By Michael McLaughlin
Reprinted from The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 14, 2006

Few unlimited hydroplane drivers enjoyed as much success as William “Billy” Schumacher. Dubbed “Billy the Kid” at age 8 when he raced his first outboard, Schumacher won virtually every boat-racing class he competed in.

During his 24-year racing career, he set 12 world speed records, ranging from outboards to Unlimiteds. Schumacher won eight American and Canadian national titles, established three unlimited hydroplane closed course world speed records, and won two unlimited hydroplane national championships, three national driver championships and two Gold Cup titles.

Raised in North Seattle on the shores of Lake Washington, Schumacher dominated the Unlimiteds in the late 1960s and became the youngest national champion in 1967 at age 25 while piloting the Miss Bardahl, one of the most popular Seattle hulls of all time.

Schumacher won his final national drivers championship in 1975 and officially retired from the sport in 1977. Nearly 30 years later, Schumacher and his wife, Jane, have returned to the Unlimiteds after buying the former U-8 Llumar Film hydroplane and taking control of the team operations for the 2006 season. Continue Reading…

By Fred Farley – ABRA Unlimited Historian

After an absence of three decades, William F. Schumacher III–better known as Billy–has returned to Unlimited hydroplane competition as the new owner of Bill Wurster’s U-8 racing team.

The announcement of Schumacher’s purchase of the U-8 occurred at the 2006 ABRA Convention and Awards Banquet in Indianapolis on March 4.

Under Wurster’s ownership, the U-8 finished third in National High Points in 2005 and won two races (Seattle and Nashville) with Jean Theoret driving.

Billy’s most recent involvement in the sport was his 1974-75-76 tenure as pilot for Leslie Rosenberg’s U-74 racing team. Schumacher won four races for Rosenberg and was National High Point Driver in 1975.

A boat racer since the age of 9, Billy Schumacher is rightly regarded as one of racing’s most respected champions, having achieved success in everything from JU Outboards to 7-Litre Inboards to Unlimited hydros.

At the time of his retirement from competition in 1976, Schumacher was second only to Bill Muncey in total wins in the Unlimited Class with seventeen.

Billy is perhaps best remembered for his back-to-back season championships with Ole Bardahl’s MISS BARDAHL in 1967 and 1968. Continue Reading…

By Connie McDougall

Special to The Seattle Times

GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Anthony Gasca, 13, sits in a vintage unlimited at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent as museum director and raceboat driver Dave Williams explains what the gauges measure.

GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Race into the past viewing displays of memorable thunderboats at the raceboat museum in Kent.

GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Schumacher points to a gauge which monitored the hydroplane’s manifold pressure. “You didn’t want that to go over 120,” he said, otherwise, “kaboom.”

GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Two-time Gold Cup winner Billy Schumacher leafs through a scrapbook.

Schumacher Captures Race after Muncey Jumps Gun

SAN DIEGO — (Special) — Billy Schumacher may never again carry a shoehorn with him.

Schumacher, the driver of the Olympia Beer unlimited hydroplane, “forgot my lucky shoehorn” for the first time in many a month yesterday and won the Mission Bay regatta without it.

The Seattle driver used “a little even-the-score strategy” at the start of the winner-take-all final heat and a little luck at the conclusion of it to win the final thunder-boat race of the season. Continue Reading…

Billy Schumacher Brought Up On Water

Lake Washington, Seattle WA, August 8, 1976

By George N Meyers

What could a fellow write about Billy Schumacher, I asked Billy Schumacher, if the word “hydroplane” never was mentioned?

“Oh, there might be a few things to write,” said Schumacher, grinning. “But I don’t know how interesting it would be.

“Hydroplanes have been part of my life for 25 years. When you take that away, there hasn’t been that much. I was brought up on Lake Washington, you know.”

What Schumacher (he pronounces it Shoemaker) really was brought up on was bread and water.

By age 7, William Schumacher, 3rd, was cleaning machinery in the family bakery founded here in 1915 by his grandfather and taken over by his father.

“My dad had me there with rags,” said Billy. “I worked in the bakery all through high school. I am an accomplished baker.” Continue Reading…

Statistics

Potomac River, Washington DC, May 30, 1976

(courtesy www.lesliefield.com)

Hydro Driver Fined For Remarks: Schumacher Out $500

Columbia River, Tri-Cities WA, July 27, 1975

By Chuck Ashmun, Times Staff Reporter

TRI-CITIES — Billy Schumacher today was fined $500 by the unlimited racing commissioner, George (Buddy) Byers, Jr., for remarks the Seattle driver made following yesterday’s Gold Cup race.

A threat of suspension, tossed out by the race referee, Bill Newton, was not carried out.

“I’m not going to let him off all that easy,” Newton said after Byers decision was announced.

But it appears that the fine will stand by itself. Continue Reading…

Statistics

Miami Marine Stadium, Miami FL, May 18, 1975

(courtesy www.lesliefield.com)

Dexter Lake, Dexter, Oregon, August 15, 1971

Eugene Register Guard Aug. 16, 1971

Seattle’s Billy Schumacher piloted Pride of Pay ‘n Pak around Dexter Lake’s 2½-mile unlimited course Aug. 15 to sweep all three heats and win the Oregon Emerald Cup, 1,200 points toward the national unlimited title and the lion’s share of a $15,000 purse. It was Oregon’s first unlimited event and was sponsored by the Eugene Jaycees.

Pride of Pay ‘n Pak moved into third place nationally behind Miss Budweiser (Dean Chenoweth) and Miss Madison (Jim McCormick), but he had a long way to go. As the season waned, Miss Bud had 6,996 points; Miss Madison, 6,313; Pride of Play ‘n Pak, 6,017, and Atlas Van Lines, Bill Muncey, 5,595. Continue Reading…

July 26, 1971: ‘Cinderella’ no longer

1971 Atomic Cup Program

By Bill Purcell, Herald sports writer

For the past three weeks after his first victory in unlimited hydroplane racing, Jim McCormick was almost apologetically referred to as the “Cinderella” winner of the Madison, Ind., Gold Cup. You can forget all that “fairy tale” nonsense now and stop wondering if McCormick’s Gold Cup victory was really a fluke. He is no longer the “Cinderella” pilot after winning the sixth annual Atomic Cup in Miss Madison on the Columbia River Sunday afternoon before an estimated 40,000 fans. His gold and brown boat roostertailing a shimmering wall of water behind him, McCormick won the championship by 22 seconds with an average speed of 100.558 m.p.h. to win the $5,875 first-place prize.

McCormick’s victory was an upset. But if someone with sour grapes tells you the 1971 Atomic Cup was really the race lost by Billy Schumacher instead of the race won by Jim McCormick, don’t listen to him. True, the Pride of Pay ‘N Pak hard-luck driver nearly had the Cup brimming with his own champagne before the championship heat was run after easily winning his first two heats. But Schumacher, who won here in 1967 in Miss Bardahl, was instead going to taste only a cold beer in the pits after drifting downstream under a 98-degree sun while the final heat was being run. Continue Reading…