I remember Dr. Bob (reading about him) in Powerboat Magazine as a kid.

Roger Hanks...Bobby Moore was telling me that Roger Hanks (owner of Blonde) was a Texan, who apparently had more money than God. Bobby Moore said he was throttling Blonde one race. Roger Hanks had come to the boat on day of the race with $100 dollar bills stuffed into his pockets, and said there was thousands upon thousands of dollars in Roger Hanks pockets.

The race starts and they are out there doing their thing and the engines began to sputter then to completely fail. Bobby stops the boat to what what the problem is with the engines, and guess what? Bobby Moore opens the hatches and see's that the $100 dollar bills have clogged the injectors, and that the $100 dollar bills are strewn through-out the bilge. Blonde had broken down in the middle of an offshore powerboat race because the owner, Hank Rogers, had money flowing out of his pockets into his Mercury 482 or 468 cu.in fuel injected motors causing the motors to fail. Only in the 1970's offshore scene would ever a story have been as believable.

Never mind Blonde's steering failure and a checkpoint boat, post that photo, that is a classic indeed.

Eccentric, rich, and wild times in offshore racing through the years. That is a history lesson from Bobby Moore I have never forgotten.

Mike,
Glad to hear you are happy with your work from Innovation. I'm am always happy to hear when someone has a good experience with a boat/engine shop. Unfortunately, it seems to happen very seldomly these days. Congrats and good luck with it.
Eddie

Sports Illustrated interviewed him after the race and Roger had a great quote that they used........"I don't mind losing the money, but I am pretty sure it was my American Express Card that cut the timing belt and that ended our day."

He carried a revolver with him in case he had to shoot any sharks if the boat broke down.

As I recall from my childhood, Roger also had a reputation for crashing...alot. I remember the first time I saw the famous Powerboat photo of Blonde impaled in the turn boat. Well, I remember going down to the docks after checking into the hotel for our very first Marina Del Ray race (1975 or 1976) and seeing the ambulance waiting at the entry gate of one of the piers. Coming down the dock was Roger, on a stretcher, after apparently crashing during a practice run. I think he was ok but do not remember seeing him at a race for the next few years.

It is good to hear that Dennis and Dave are still doing well at Innovation. I know those guys personally. They have a great many stories. Dennis has some good stories from up at OshKosh and his time at, a place from yesteryear, KS&W. I still remember going to Innovation for the first time in 1996 and seeing boats from the government that "didn't exist". Also, Rick Sr., what a great guy he was. He was always thinking of ways to improve on what he had. It is no wonder that the guys at Mercury were stopping in there to see what new ideas he was developing.

83 mph on the rev-limiter! Need more prop!

Innovation always went beyond the call for us. I specifically remember we had a ground problem and the engine wouldn't turn up rpm's. The went to the water with us and eventually found the ground problem. My F1 boat went immediately to 81.6 mph. Class act!