Episode 154: Mark Tate, Part 2

Mark Tate's path to hydroplane racing greatness wasn't just about raw talent—it required technical mastery, strategic thinking, and adapting to different race courses. In this revealing conversation, Tate takes listeners inside his 1994 Gold Cup victory with Smokin' Joe's Racing, explaining how this second Cup win differed from his first with Winston. Make sure you join us next week for the conclusion of our conversation with Mark Tate, where he'll share more stories about the characters and moments that defined this thrilling sport.

*Photo by Bill Osborne

Episode 153

Chapters

• 0:25 Mark Tate's Second Gold Cup Victory
• 6:10 Detroit's Unique Racing Course
• 10:15 Life After Steve Woomer
• 16:30 Racing Against the Legends
• 25:30 Jim Lucero's Mentorship
• 33:20 Episode Wrap-Up

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:25

Ruchetel 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. Rooster Tail Talk. Welcome back race fans. We're on to episode 154, and this is part two of my conversation with Mark Tate.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Now, today's July 20th, we're days away from the APBA Gold Cup being held in Tri-Cities, washington. The following week is the Seafair Regatta, so it's a magical time for hydroplane racing in the Pacific Northwest, as we have back-to-back races across the state of Washington. Looks to be a great race, but that's not what today's episode is about. We're going to jump back into my conversation with Mark Tate, and he's going to continue talking about his career, as we first talk about him winning that second Gold Cup in Detroit in 1994. It was a magical time for him and RJ Reynolds, as they were able to claim a second Gold Cup with Steve Loomer. And he'll talk more about his career where it went and, notably, we're going to end the episode talking about some more characters and people that made impacts on his career, both racing with and against. So let's get back in to my conversation with Mark Tate.

Speaker 1: 1:56

Well, the next year you did it again. You won a Gold Cup in 94, but different colors. You switched to the Smoke and Joe's racing Got your second Gold Cup victory. How did that rank Like? Which one meant more to you? The 91, 94,? Did they each have their own flavor?

Speaker 2: 2:14

They both had their own flavor. But when you sit back and you look at the first one was a truly a unbelievable day and the other one, you know, we felt that we're, we were always close at times. You know, at Detroit, the one year when we were really fast, we blew up a motor right after the start finish line, you know, just went across the starting line, starting to pull down away from everybody, boom, there went the motor. Another time in Detroit, we were really fast and Chip ran over the, you know, lost his boat and ran over the top of us and took us out of the race. Detroit, we had really good setups. We were always very, very competitive at that event.

Speaker 2: 2:51

And then we changed colors and went to Smoke and Joe's and everything aligned and we won the race. And it was very gratifying because the two years prior we felt that we were the fastest boat there and that we could have, you know, should have won if, if, things would have been differently. But um, so that one was gratifying because we had worked so hard for so many years to be so on in Detroit and run so good there. And um, after the event I told RJ Reynolds, I said well, I said. I said I think we should change colors every year, if we even do it for one race in Detroit, because it seems like new team, new colors, we win. And they all chuckled about it and they said they didn't know if they had that many cigarette brands. That's funny yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Oh, man. Well, do you think you had a leg up though, just being from Detroit area, knowing that course so well, Do you think that played into it?

Speaker 2: 3:58

No, I don't. I think our boat was exceptionally well at Detroit because of the two turns. You know, budweiser on a two-mile track normally always had a leg up, honestly, just always seemed to have a little better acceleration than us and we had the top end and we always did good on two-and-a-half-mile tracks. If you look at it Detroit, san Diego, hawaii you know those were kind of our tri-cities. You know, if you look at all my wins they were all on those two and a half mile courses and I think that we all the boat, we had good combinations for those type of race courses. We had the right gear combinations for those race courses. And I like Detroit because how are you going to set the boat up? Did you want to set it up to go super fast through a big turn or did you want to get through the pit turn and off the corner and the Detroit race?

Speaker 2: 5:02

We always tried to go through the big turn as quick as we could but we could come up with a combination that we didn't give up a lot in the big turn but we could really get through the second corner and we could really make people hold their lines in there and if we had the inside, we could hold our line.

Speaker 2: 5:19

If we were outside somebody, if we had the lead, we could pinch them down and make them turn. Outside somebody, if we had the lead, we could pinch them down and make them make them turn. Um, you know, like when I beat Nate Brown there, he broke out front in the tide, I ran him down and when we got to the pit turn, got right past the apex. I had already left him a lane and I was straightening up and going and he was, you know, he was having to give it a lot more right rudder left, I mean to to get through that corner, and he lost all his boat speed and, uh, and we, and we won that year, you know, 94, so, um, I think that we just had great combinations for those types of race courses.

Speaker 1: 5:56

Okay, okay, yeah, it makes sense. I mean it's such a unique course with that big wide turn, that small roostale yeah, so unique. I really wish we could get back on that, back on the circuit. I've never had experience of detroit race. I wish I want experience at one time. So I'm hoping the series can get back there it would be great.

Speaker 2: 6:18

I you know they need the event. There's a lot of people here that want it, but I don't know. You know the differences between H1 and the groups trying to put it on and sponsorship dollars. I think it's a. You know it's a big fighting circle there.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. Well, you continue to race with Steve Umer for many more years, up through the 90 or up to the 97 season, and he passed away shortly before the 98 season. That had to have been a really hard time. I'm sure you were pretty close with Steve. That just had to be hard to think about continuing on think about continuing on.

Speaker 2: 7:04

Well, when Steve died, it was the point of taking a step back. And you know, talking to Jim and you know what's Kenny Woomer's feelings are with the team, where do we need to be, what do we need to support? And you know how do we all get through this and, um, so you know, that was just a year of taking off and really understanding if, if Kenny wanted to continue on with racing, you know, for his dad, or taking a step back, and you know, what did Jim Lucero want to do? And, um, I based I, I kind of let them dictate of you know I I fed off of them. Okay, I agree, we're going to take the year off. We're not going to race.

Speaker 2: 7:50

Then Kenny decided he was going to sell everything. New owners were buying it. They had, you know, their direction and their focus, that they were going and my bucket list was pretty full. You know I felt good about where I was in the sport and what I accomplished and you know I had a family at that time. So you know Jim and the group wanted to race. I was going to race. Well, you know, so that was a year off. The next year, about halfway through the season, jim Harvey called me again and he was wanting to make a move away from Steve David and for whatever reasons I don't know.

Speaker 2: 8:32

So I joined the team in Tri-Cities. I ran Tri-Cities Seattle, San Diego and Hawaii with Jim Harvey the four years before and his sponsor re-signed and said, okay, I'll race another year with you. And we raced that year and then, um, I stepped away again and then I raced the one race in 2002 I think for pico and and that came about or 98, 98 and 98.

Speaker 1: 9:03

98, was it? Yeah, 98, 1998. Yeah, you ran the Gold Cup in Detroit, correct?

Speaker 2: 9:09

That's right, yeah, that was the year. Steve died yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:12

And Fred and the sponsor, pico Brothers, came up to me the Wisneys and just said hey, we got a second boat here, we want to run it. It's our hometown race, would you be willing to do it? So I did it on a flim. There was nothing planned and I didn't really test the boat but once and off into the race and it wasn't competitive and it was a difficult boat to drive. It had a bad rudder and a lot of torque. But okay, I did it for the Pico and the Wisneys and the hometown crowd. And then I came back after that and the next year and joined Harvey halfway through the season and ran a full season with him and it was I enjoyed that coming back and helping Jim. You know, I kind of went full circle with him and had an opportunity to come back and help his program along and, uh, it had value and meaning to me personally.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Yeah Well, yeah, like you said, it was full circle. You started with Harvey, you ended with Harvey. And one thing that's, I think, notable about your second stint with Harvey uh, Ron Brown was helping the team out. I don't know how much of an impact he had with the team. I don't know if he was crew chief at that time or not, but he was.

Speaker 2: 10:33

He'd helped Jim build that one boat and I only drove that boat, that new boat. I drove the old boat, the two-wing boat that got filled in, finished the one year, finished the whole next year and then they built that new boat that Ron Brown had some input on and they had Fury truck. So he drove it. I drove it one time in testing in Detroit because they wanted some different input and um, I agreed to drive it and and um, I agreed to drive it and I said I. I said I don't know if this is the right thing to do at the gold cup you got a driver, you know, and they threw me in it and unannounced to a lot of people and up it, upset some people and um, but I at least gave him as much data as I could what I felt was going on with the boat and it made sense to him.

Speaker 1: 11:27

What were your thoughts on that new boat that he had back then?

Speaker 2: 11:31

Um, yeah, the boat was heavy, it was out of balance, um, it wouldn't go through a corner, it um, it, uh, it really really pushed over and launched in the corners. Really bad and um. But I think when they built that boat they were making design changes as they were building it and it got heavy, heavy in the wrong spots and I don't think they could do much, much with the balance of it at that point and harvey scrapped it and you know, and that that was kind of the end of that of that boat in that era yeah, yeah, unfortunate.

Speaker 1: 12:15

Well, backing up to your last stint with Woomer, I just remember that offseason before the season in 98, before he passed away hearing that Ron Brown was brought on board to work with Woomer and Lucero and I just remember being really excited because I wasn't a Bud guy back then. My dad was a huge Budweiser fan. He crewed for 10 Muscatel but I was. I was had some charm for that boat that you drove and I was rooted for you guys, so I was really excited to see where that was going to go. It was just unfortunate that it happened back then.

Speaker 2: 12:54

Yeah, it would. It would have been exciting for me. The only thing I regret in the nine years that I was with Steve Woomer, they bought the circus program and we just kept refining that one boat. We did take the lobster boat that Jim Cropfield drove and we made changes to it and made it more of a conventional boat. We only ran it once, but in my whole nine years that I was there I think budweiser built like five boats.

Speaker 2: 13:21

We never built one right and it felt, if we had something new, lighter, um, that we could have been even been a little more competitive. And I was, maybe when ronnie came on that, uh, you know, maybe he'd peel the decks off our boat, make some changes and lighten it up, because it was getting heavy and it was getting heavy in the wrong areas and we kept lengthening the ram wings and lengthening them and getting closer to the canard wings. So then you were losing a little bit of control with the canard wing because back then we didn didn't. We had flaps, you know, they weren't articulate, so we kind of went as far as we could with that to keep the boat. You know, um, get air under the boat.

Speaker 2: 14:10

But uh, you know, never happened. We never had a new boat but uh, you know, woomer passed away and everything went away. But uh, you know, having jim lacero overseeing ronnie brown and ronnie brown bringing in dewey norton and having dewey and butch on the motor programs, I mean it. I felt we were going to elevate our program right along because we had some good things, I'm sure ronnie and would bring in some things from Budweiser of knowledge he had, and you know we would address things and bump that program quite a bit forward. But unfortunately it didn't happen. But you know, I liked Ronnie Brown. I drove for Ronnie Brown back in the Grand Prix days with his long gone and his dad, so I had a good relationship and knew Ronnie for a long, long time. So I felt that it would just be, the chemistry was already there.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Yeah, yeah, dang. Unfortunate that didn't get to play out. Yeah, but one cool thing I thought was really fun is that you got Steve's last win in Hawaii, that 97 season with post-call.

Speaker 2: 15:26

Yep, yeah, again, two and a half mile track. We had great setups for Hawaii and you know, we knew Steve was making a decision there if he was going to move forward or hang it up. So that was really cool to win that, knowing the general public didn't know what Steve was thinking, only me, lucero and Steve and us winning that, I think, really lit a fire under him again where he wanted to race and he wanted to accomplish things and that he hadn't, you know, fulfilled on his bucket list. You know, winning a boat championship, yeah. So he decided to race again and that's when he went out and hired um ronnie and ronnie brought in dewey norton and a couple other crew guys and I mean they were actively going through things um and making changes. So unfortunate, but yeah, it was neat that we won the very last race for Steve.

Speaker 1: 16:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:29

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:31

Yeah, exactly, well, over your career, you, you race with a lot of talented people, drivers, and you know with and against them, and I have a list of names here. I was hoping you could kind of tell me your thoughts about them and be as candid as you want on here. And so far you haven't sworn yet. So we're at zero for the swear count, patrick.

Speaker 2: 16:55

But first on my list of names is Chip Paneller you know, chip was a uh, a great competitor and he was a very, very fair driver on the race course. He was somebody you could trust and, um, and you kind of understood that, hey, we're going into this corner side by side and you know you felt chip was gonna, you know we were gonna go in and come out and you know I had that confidence in him as a competitor and um, he was a, he was a very hard driver and um, kind of one thing about chip is is my son andrew yeah, he grew up a Chip Anor fan. He loved Chip. When he was younger he used to go seek out Chip and say hi to him and sit with him and even had pictures of Chip. So you know, not only was Chip a fierce competitor of mine and somebody that I did respect and look up to, you know, my family took interest in him also. So that was kind of cool.

Speaker 1: 19:08

Yeah, very cool, very cool, Scott Pierce.

Speaker 2: 19:13

Scotty, what a great person On the race course. If something happened, it was always somebody else's fault, not Scott's fault and, um, bless his heart, he's not with us today, but uh, he drove hard, um, but uh, you know the we had a couple of running bumps at times and he, you know and like well.

Speaker 2: 19:39

I don't know what's up with that guy, you know, and, um, you know it's, it's like tri-cities. You know, he, he, he plump, screwed up there. You know, I was in and and was in my lane and he came up from behind me and ran over the top of the boat and saw the sponsor and off and stuff, because he hit the skid fin and um, I got on the radio right away and I said I think budweiser's done, I think their boat's coming apart. He just ran over the top of the skid fin and the whole left side of the boat and, uh, but things like that. But I think for Scott you know his dad raced and everything and for him to get the Budweiser ride and accomplish the things that he did there, hats off to him. You know, sometimes people are deserving of things like that. So yeah, Mark Evans.

Speaker 2: 20:38

Mark was what a character. He was a very good driver. Again, he was one that you could trust and race hard with. You know he got opportunities at Budweiser at times and with Pico, and when he got those opportunities he was a very good driver, you know, won some races and a lot of respect there of how Mark came into the sport. Very good driver, you know, won some races and, uh, um, a lot of respect there of of, of of how Mark came into the sport and how he worked so hard to get these opportunities and once he got them, I thought he was, uh, did very well with them.

Speaker 1: 21:16

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, here's a name and Andrew still races with them Dave Vilwa.

Speaker 2: 21:23

Super Dave, super Dave, super. Dave had good races with Dave Again, dave, you know, like in Madison one year he come over twice on me when Budweiser was inside and we won the race race. But those types of tactics aren't to be used on the race course in my opinion. And Dave was a hard driver. He was very successful. A lot of respect for him as as a racer back then and um, and a very smart individual. I think that he brought a lot of technology with Pico. I think that their boats really didn't advance but their propeller program did and their motor program did under Pico and I think that that was a big asset to Dave's career of making them good. And then when he got hired into Budweiser, I think he had more freedom on how to just, you know, boat design and setting it up differently.

Speaker 2: 22:27

And and I think Dave really had shown over the years, when I was racing against him, of how technical he really was and and he is a very smart individual and um, um, and he was a good driver, steve, david, steve, you know it's funny, I had a relationship with Steve. I drove one liters against him, I drove seven liters against him and then we drove an Unlimited and I think Steve was just a really average driver. You know he drove well, he drove smart when he got to the Madison program and they won a lot, but for some reason, under pressure, steve never won the big races. He couldn't win them in the one leaders, couldn't win them in the seven leaders and he couldn't win when he had opportunities with the Madison program. And unfortunate that, you know, maybe he deserves to have his name on the Gold Cup, just like Jim Crockfield. They never accomplished that, but all in all Steve was a great ambassador of the sport, always a very positive individual, no matter what the circumstances were, and you got to respect that. He was a good.

Speaker 2: 23:53

He was not the driver of a Chip Hanno or Dave Ville walk, but he was a good driver, yeah, but probably one of the best ambassadors of the sport over the years oh, yeah, yeah tom to eat, tommy, you know, again, I've had relationship with tommy before unlimited racing and then, uh, I only got to drive against them, I think, um, the one my first year in the sport, um, but again tommy was he could get a little more out of every boat that he was ever in the one my first year in the sport, but again Tommy was he could get a little more out of every boat that he was ever in and he was a very smart driver and he drove within the limits of the boat. But he was always on the starts. He was very smooth around the race course. He knew where his position was, where he needed to be and who he was racing against and what he wanted to do.

Speaker 2: 24:46

Um, he always had a good game plan coming into each event and he knew the race courses very, very well of all of his years racing. So when he got to the budweiser ride, I mean it was just a natural for the guy and um, you know, even like when he drove the miss us and detroit and won the gold cup for him, uh, I didn't, I wasn't there, I didn't get to see it, but I did watch films of it over the years and you know, just kept driving the boat, driving the boat, driving the boat, you know, and and put himself in the position to win that race.

Speaker 2: 25:21

He wasn't the fastest boat, but he out drove the guy and, uh, you know, hats off to him. And and even today you know a lot of respect for tom teeth. You know, as a boat driver you know he built a lot of you know, not a lot, but he built a lot of limited inboard boats or refined a lot of the smaller inboard boats and helped a lot of people over the years. He even built race engines for for teams back then. He built race engines for tom funka and the five liter which I set all the world records with at one time. So tom was always a very he was a, a person that you could always, even if you were racing against him, you could go up to him and ask him a question and he would. He would be very honest with you and give you the right direction and focus where you needed to be. So tremendous amount of respect for you.

Speaker 1: 26:13

Yeah, and not everyone's like that, right? Not everyone's going to give you their honest feedback, right, jim Lucero?

Speaker 2: 26:22

Jim, uh, jim, I can't say enough good things about Jim and how he took me under his wing and helped develop me as a driver and the knowledge that he gave to me as a driver. You know, coming into Unlimited I felt I was a very good driver and I drove very hard. But Jim gave me the knowledge of propellers. You know when we put props on, why one worked, why one didn't, and we would go over. You know the pitch, the rake, the diameters, the blade shapes. You know learning how to match props to gear ratios, how to balance boats, weight distribution. We know what. You know what it does and you know, and you know learning the rear wing and what it would do on the race course during from race, water to qualifying and things, and um, very, very knowledgeable and um, I think Jim was, once you got to know Jim and he accepted you into his circle, what a great individual Would do anything for me. You know, and vice versa, I would have done anything for Jim and I can't pay enough thanks to Jim Lucero. So you know, I got a Jim Lucero story and I I told it at Madison.

Speaker 2: 27:52

But, uh, my first year racing for Jim, I would say, hey, jim, we need, we need to drop percent. We're getting, you know, two, three percent on the gear. We're getting killed off the corner, especially on two mile tracks. You know, and Jim would look at me and he'd shake his head and he'd give me the peace sign. I walk off the dock, you know, or turn and walk away from me and, um, or you know, I would say, well, I think we need to do this or do that, and he'd shake his head, you know, okay, and do this, and walk away. About a year and a half into the sports, through the second year, I was kind of adamant, like I'm god damn it, this is what we need. We need to do this. We're gonna have a shot at winning this race. We need, we need to make a change.

Speaker 2: 28:39

And uh, and, and jim did that, and I was ready for him, and he turned and I grabbed his arm and he turned around. He looked at me with a stern face that jim lacero always had, you know, at times, like yeah, what? And I said, jim, what does this mean? Every time I ask for something, you give me the peace sign. He goes, oh, you don't know, and I said no, and goes I don't think so and no way. And I stood and he turned around and walked away and I'm standing there like, oh my gosh, he's been giving me that sign for a year and a half. So that's my Jim Lacerro story. But the funny thing was, as my boys were getting older, I told them this story. So anytime, hey dad, I want this, hey dad, I want that, and me and his mom and their mom would go like this and they knew no way, that's hilarious.

Speaker 1: 29:32

Yeah, I have one. I have one story I want to share real quick, because Jim, he consulted for 10 mesquitelle for a number of years, the late nineties, in early two thousands. And I remember being at a race in colonna I think this was like 99 or 2000 or something like that and the boat ride was really rough, it was rough water and ken came in and jim said, well, what happened out there? And ken said, oh, the boat drives like shit. And Jim just looked at him and he put his hand up like he was looking at a book, like an imaginary book. He says, well, if I look in the manual drives like shit, doesn't tell me anything Like I need some real feedback here.

Speaker 2: 30:17

Yeah, that was one thing that I was very proud of is that after every test run or every race, butch Jim and me would meet in the truck and Alex would download the data and we would go over that data. But before Alex would download it and we would have that meeting, jim would debrief me. You know what the boat do, what you like, what didn't you like, and Jim was amazed of the input that I could give on the boat. He he said that I was probably the best driver that he ever worked with of giving him really good feedback. And jim was very, you know, very good at watching the boat and you know, sometimes with binoculars, sometimes without, depending on the race course and the area, I might be having a difficulty with it on the track.

Speaker 2: 31:10

You know, on the race course and he goes yep, that's exactly what I was seeing. I was seeing this and this and and uh, and we would get on the same page. And then how do we get better there? Um, and butch corning, you know he's. He said unbelievable. He goes do you ever back off? And I said, well, no, you're not supposed to right. That boat was a very forgiving boat. It was a cadillac to drive and it was very, very responsive to the front wing and I could really drive the boat very, very well by just controlling it with the front wing. Wow, it was just a beautiful boat. But the communications with Jim and how we were on the same page and, as I gathered more knowledge over the years, you know the team was, you know we were really good at getting a good boat set up.

Speaker 1: 32:06

Yeah, Well, there's no doubt about that, mark, but that's all the time we have for this week, knuckleheads. Make sure you come back next week with part three and the conclusion of my interview with Mark Tate. Mark was so gracious with his time and really has some more great stories to share. Make sure you come back next week to hear those. In the meantime, make sure you check us out online at roostertelltalkcom or on our social media pages on Instagram and Facebook.

Speaker 1: 32:36

If you haven't checked out Rooster Tail Talk Plus yet, make sure you do. You can find the link in the bio below. But with the premium subscription you get more access to more content on our website. I have several articles, photographs, and I'm going to be adding more to that throughout the year. But also for all members, I have a 10 card collectors trading card set that you can get with your membership. On the trading card set I have all eight drivers and a couple of fun cards to go along with the set, but they're not for sale and they only go out to the Rooster Tail Talk Plus members. But, like I said, that's all.

Speaker 1: 33:12

I have for this week, so until next time. I hope to see you at the races.