Episode 167: Tom D'Eath, Part 3

From the Squire Shop highs and a path toward a championship to the uneasy birth of a Miller-backed program, the story tracks the shift from piston power to turbines. What ties everything together is the human calculus. Owners with leverage, marketers with favorites, crew chiefs who can translate risk into speed, each choice nudges fate. Tom talks retirement in ’86, but it wasn’t surrender; it was a clear-eyed call to stop making a boat do what it hates. And yet, when the phone rang, he returned on his terms, navigated fear in a capsule he never wanted but pushed through to a rivalry that still gives the sport goosebumps. If this ride grabbed you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more fans can find it.

*Photo from the Scott D'Eath collection

Chapters

• 2:12 From Records To Squire Shop
• 4:40 Money, Rides, And The 1983 Shakeup
• 6:48 Inside The Miller Deal And Politics
• 10:10 The Turbine Boat And A Bad Hull
• 12:07 Double Dipping And Team Fallout
• 15:20 Europe Trip And Sponsorship Shift
• 19:10 Weighing Retirement In 1986
• 22:12 Bernie’s 2 A.M. Call And Return
• 25:50 Detroit Jitters And Capsule Shock
• 28:25 Evansville Blowover And Canard Failure
• 31:10 Safety Cockpits And Design Praise
• 33:40 Championships, Perspective, And Exit

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 2:12

He had a couple years of styles 82, 83 that time period. And then 84 you joined RBT team. And he had a new boat. Light All-Star was on board as a sponsor. Lutera built a brand new boat and they had a new turbine package that was experimental at the time because it wasn't the same turbine that other teams were using. Could you talk a little bit about that experience and that experiment?

SPEAKER_01: 2:40

Let me back up a little bit because like I was out at uh Green Lake running Don Ryan's seven liter. Okay. Remember, it's 77 till 82. I didn't have a ride, okay? Correct.

SPEAKER_02: 2:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 2:55

And uh I just set a world record uh with Don Ryan's boat in the H class. We had already won the Grand Prix stuff, and Don didn't want to do that anymore, so we put the smaller motor in to run seven liter out west. And I flew in and and set a world record at GreenLake in that class. And uh Jerry Zuvich and and uh Kelly Stockland came up to me and we're just BSing in the pits after you know we ran the seven liter on GreenLake and set the record and they said uh are you retired from unlimited racing? And I says, uh, no, why? He says, Well, how come you're not this is Zubic talking? He says, How come you're not driving unlimited? I said, Nobody's ever asked me. He said, You're kidding me. And I said, No, I'm not kidding you. He says, Well, would you consider driving the squire shop? And I says, uh, if the money's right, I would, yeah. I don't drive for nothing. And uh so that's how the squire ride um, you know, I drove for them in '82. Now I don't know if you remember this or not, but and I won a couple races and I was heading for a good championship, but the accident happened, you know, uh, George Johnson, I think, in the executone, who shouldn't have been on the race course in the first place. He never had enough experience to be an unlimited driver, but that's a whole nother story. Anyway, at the end of that season, 82 season, um I dealt through Adam and Molly Berger, who were running Squire Shop stores. I very had very little contact with Bob Steil, um, other than hello, how are you, and stuff like that, you know. Um, but I thought I did a good job for him. But Earl Hall came in with 40, John Love uh represented Earl, and Earl Hall was from the East Coast, and he brought$40,000 to the squire shops. And so if you remember 83, they started the season with Earl Hall until he blew up all their motors. And uh Adam and Molly kept calling me because I didn't have a ride in '83, see? And uh so they said, Would you drive for us? And I said, Yeah, but you already got a drive. Well, he's wrecking everything that Bob has, and the forty thousand dollars he gave Bob to get that ride isn't quite, you know, covering the damage. And so, and I said, Well, you know, I've already got a deal for next year, so I could I could only run uh probably a couple races for you guys. And so I drove San Diego and Clear Lake, Texas, and that's that's all I drove in '83 for Squire Shop, was the same boat, but those two races.

SPEAKER_02: 5:48

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:50

And then the '84 thing, uh, back then everybody was pitching the Miller Brewing Company, including me, to buy all the pay impact stuff to become uh the Miller racing team. Okay. Uh that's that's really uh I mean, you can edit a lot of this, but I'm gonna tell you the truth, okay?

SPEAKER_00: 6:13

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I appreciate the truth.

SPEAKER_01: 6:16

Yeah. Um RB Bob Taylor went to school with a guy named Sam Bell Navis, a black guy. Sam Bell Navis was the head of sports marketing at the Miller Brewing Company. So, unbeknownst to anybody, um, R.B. Bob Taylor had an inn with Sam Bell Navis. Okay, and that's how the sponsorship happened. I pitched my deal uh um to become, you know, the Miller team. And when they pitched their deal, they did not have a driver assigned to their program. And Tom Kleiber at Sports Marketing and JJ Shields were the guys that knew about me, and I was pitching to be buy all the pay and pack stuff and be my owner driver uh type of operation, okay? And that didn't happen. So they gave the sponsorship to s to RB Bob Taylor with one condition that because they liked me and they knew about me, you don't have a driver assigned to your team. So we would like to have you have Tom Death become the driver of your team. I was very skeptical, to be honest with you. I heard all the details, Sam Cole was going to be the team manager, so that gave me a kind of a crawly feeling up my back, you know. Good reason. And so anyway, uh I agreed, but I agreed, uh I veered away from my normal uh contracts. I said, I will do that, but I I I don't want any prize money. I just in my contract I want to be available to drive at every race, and I would want a guaranteed flat fee plus expenses. And they agreed to that. So I became the highest paid spectator in the history of the sport. I got paid whether the boat ran or not. And I did that because I knew it was a new team and they didn't have any experience with turbines, and I heard about the GE motor they were going to use, and they hired Jerry Zuvich as crew chief, which I think Jerry's a great guy and a great crew chief. But uh, and then the the other problem, and you don't even know this, but the other problem was there were three boats Lacera was supposed to be building that winter.

unknown: 8:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 8:53

One for Executone for a Rolls-Royce Merlin, and the other two were one for R.B. Bob Taylor and the other one for themselves. Okay, well, the two ladder hulls were uh have less bow rides because they were for turbine engines. Sam Cole gave so much havoc to Jim Lasero that Jim said, screw it, give him the goddamn boat for the Merlin, which they did.

SPEAKER_02: 9:20

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 9:22

The the Miller light boat was actually the boat that was built and came off the line first, and that was supposed to be, you know, for a Merlin engine.

SPEAKER_02: 9:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 9:35

And so we got that boat, and uh it it was a scary running boat at 135 miles an hour, let alone when Budweiser made it a faster scary road.

SPEAKER_00: 9:49

Yeah, that was always an ill-handling boat, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 9:52

Right. So let me back up a little bit, because I quit the team before it even got started.

SPEAKER_02: 9:58

Really?

SPEAKER_01: 9:59

I went out there two or three times and I did drive uh the Merlin part, I think the Perdelco, they bought that just to do show and tell.

SPEAKER_02: 10:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 10:08

Right and I went to Clear Lake and I ran that boat just in a test session uh so they could do a photo shoot, you know, for their giveaway stuff. And because obviously the turbine boat wasn't done yet. And anyway, hardly anything went to plan. Sam Cole was in charge, needless to say. So I decided, because I'm sitting around there twiddling my thumb for day after day after day, I told uh RB Bob Taylor, I said, Look, and I'm gonna need some dress clothes and stuff because we're gonna, you know, the we had banquets and all that kind of stuff, you know, to do uh during racing season and at the end. And I was a little shy on sport coats and blazers and stuff. So I says, Is there a men's store around here? Well I'm just sitting here twiddling my thumbs. Can I and he gave me a name of a place. So I went there and I bought a suit and a sport blazer and flax and stuff like that. It was, I don't know, over a thousand dollars, but less than two thousand dollars worth of clothes. Now I bought this stuff and put it on my credit card, and we never did test the boat, and I packed up all my stuff because they racing season was coming, and we're gonna do the first test at the first race then, not in Clear Lake. So I went home, okay, and I got someone from sports marketing to give me a call. I can't remember her name, and she was trying to verify. Now, mind you, I bought this stuff and paid for it with my own credit card and went home. Sam Cole went to the same men's store and got duplicate invoices and back charged the Miller Brewing Company. It was a small tip of the iceberg. Wow. They were doing the same thing with painting the trailers, the trucks, the boat. They were double dipping and got caught. And Sam Bel Navis was approving, the guy from sports marketing that went to college with R.B. Bob Taylor, was approving the checks. When I called Tom Kleiber, who was the only person I trusted in the Miller Brewing Company, and told them that I don't want to be any part of this after the young lady called me to verify that my clothes they were writing a check to Bob Taylor for the clothes I bought and paid for. And I said, Well, that's it. I told Tom Fiber, I'm done. You guys go get yourself a new driver. I won't be involved in anything like this, a bunch of bullshit. I'm out of here. This looks like a bunch of hocus pocus crap anyway. I don't think the thing is ever gonna fly. So and he convinced me, please, Tom, don't quit. Don't quit. It's bigger than what you know, and just bear with me. We'll be we'll be okay with you, we'll be loyal to you. And so he talked me out of quitting, okay?

SPEAKER_02: 13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:08

So I stayed with the team. They took me to Europe, and of course, the rest is history. They pulled the plug on R. B. Bob Taylor. They were all told you either do this or you're going to jail. And they fired Samuel. Yeah. Sam Cole had to leave right after Madison because he was instrumental in the double dipping. It would be too much of an embarrassment for Miller and you know, to have the truth come out.

SPEAKER_00: 13:39

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 13:40

That's what happened.

SPEAKER_00: 13:41

Wow. Wow. That's uh sad to hear that. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:47

Yep. And of course, I was in Europe with uh Steve Gerlock, the head chemist at Miller, uh JJ Shields, and Bruce Mueller. These were all people in sports marketing. They invited me to go to Europe with them. So at the end of the season, you know, right after Clear Lake was over with. And I thought things were going to be much better for the next year. It wasn't gonna be RB Taylor, I knew that. But anyway, when JJ used to call back um, you know, to Miller, you know, about every other day, because we were over there 16 days, and right near the end when we were getting ready to, you know, come home a couple days before that, he was talking to Tom Kleiber and and the phone conversation started to get, oh, oh, oh, all right, okay, oh well uh to me that was a red flag. I'm going, oh shit. They're talking about what's going on. I'm getting screwed. And sure enough, they turned the sponsorship over to Lasero Fran and Chip. And they stayed in the sport, but Tom was out.

SPEAKER_00: 14:57

Yeah. Unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01: 14:59

So anyway, well, that's okay. That's part of uh Fortune 500, you know, company. I get it, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 15:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 15:07

You're only as good as as long as you're useful, and if you're no useful anymore, you're you're kicked to the curb, you know. So anyway, I was in Europe when I kind of got the hint, and as soon as I got home, then I got a call from Tom Kleiber apologizing to me. I know what I told you, I'm awful sorry. And you you were our guy, you did such a great job for us, and you know, um, and all the races and the PR stuff, and but we just had to do this. And okay, no problem.

SPEAKER_00: 15:38

Yeah. Well, I didn't know that you were you were pitching to to purchase all the P impact stuff. That would have been pretty impressive. I think I think that would have been um that would have been pretty cool if you had were in charge of that program with that sponsor.

SPEAKER_01: 15:54

There was a there I wasn't the only one that was doing the same thing. I mean, there was like, you know, JJ told me they had like four proposals all from different people that were gonna buy the paint tax stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 16:06

Got it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:07

Why RB Taylor didn't do that, I don't know. You know, because it was a viable team and it was running pretty good.

SPEAKER_00: 16:14

Right, right. Well that's too bad.

SPEAKER_01: 16:17

And anyway, that didn't happen. So that's the that's the truth of the light all-star.

SPEAKER_02: 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:23

And of course, Bernie Little bought everything and shit canned the the turbines and and put Ronnie in charge of both the you know the uh Griffin program and the turban program and the rest the restless history.

SPEAKER_00: 17:40

Yeah, and then you got re uh rekindled later on when he went to Budweiser as their driver. We're but you after the 86 season, were were you planning on retiring in 86, or was that just I could tell I was probably gonna kill myself if I didn't quit.

SPEAKER_01: 17:57

Okay. Uh I could keep you know one or two of the turbine boats behind me, but as you saw that year, I mean, I was uh here here's always been my philosophy. Again, let the boat do what it likes, don't try and make it do something it doesn't like to do. I caught myself trying to make the squire shop do something that I knew better it shouldn't be doing, okay? And uh and I was doing that because I wanted to prove that that we could beat the turbines, you know. And and that became very obvious to me at least that we didn't have a chance, you know. I could stay ahead of one or two of them, but I couldn't stay ahead of all three of them, you know. And both the bud and the miller were both fast uh on any given Sunday, you know. Right. And so I just decided that, you know, I don't need to be doing this, Tom. You don't need the money. You certainly don't want to end the sport dead.

unknown: 19:02

No.

SPEAKER_01: 19:03

And so I decided, and after the 86th season, I gave Bob Steil plenty of warning. By the way, him and I became very good friends eventually, you know, but I gave him the warning that in at Seattle I'm going to announce my retirement, which I did. And I really did thought uh or think at that time that that was the end of it, you know. And the reason being is that I didn't have a top ride. Uh Reynolds had one, Cropfield had one, Chip had one, you know. I mean, so the handwriting was on the wall. It was like, why am I doing this? You know, I'm probably gonna kill myself or nothing, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 19:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:42

So and Bob was uh it was a great ride. I'm glad I drove that boat because I had never driven a Rolls-Royce um boat prepared like it was prepared for chip, you know. And I really got to feel why he was able to win so many races. Uh, how could you lose with a boat like that, you know? It time his it time had it it came and went, you know. And so uh I just said, you know, I I can do other stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 20:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:11

So that's when I told Bob. And and if you remember, uh, I gave kind of my farewell at Seattle, never thinking I was ever gonna come back. Yeah, so that's the truth on that deal.

SPEAKER_00: 20:24

Okay. Well, you you you didn't leave the sport for long. It was a couple years later, Bernie came out.

SPEAKER_01: 20:29

One year, yeah, basically. Crapfield got hurt, and that changed everything, you know. Yeah, in 88 he got hurt.

SPEAKER_00: 20:36

Right. And how how did Bernie convince you to come back?

SPEAKER_01: 20:39

I gotta call it, uh, you know, of course, I wasn't involved in the sport at all, really, in uh 87. And in 88, you know, I knew that they were running in Miami and stuff, and and uh two o'clock in the morning my after Miami, I knew there was a crash, and I didn't know how Cropfield was or uh Scotty Pierce or anything. I knew there was a crash. And at two o'clock in the morning my phone rings and wakes up Judy and I. We're in Fair Haven, you know. And uh and you know, Tom, yeah, Jesus Christ, this is Bernie. What are you doing? I says, Sound asleep, Bernie. What the hell are you calling me for? God damn it, I need you to drive my boat next week. You know how Bernie is.

SPEAKER_02: 21:27

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:29

So uh I says, why? What the hell happened? What what about Jimmy? Oh, Jimmy's out for the year, you know. We we we you you know, we gotta have you drive the boat. I says, Can't we talk about this in the morning? Jerry, it's two o'clock in the you know, call me in the morning when I digest some of this stuff, you know. So the next morning he did call and uh and I said, I won't drive turbine one, I don't like that boat. I says, but if you tell me that turbine two is gonna be the boat I'm gonna be driving, the one that you know Jimmy got run over in, uh he says, Yeah, we'll have it fixed, no problem. Well, that was a lie. So I had to drive Turbine One at Detroit, and very and I of course, you know, had to work out the financial details and uh fly to Lakeland, sign the contracts, insurance policies, and all the other happy horse shit you gotta do, you know. So, but uh and of course uh they kept telling me turbine two was gonna be ready for Detroit, you know. And of course it wasn't, so uh I went, oh shit. Because I didn't like the the cop first of all, I never drove a can't capsule boat.

SPEAKER_02: 22:45

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 22:46

And I didn't like the capsule that was on turbine one, the old light all-star. And uh and when I tested it for the first time, I'm going through this claustrophobic, you know, uh mental part of even strapping in, because I was against that all the time. I always drove without belts and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 23:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 23:09

So that was all unnerving for me to begin with, let alone being in Turbine 1, which in my mind was a faster, scarier boat than it was at 135 miles an hour, is all it would go when it was with a crummy GE motor in it, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 23:25

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. How how different was it to drive it in 88?

SPEAKER_01: 23:30

I know you only got to run it that one time, but yeah, I only ran it in Detroit, and to be honest with you, I was uh uh really not sure I wanna even wanted to do this in in in in any capsule boat. And so I just kind of bit my lip and got through Detroit and didn't do very well. I think I you know, Cropfield probably would have done way better. I finished like, I don't know, third or fourth, something like that. And was scared shitless because you know, usually you gotta start the season, do some practicing, get your mental mind up to the speed you're gonna be running, and I basically was thrown into the fire in a capsule boat, ill-handling bastard that it was, and and and so I was definitely you know shitting in my knickers. Pardon the expression.

SPEAKER_00: 24:27

Oh, you're good. You're good.

SPEAKER_01: 24:29

Um we got out of Detroit, thank God, and and I knew that the the turbine two was going to be ready, you know, for Evansville. And of course, everything was super duper until it blew over. We had a we had a uh the Cannard ring act uh there's a sp there's a the Canard wing is fastened on a shaft, you know. We I call it an axle, but uh it was dead soft, and that's why the boat blew over. I mean I was fast qualifier. I'd won the first two heats. If I'd have won that heat that I was leading, um you know chip wouldn't even have been in the final, you know, and he ends up winning in the surface, you know.

unknown: 25:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 25:10

So I ended up being upside down and backwards and in the hospital for a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 25:15

So there's your introduction to racing for bud, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: 25:21

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:23

But it really the computer showed that I accelerated off the con the corner to 185, and then it showed I decelerated all the way down to 157 when it lifted off. I was trying to do whatever I could with the you know what I had to work with. You don't see the canards. In other words, I can see the indicators in the cockpit, but they were set where they were belong, and and they were only operated at time with the trim switches on the steering wheel, which was really slow.

SPEAKER_02: 25:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 25:57

So the only thing I could do was try and slow the thing down. I knew it was getting loose, but I I was trying to slow the thing down to not blow it over, and of course it blew over anyway. Well, come to find out what happened is the shaft that the that the canard was on had twisted, and uh it was in full lift position, but it didn't show that on the indicators in the cockpit.

SPEAKER_02: 26:21

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 26:22

So that's what it raised that sponsor and blew over backwards. And that's the first time and only time that ever happened to me in my whole racing career.

SPEAKER_00: 26:31

Period. Yeah. Well, thankfully it wasn't an enclosed canopy, right?

SPEAKER_01: 26:35

Yeah, well, thank God I was, because otherwise I'd be dead. There's no doubt about that. It wasn't for Ronnie Brown's really excellent uh enclosed cockpit that Lauren Sawyer and Ramsey and Reinberger and and uh you know everybody everybody that were involved in designing that boat, which Ronnie was the biggest part of it, and that cockpit. Uh I still think that's the best enclosed cockpit and why they went away from that, because it had roll bars, chrome molly steel, I mean it had the trapdoor, it had the F-16 fighter canopy, the way Ronnie, it was pretty cool too, the way it opened up and stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 27:14

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:16

Yeah, compared to what they're doing now. I've I'm I I'm not really enthused with ever wanting to get in one of those cockpits. I've seen them. They're meat slicers inside there.

SPEAKER_00: 27:28

Yeah, you got no room to move in the in the the boats now.

SPEAKER_01: 27:32

Yeah, yeah. But anyway, that's I'm glad the sport is going the way it's going because uh I had my time and I uh thank goodness for the golden ride. I you know the only world championship year that I had, and it was I had to do that minus one race. In other words, the boat got its title before I did, and I didn't get mine until the last heat of the last race of the year, and that was when I actually won my driving championship.

SPEAKER_00: 28:03

Yeah, yeah, you had your driver championship there, and then you had a couple more gold cups come up in '89 and '90. Yeah. And back to the record books, you're one of only a few people. I think you, Bill Muncie, and Dave Villock are the only ones to do to win a gold cup in three different decades.

SPEAKER_01: 28:23

Yes. And then Bill Walk, obviously, after me. I never raced against Dave uh ever, except in the Southland sweepstakes. Uh I think around 1986, he was in uh he was driving a F-boat, and I was driving a stock seven liter, and that's the only time him and I ever were on the race course uh together at the same time in anything.

SPEAKER_00: 28:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:48

Yeah. I never really drove a stake.

SPEAKER_00: 28:51

No, no. But a really short list, uh, another accomplishment for you there. Yeah. Um, did any of those other gold cups stand out for you?

SPEAKER_01: 29:00

1990. Uh, you know, I uh first of all, 88 was Jim's ride. I substituted at the end of 88, uh uh, you know, Jim took over again in '89. And uh he won a couple of races, I think, before Herman Burney finally decided to part ways. And uh and again, not two o'clock in the morning, but it was you know, way late at night, and I guess there was a big shout and match somewhere, either Evansville or Madison, I'm not sure where it was at, but uh uh Syracuse was the next race, and it was kind of the next weekend, and my phone rang again, and it was Bernie. And he said, Uh, I I got rid of Cropfield and I want you to drive my boat. And I says, Wow, geez, remember, I'm totally away from the race site, so I don't know what the hell's going on. And uh, and he says, he says, God damn it, it's either gonna be you or I'll get somebody else. He said, But I'm not gonna have him drive anymore. I'm he's done with him, you know. And so I says, Well, I don't want to take anybody's ride, it's Jim's ride. No, it isn't. I got rid of the little bastard, you know. I says, Well, I says, if if if if you want me, I I I love to work with your people and I've loved the boat. And he says, Well, turbine three is the one that we're we're gonna be running. You haven't driven that one yet. And so then I agreed, and Ronnie called me, and then of course Ronnie was telling me the issues that they were having with turbine three, and uh so that's the one that I got thrown into again uh with no experience. Fortunately for me, Syracuse that year was smooth, beautiful, smooth water. And uh because the bow the boat had problems, and uh it bow steered a lot, had too much lead in the rudder, you couldn't feel the load on your arms, there's a whole bunch of things. things. Cropfield had a little tiny steering wheel in it. I made them get rid of that and we had to fly in from Seattle the stuff that I had in Turbine II to move the steering wheel back to me and put in a bigger steering wheel and you know a lot of creature comforts I you know had to get done. If you remember in 89, this has never been done before or since J uh uh Chip and I two boats we ran both of us over a hundred and fifty mile an hour average. First and second. That's never been done before or since, to my knowledge. We ran a heat of racing and I beat him by a little bit. Uh but basically we were deck to deck for the whole heat. He was on the inside, I was on the outside and the water was like a mill pond. The two boats that were supposed to be in the heat with us they they couldn't even get started. Larry Lauderback was one of them I think in the Winston. But uh both of us ran over 153 miles an hour I think was the if not 153 damn close to it. And uh but him and I both together. So he he ran 150 and so did I by just a smidgen better. Yeah and so that that's that's on tape. And that that's that that's you can go back and look at that particular heat and that's a fact. We we him and I did that together. It was a pretty awesome race.

SPEAKER_00: 32:40

Well I've always been curious about the the differences between the T2 and T3 that you raced but unfortunately we're gonna have to wait until next week to find out what the differences were between the T3 and T2 boats uh Tom got to race with Miss Budweiser. Hope you enjoyed part three and guess what we're gonna get a fourth part to this interview I talked to Tom for quite an extensive amount of time. Really appreciate the time he devoted to this I'm always appreciative of everyone have have on the show but it always takes a lot of time to go through all the questions I have and whatnot. And Tom was very generous with his time. So thank you Tom for that and hope you look forward to next week's episode which will be the conclusion of my interview with Tom to ETH. And he'll talk more about his years at Budweiser racing as well as his time uh leading the sport in the early 2000s and talks about Detroit, the possibility of Gold Cup coming back and some other fun things along the way. In the meantime, don't forget to check us out on our social media platforms. We're on Facebook and Instagram we're also online at Roushartelltalk.com and while you're on our website don't forget to check out the Roushitel Talk Plus subscription based service where you get access to special parts of the website that has historical documents, photographs, early access to all new episodes, as well as entry into a monthly raffle drawing. But unfortunately for you knuckleheads that's all the time we have for this week. So until next time I hope to see you at the reading