rid of it. It's like, okay, I'll take it. And then he went out and he came back in for after one lap and I looked at him and goes well, what do you think he goes, I want to go back out and he had fun doing that. So if anybody's out there that has kids that you know are in that age group between a, you know, to start out at nine years old to drive. It's a fantastic learning. So yeah, the good bonding thing is you know, every weekend, or every couple of weekends, you're guaranteed a weekend with your kid all the way through teenage years and whatever. So it's a good family bonding. Or you know, just the dad and or the mom and the kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take some off the iPads.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and there were other worse things, rather worse things. Yeah, my son turns nine tomorrow, but I don't think we've got the approval to be driving one of those. But he's got an RC boat. We're trying to get him in RC boat racing at least, so yeah, Well, nine year olds, they keep them kind of.
Speaker 2:They keep them restricted pretty well and it is a little bit of a bumper boat thing, but getting hurt at that age is very rare. I mean they're doing 30 some odd miles an hour Right, and they've got a lot of safety gear. I mean it's Kevlar cut suits, kevlar backpack, life jackets, the whole thing, even neck restraints and everything that else Okay. So I mean, if you need, you know we'll get you, we'll get him out there. So I mean there's plenty of people that would be glad to take him out there and he can use Sophia's or Andrew's J-Class. Okay, all right, he can test without the Alberto. It's still wrapped. That would be cool, Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, are they still racing?
Speaker 2:now my daughter is. My son is actually he's in Germany right now and he goes to college back in Boston and doing a little program there and so he's kind of he's kind of out of it. My daughter has likes the inboards. She really likes the inboards a little bit more than the outboards and it's a little bit of speed but it's also you've got the protective gear. It's not so visceral as far as hair coming at you and the stability of the boats a little bit better. So she's running a one and a half liter. We'll be. She'll be racing out this this summer.
Speaker 2:So I don't know about the outboards. We're still up in the air about racing an outboard this summer. So we'll see how much time. But we're kind of dedicating the one and a half liter that we've got that kept breads. You know, basically he's. The deal with Kip was. He gets the boat running and you know I bought the boat, I write the check, he makes sure that runs and him and Marty rebuilt the engine for us and I mean put out a very consistent boat. So we're really happy with that and we're having fun.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. It's great to hear that she's racing still and keeping that going. Like you said, it's a great, great thing, bombing thing with your kids to race boats. Well, you mentioned earlier, you started your company back in 1989, but and you've been a longtime fan but how did you get connected, your products connected with the various racing teams? Like, when did that start for you?
Speaker 2:I think it was, I want to say 1995 or 94, somewhere around there was helping, I think, company. It was pizza time. They sponsored the aid, I think the U8. Yeah, remember that. Yeah, we're a first team and they happen to be a client before that for products that we screen printed in Seattle anyways. And their person, sherry, a marketing person, said hey, you want to do hydroplane stuff? And I go, yeah, so then we started doing that and then we did ceramic buttons, and with 22 karat gold, and they're pretty cool. I think they're still a little bit on the collectible side. There's probably six or seven different varieties of those, maybe even more, I don't even know.
Speaker 2:I made a bunch of those because the company that we sold the merchandise to went bankrupt on us and they never paid us for the stuff. And so, you know, I made up these buttons and I think Nate Brown, you know, signed the back of a bunch of them and said, hey, go sell these for $1,500. Try to make your money back. I was like that's a great idea. So I went and did that and I had to thank Nate for doing that. He's, that was a good guy, and so that's how I kind of got involved and then did a bunch of you know talk to Larry O'Berto when he was doing the O'Berto team and doing the marketing and went in and talked to him and his mom and the marketing person, cindy Klapmanvich I think is her last name, I can't remember it's been a few years I went in there and pitched him on doing radio controlled boats and all kinds of things and the first year we basically took stuff, stock off of what we could find and did that and then made a little diecast and once one of the teams you know, once O'Berto saw it, everybody wanted the diecast.
Speaker 2:So then we went and pulled it up and then we had a customer that sold to the Mariners and so we made all the diecast for the Mariners. The first year we didn't do it. It was a different company out there and it was a different shape. It's kind of a long bullet, more shape, and we basically had the same molds as they did at the same time. And then we went and tooled our own, more in the shape of a real hydroplane rather than the Hot Wheels and expanded Hot Wheels one. So we did multiple Ichiro, I think, ken Griffey Jr and a bunch of other.
Speaker 1:There's an Adrian Beltry. I remember that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a Beltry. Yeah, it was. I think three or four, I can't remember. I mean it's. We've probably done I think 30, some odd diecasts, 35. I mean everything in the honey bucket it's got one. Very funny, it was quite a few. And this guy's are all. You know the one thing about working with the hydroplane people they're all good people. You know they might be hotheads during the race because they're so passionate about what they do that you know this makes a difference to them. And but after that you know, when you're calm down and everything they're. You know great people. You know salt of the earth folks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they really are. It really feels like a big, extended family. Everyone really tries to watch out for each other's back and support each other wherever they can.
Speaker 2:It seems like yeah, they do and and they, you know, they bring the business to their, to people that they know and they trust and looking out for their best interests too. So so that's kind of the good thing about working with them is it is family and they know you try to make sure that they have something that they can use to raise funds and to, you know, get awareness to their customers. So actually had a conversation with one of the team owners the other day and we just started talking to you like, well, you know, I don't get much out of the hydroplane thing. I go, I think you do and you don't realize it. So we started talking about it and then he was, yeah, you got a good point there, and it was.
Speaker 2:You know, he has a display hall that he puts on the side of the road somewhere and you know, the one thing is about boat racing is I've got name recognition around here. I can call and say, can I get an appointment? And he'll always get an appointment, but maybe not get the project, but he'll always get an appointment. So that was in a kind of. He was like, okay, yeah, I get it. So that was kind of the point I was making to him. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well that's that's. It's big to get into the door with those things. For sure you can't just come out of the street with that. Well, that was a big deal. I thought it was a big thing having the Mariners give out the little hydros. I remember kind of being blown away going to a game and getting one of those, so that was really. That was really cool.
Speaker 2:There's 25,000 of each of those out there, wow.
Speaker 1:Are they going to, are they going to have any more, or that that deal kind of ended.
Speaker 2:It's not so much that it ended. What ends is. You've got to have a sponsor willing to pay for that brand, for that promotion.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're going to definitely have it. Do you want me to say anything more? Umm, OK. Okay, I don't know if what Oberto's deal was at the time or something. They got one in and I don't remember the details of it, but the other giveaways were KVI, KOMO. Those guys were a sponsor of one of the die cast nights or something like that. I didn't work on the sales side into the Mariners. I worked with a marketing company that sells into them In the promotional world. We don't sell directly to the end user. That's why we don't build our name out there. We're on the interior, what's called the supplier side. We sell the people that resell products on the promotional side.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, I know you've made a lot of different die casts and toys and inflatables over the years. What do you think has been your most popular one you've made so far? What's your favorite you made before this year?
Speaker 2:Before this year, I'm going to have to say. We did the plastic radio control boats and I think it took a picture of the wall in our office. If you walk into our office we have a whole wall. I don't know if you can see it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the Budweiser Oberto.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's everything from Graham Trucking, Formula Radio Shack, Paul Axis, U21, American Family, Budweiser and the Oberto, Big Oberto. That's that eighth scale. I think it's tenth scale, I can't remember it.
Speaker 1:Well, there was an eighth scale, there was a twelfth scale, I believe Right.
Speaker 2:So it was the eighth scale, I believe. Yeah, what fourth foot long one. Four and a half feet, yeah. So the last one that we did, we did an Oberto with the weed whacker engine in it. Budweiser one is pretty cool as well, but yeah, so that's I mean. I think those are my favorite because we spent so much time getting the price point where they could sell for like $75 with battery charger and radio control and still be operable by a kid and it wasn't fast but it wasn't slow, but it was cool looking and it was a little bit of a challenge to do but luckily Oberto stepped up and did enough of those to make it happen. So we usually have one team that it takes the run of the larger of the order to make the rest of them be able to jump on board the smaller teams. So that's probably my favorite. The model kit this year.
Speaker 1:Sorry, dave, I've got to cut you off there. We'll talk more about this next episode. Yes, it's another classic cliffhanger. You can tune in next week and Dave and I will talk more about those models that have been teased on social media the 125th scale hydroplane kits for those current boats that will be out this summer. You'll hear more about when and where you can purchase them, what the pricing might look like, what will be included. As in next week for part two of my interview with Dave Valencourt, we'll talk more about that and some more of his merchandising and marketing career.
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