Episode 145: Don Mock

We take time to remember and celebrate Don Mock, a great friend of the hydroplane racing community who recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. His extraordinary contributions as a talented craftsman, museum board member, restoration specialist, and musical composer shaped the hydroplane community in countless ways that often went unrecognized. Please share your memories of Don on social media. Listen to his song "Flight of the U10" from his album Basement Tap Tapes to remember and celebrate his legacy.

Notable links:

Don Mock on Spotify

Don Mock Double Guitar in Concert 1985

Scale Hydroplane Video created by Don Mock

Madison Movie model boats

1982 Atlas Van Lines Restoration 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Don Mock's Legacy
• 2:50 Don's Contributions to Hydroplane Museum
• 5:09 Don's Musical Talents and Beyond
• 8:37 Personal Memories and Friendship
• 12:00 Tribute and Musical Dedication

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

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. Let's go have anything really planned for it. It's a different take because last week I lost a good friend in the hydroplane racing community lost a good friend as well with Don Mock. He passed away after a long battle with cancer and I really been struggling the last week because I've known Don pretty much my whole life and looked at to him as kind of a racing dad. He was one of those people that always took care of me when I went to the races and whether I made good decisions or bad, he was always there to help.

Speaker 1: 1:32

But I really wanted to attribute this episode to Don because I know many listeners out there knew Don and if you didn't, don was more than just a hydroplane enthusiast. If you didn't, don was more than just a hydroplane enthusiast. He was a great human being, such a kind soul and just talented in so many different facets of his life Within the hydroplane racing world. He was a longtime hydroplane fan, grew up in the Seattle area, was a big Muncie fan and he actually joined RC Unlimited's racing RC Scale hydroplanes in 1986, where I first met him and I was only two, so I guess I could say I knew Don as far as I can remember right. So but he entered and he raced a model of the 1977 Blue Blaster Atlas Van Lines and that was his favorite. He loved Atlas Boats, he loved Muncie and he loved Hanauer and later in life he became good friends with Chip and I'll go back to that here in a little bit. But I just want to talk about how talented this man was and many of you may not understand his contributions to the sport Because there's so many people like Don that don't get the credit for all the things they do behind the scenes. And Don, yes, he was an RC scale hydroplane racer, talented craftsman, but he really did a lot for the Hydroplane and Race Boat Museum.

Speaker 1: 3:00

Now Don was on the board for many years, helped influence a lot of things that happened at the museum, but he literally had a hand in many restorations. He helped out back in the 90s when the museum first got started restoring some of the slow motions. He helped to hand out where he could with that, but he really took on charge. Back in the early 2000s the museum was able to get the night the original 1982 atlas van lines that was driven by chip hanauer and he became the crew chief. That was one of his favorite models that he raced and he went, was able to build a few of those models of the 82 Atlas and then, like I said, in the early 2000s he helped to restore the real boat and it was a big task and he took it on like a professional and in the end Chip Hanauer actually really shared, I think with anyone that would listen, about how talented Don was and without him the project wouldn't have happened. And Don is just one of those people that if he would have taken his talents to the Unlimiteds, he could have made it as a crew chief because he's so prepared and so thoughtful of every little thing that the boats needed. And I remember going down to the museum when he was restoring the 82 Atlas and I remember going down Well, that was actually they restored it in Jim Harvey's shop next to the museum. But I also remember going down to the museum and seeing his efforts to restore the Blue Blaster and all the trick little things that he brought to the table that were so cool.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Don was also a talented musician and we're actually going to listen to one of his songs here before we leave today. He released a few albums, talented jazz guitarist who instructed many people throughout the years and that's a side of him that he didn't always talk about because we were always talking hydroplanes. But uh, through after his passing saw a lot of people from the music industry that reached out and really missed don and don. He really touched a lot of lives. He did a lot for instructing in person but but he also made some great demonstration tapes and teaching tapes that he sold in the 80s, 90s and onward on how to play guitar. Like I said, he has a few albums released. You can check his name out on Spotify and listen to those. I'll put some links in the bio below in case you're interested.

Speaker 1: 5:42

But really he was just such a talented craftsman and I always took awe of his work and if you go down to the museum you can see his work in the 82 Atlas when it's back from Florida and then you can also see it in the Blue Blaster Just how talented he was in getting everything right proportionally, scale, structurally, sound, just beautiful, beautiful work. It's wild to think about how some things come full circle because I I knew don very pretty well. I would say, um, he never had kids but in the 90s when I started racing rca hydropl, whenever my dad couldn't take me to a race, don was always willing to give me a ride to the race. I always got to pit with him and he always helped me out and I got to hear a lot of great stories of his days in hydroplane racing and one story I just thought was amazing I remember hearing this in the late 90s when we were at the RC races how he talked about he lived in California for a while and he loved the hydros and there was a few times he would rent out a sailboat and actually be on Mission Bay during the races and he would see Bill Muncy down there in the Blue Blaster and how that was his favorite boat and his favorite driver. And then Chip Hanauer was his favorite later on and him able to go back in later years to build models of the boats in 1-8 scale and then to go reconstruct and restore the full-size ones is just amazing. Some of his talents as well as for the museum he did all the videos he went through thousands of hours of videos and put them up to the YouTube channels, restored the videos. He was the person behind the Bill Muncy tribute video that the museum has and you can thank Don Mock for that.

Speaker 1: 7:48

But you also heard him on the podcast because I did interview him back probably about four or five years ago in Tri-Cities and talked about his influences with the Hydroplane and Race Club Museum as he was the crew chief of the Atlas Van Lines there, with the Hydroplane and Race Club Museum as he was the crew chief of the Atlas Van Lines there. But he also helped the podcast out a lot. The intro music that is for the podcast. That was all done by Don and I remember just giving him a phone call and saying, hey, this is what I need, and he said, oh, yeah, no problem, and I think I feel like it was like an hour later he had all the audio done for me and my intro music was done.

Speaker 1: 8:21

Just a selfless man who was so generous with his time Can't say enough about how much he has missed and will be missed by myself, by his friends, by the guitar world, the hydroplane community, a great and influential person that is no longer with us A few more fun things that Don just was able to do on a whim. He actually raced sailboats with Chip Hanauer. I mean, out of all the vessels that they could have raced, they raced sailboats and they actually were quite successful with that and with doing the sailboats and restoring the 82 Atlas. He got a really close bond and relationship with Chip Hanauer that really grew to be best friends and I know that that meant the world to him to get to be so close to another person who was so talented in many facets and just another caring person. In later years Don and Chip were pretty inseparable, great, close friends. But his talents didn't stop there. He also made instructional videos on how to build and construct RC hydroplanes and he did a promotional video for RC Unlimiteds in the late 80s that was voiced by Steve Montgomery and he was really a great person that brought people together. He's one of those guys. If you hadn't seen him for two years you could pick up on your conversation Like no time has been lost at all. But he just was one of those influential people in the sport that unfortunately is no longer with us Now.

Speaker 1: 10:04

In the bio I would love it, if you have time just to explore some of the links I have for him, because I'm going to link some of his albums. I'm going to link the promotional video he did for RC Unlimiteds and some of the talents that he did, and in a minute here I'm going to play one of his songs and in a minute here I'm going to play one of his songs. And he was such a talented I use that word a lot in this episode talented musician because he was. He was talented in so many different things, especially music. And I'm going to share a song from one of his last albums. The album was Basement Tap tapes but the song was called flight of the u10. It's kind of a longer song, it's it's a fun song and you're going to be familiar with some of that because he used a lot of his own music for backdrop in a lot of the museum's videos. So you're going to hear some melodies and tunes in there that you'll pick up on right away.

Speaker 1: 11:05

But if you were someone that was close to Don knew him well.

Speaker 1: 11:09

I want you to listen to this song and just think about the good times with Don, his presence at the races, whether you were RC racer with him, his presence at Seafair and the Columbia Cup, if you were a member of the Hydroplane and Race Club community, because he had a large impact with that community as well, or maybe you urged a friend that knew him well, or maybe he touched you musically because I know he did instruct and influence a lot of people in that community as well, because I know he did instruct and influence a lot of people in that community as well.

Speaker 1: 11:42

I want you to listen to this song because I feel like this song embodies Don and his work as he bridged the gap of bringing some of his loves together of music and hydroplanes. And maybe you have some favorite memories of Don. Think about those as you listen to this song and afterwards, if you don't mind, I'd love to hear them from you. Comment on social media and share some memories you have of Don and, as I said before in some of my posts and whatnot, but he was a racing father to me. I lost my dad almost 20 years ago and whenever I saw him he was always looking after me. Really thought of him as an extended part of my family. So this is for you, don, miss, you Look forward to seeing you on the other side.

Speaker 2: 12:38

The World of Music. Music no-transcript.