Jeff Ayler (WORX 96.7 FM) and Phil Bononcini (UL-72 Pocket Mechanic)
speaking on the evening of 4/13/00.

JA:  Joining us on the phone live from the Pacific Northwest is Phil Bononcini.  Phil, good evening...

PB:  Well good evening to you.

JA:  How are things out in the Pacific Northwest on this Thursday evening heading toward the weekend?

PB:  Well just like every garage in the Seattle area, we have a hydroplane going.  Everybody is working on them getting ready for a new season.

JA:  Of course Phil, that area is definitely the die hard of Unlimited hydroplane fans and boat camps.  A lot of boats are in Washington state.  How did Phil Bononcini get started in boat racing?

PB:  Well I'd say I got started with my partner in the boat who was very involved with vintage hydroplanes.  He and his father had boats such as My Tweety.  Right now we've got the old Tempo VI boat that Guy Lombardo had that he won the gold cup with twice.

JA:  Definitely some history there to be restored.  When we talk about hydroplane racing, Phil you've been with the ULRS for a number of years.  Now it's in the fifth year of the series.  You're pretty new as a driver overall...

PB:  Well yeah you are right there.  I started my Unlimited Light career down in Phoenix in '96.  We raced there at Firebird Lake.  In fact I won my first heat down there that weekend.

JA:  Of course that was in the old Pocket Mechanic.  That's a different hull than you have now.

PB:  That was a 1985 Ron Jones hull.  We've moved up now.  We've got a 1998 Ron Jones Unlimited Light boat that we are running that's 25 feet long.

JA:  Phil last year in Hawaii, the season finale for the Unlimited Light Racing Series, you had a little mishap there in the salt water at Pearl Harbor.

PB:  Yeah, it seems like I always run into trouble in testing.  In '96 I blew the boat over in testing on a Friday.  In Hawaii, testing again, a real gusty wind come right out of Pearl City.  As we got into the apex of the corner, the wind was blowing sort of crossways on the course, not exactly straight down the straightaway.  The boat sort of just lifted its right sponson up and did a barrell roll.

JA:  Fortunately for the drivers of the Unlimiteds and the Unlimited Lights, that safety capsule definitely saved your life.  It had to be an experience for you at that time and after the accident.

PB:  Well, you get into the sport and that's just something you've got to be ready to do.  It's not a real common occurrence, but it seems to happen to one of us or two of us every year.  So you just have to be ready for it.  The safety crews do a great job.  We build the boats to be survivable so that we can come back and race again.

JA:  Phil this is our first show ever with the ULRS with the exception of when you are all in town for the Madison Regatta.  We talked about the safety capsule with the crew chiefs and the drivers of the Unlimiteds.  Are there any similarities between the canopies of the Unlimiteds and the Unlimited Lights?

PB:  Well, they pretty much have all the same components.  They're not built exactly the same.  They're built lighter.  Of course our boats are much lighter than the Unlimiteds.  We have a much lighter capsule, but all the components are still there.  There's still a bottom hatch that you can release from the inside or the outside.  We're on full time compressed air.  The steering wheels are removable.  We have the five point harness.  The glass is made up of a polycarbonate glass which will not break.  A lot of those things are similar.  The Unlimiteds of course run with the F-16 glass in their canopy. 

JA:  Also up in front of that canopy is that canard wing which helps you control the Pocket Mechanic.

PB:  Well the canards are extremely important to the design.  It's made to really fly out of the corners.  When we get to the exit pin of the turns, we're going about as slow as we'll be going on the racecourse at any one point.  At that point we need a lot of lift so we crank that canard so the nose goes up and we just fly out of the corner.  You can't have that lift at the end of the straightaway.  We put the canard back in the nose down position toward the end of the straightaway and do it all over again.

JA:  Phil, one of the interesting parts of the Unlimited Lights Racing Series...  You mentioned the first hull you participated in...  That was actually a 7 liter Grand National Hydro that you moved up to the Lights.  Now, designers have been building boats specifically for the class.

PB:  That's right our boat, Randy Haas' boat, the Alamo boat from the year before, Charley's boat, Bob Larimore's boat; those are all built specifically for this class.  They are a little large to run with a GNH engine.  They will run, but you need the bigger Unlimited Light engine to really make them go.

JA:  Phil, I know the Unlimited Light teams are on a budget just like the Unlimiteds and I know boat racing is not your primary source of income.  What do you do for a living?

PB:  My partner and I are pile driving contractors.  We're subcontractors who bid on bridges, buildings and condominiums around the northwest.  We've been doing that for about ten years.

JA:  So working hard through the week so you can go out and have fun on the weekend.  Phil, what's it going to mean to you to race out in Issaquah for that Tastin' n Racin' event?  That's the new event on the circuit for the Unlimited Lights taking place June 3rd and 4th.  I though that was a big boost for the series.

PB:  Well I think that's real important, especially with a few of our other race sites either permanently or temporarily going by the wayside.  This shows that we hope to have the Unlimited Lights stand alone in some places.  Maybe even pave the way for the Unlimiteds to come to some of these places.  Once people get a feel for what we are doing, we may be able to generate some more race sites.

JA:  Phil, we mentioned earlier that accident in Hawaii last year.  How are the repairs on the UL-72 coming along as you prepare for the season opener down in Lake Havasu, Arizona, May 19th through the 21st?

PB:  Well right now we have two absolutely perfect people working on it.  Mike Campbell and Dale VanWerington.  Both of those guys are on the Budweiser crew.  They are just fabulous workmen.  I just can't believe the things they are doing with that boat.  They are putting in a few little speed enhancements here and they're finding out what they can do with the hull.  We hope to improve the performance a little bit.

JA:  Hydroplane fans know the name Dale VanWerington as he's that tremendous painter out in the Pacific Northwest.  I believe he dusked down those Budweiser hydroplanes in red.  Do you hope some of that magic will come to your red Pocket Mechanic?

PB:  Well I don't think that can hurt at all.  We're working on that real hard, in fact, Dave Villwock's given us quite a bit of help during the off season and I think our boat's going to be set pretty well.

JA:  Phil, growing up in the Pacific Northwest, hydroplane racing's been a big part of the Pacific Northwest since the 1950's.  Who's your all time favorite Unlimited pilot?

PB:  Well it's got to be Chip Hanauer.  I moved to Seattle in '79 and Chip Hanauer, he was around everything at that time.  Basically when I started being a fan, nobody really liked Muncey too much.  I know he's gone now, but he won everything, so everybody was rooting for guys like Chip Hanauer to come up and win and he certainly did that.

JA:  So you are not originally from the Pacific Northwest.  Where is your native land?

PB:  Well I'm from Oregon which is the Pacific Northwest.  I moved to Seattle in '79.

JA:  Well then you did know of Bill Muncey before you moved to Seattle.

PB:  Oh yeah, we all knew.  In fact, we even had little hydros in our neighborhood.  In our bathtubs and in our swimming pools and stuff like that.  It wasn't until I moved to Seattle that I really found out what it was all about.

JA:  Well Phil we appreciate the call.  Thank you for calling in from Washington state and good luck to you and the Pocket Mechanic crew this year on the Unlimited Light Racing Series.

PB:  Thanks a lot Jeff and thanks for having us on.