TRI-CITIES, Wash.-The 2024 Apollo Columbia Cup is July 26-28 and fans will see a true legend return to the river when Dave Villwock, the all-time winningest driver in the history of the sport, straps into the cockpit of the U-27 Miss Apollo.
Villwock, who has 67 career wins, including 10 Gold Cups, recently spoke with NonStop Local’s David Graf about getting back into the cockpit at age 70, the state of hydroplane racing and why the Tri-Cities is a special place to race.
You’ve accomplished nearly everything one could set out to do in the sport of hydroplane racing. Why get back in the boat again?
VILLWOCK: Just to win one more race. You know, try to do a good job for a great sponsor in Apollo. You know, opportunities like this come once in a lifetime, to be able to be part of a brand new boat that people have been working on since 2019. It’s just a great opportunity with some friends of mine, first and foremost.
Villwock got into racing in the early 1990’s after being a sheet metal worker and the rest is hydroplane history.
VILLWOCK: I was a sheet metal worker for 14 years before I got into racing with Circus Circus. My uncle was a sheet metal worker too and I was interested in what he was doing and he raced boats.
You get qualified as a driver and if you’re too stupid to quit, you end up where I am with a great bunch of people.
In 2024 Villwock will drive the U-27, owned by Charley Wiggins and sponsored by Apollo.
VILLWOCK: It was interesting talking to him (Ratchford) about his business (Apollo) and how he approaches things and where he came from. It was just him and his dog that started that company and now it’s the fifth biggest in the nation. That’s something for somebody from a little town in Washington.
Charley Wiggins and the U-27 team are currently in Alabama working on the boat and getting it ready for the upcoming season.
VILLWOCK: Charley and Milt and his family have really done a great job here in Alabama all by themselves. They’re not connected to people in Seattle that have done this for a long time.
I’ve been talking to Charley for years. He’d ask a question and I’d answer it and he’d carry on. And so it’s fun to be at the end of this putting things together and to get that boat on the water is a great thing for Charley.
You’ve mentioned the boat a couple of times and you and Charley and everyone has been building this boat for a couple of years now, without giving anything away, what’s so special about it?
VILLWOCK: Charlie took all the things we learned at the Budweiser operation as a lot of teams have and the boats look similar because they are similar. They were made off of drawings. Most boats are some derivative of a drawing from the winter of 1996. It’s a good formula and it’s provided a lot of competitive racing.
So we had to look at what good things we did and how can we make it better. So Charley in every area has tried to make the boat a little better. It’s an all-graphite hull that he built by himself here in the shop with his own two hands, with his own ovens, with the help of Jason Colleen, who lives in the Tri-Cities area.
The sport has evolved quite a bit over your time in it. What do you think of the current state of H1?
VILLWOCK: I think there’s a great group of people that are trying really hard and Apollo and Bruce are part of that. Darrell Strong is part of that. Mike Denslow is part of that. The people that are in all of the boat teams that are racing boats are part of that currently. We’re going to be another one of those and that means H1 is getting a little stronger.
The sport can’t afford to have only one or two vendors of a particular part available. The sport can’t survive that way. It needs more capability. Charley (Wiggins) and his dad have built up that capability and that’s a great thing, not just for us, but for the sport.
I’ll ask about Water Follies because I’m here in what’s affectionately known as “Hydro Town.” What are some of your favorite memories in the Tri-Cities on the water here?
VILLWOCK: Well I think it’s always one of the most fun places to go. It’s one of the big speedways of the sport. And for a guy like me that just likes going fast, you know what? We ran 170 there. That was cool. That was something we did that not many people are able to do.
It’s a place where the boat gate can really fine tune a boat. The water’s good enough that you’re not fighting bad water conditions and most of the time it’s a fun place to go. The settings great I fly model airplanes over there all the time near where we race out near the Hanford plant.
There’s an RV park out there and stuff where they fly model airplanes. So I’ve spent a lot of time in Eastern Washington. I went to Yakima Community College. I went there the last year and a half of so taking CAD CAM courses, just relearning things.
I’m aging, but, you know, like I say, don’t let the old man in-keep looking for new things and keep learning new things. A couple of great instructors there at Yakima Community College helped me a lot and helped me learn a lot of things.
So I really feel connected to that area. It’s easy for me. I feel comfortable there and it’s interesting places like that and Evansville and Detroit, places where I’ve felt comfortable with the community and the people and have spent time there. It’s funny how you just do better there, probably because of a psychological comfort level.
The first race is coming up in a few weeks. What are you looking forward to about the debut of the U-27?
VILLWOCK: I think it’s going to be a really cool day for Charley (Wiggins). I’ve got some work to do too, but Charley and his people here have put a lot more work into it over a lot longer period of time. So it’s going to be fun to sit back and watch them enjoy that moment and we’ll get things working.
We’ve got to get the boat set up and get it really ready to compete there and in the Tri-Cities. I don’t know what we’ll see. I know that new boats have these little electrical problems, little things that happen to them that seem unavoidable, but we’ll try to avoid them as best we can and run as best we can here at Guntersville.
We need to prepare for the Tri-Cities and put our sights on that. That’s where we’ll be and what we’re thinking about.
What can people expect from you and the boat this year?
VILLWOCK: That’s more of the same. Somebody said, “that guy ain’t ever gonna change.” That’s probably true. Good or bad, like me or hate me, at least somebody cared.
I remember what Dale Earnhardt once told me when I said I got booed at one of the races we went to, he said: “If they ain’t booed ya yet, you ain’t done nothing yet. Don’t worry about that.”
I’ve never forgotten that. There’s gotta be good guys and bad guys and hard-nosed racers and a lot of people can give me grief and say you did that to this guy, but I’m gonna race hard every time and you may like it or not.
I don’t dislike anybody there. I love the people in boat racing, the people we race against, but they know the same guy that straps in they’re gonna get as hard a race as I can possibly give them. When the starter button hits, from that point on they’re gonna get all we’ve got.
If we win, that’s great. If we don’t, that’s great too, but at least we left it all on the field and that’s what we’ll aim to do.
