Oh Boy! Oberto: 1975-2001
By Fred Farley - APBA/HYDRO-PROP Unlimited Historian
The family of Art Oberto has sponsored
a total of ten Unlimited hydroplanes since 1975. The various OH
BOY! OBERTO boats have aided many regattas by their participation
and helped to fill out many fields when racing needed boats in
the pits.
The Obertos' Seattle-based meat products
business is the second oldest corporate sponsor in Unlimited racing.
To date, the family has three victories
to its credit: two in 1988 with driver George Woods (at Miami,
Florida, and San Diego, California) and one in 2001 with pilot
Steve David (at Madison, Indiana).
The list of drivers that have driven
for OH BOY! OBERTO seemingly reads as a Who's Who of Unlimited
racing of the past quarter century. In addition to Woods and David,
the honor roll includes Chuck Hickling, Bill Wurster, Tom Martin,
Bob Maschmedt, Steve LaCava, Scott Pierce, John Prevost, Jerry
Hopp, George Johnson, Mark Tate, Mitch Evans, Todd Yarling, Mike
Eacrett, and Nate Brown.
In any given race pit area, it's difficult
to find a shore mechanic that hasn't worked on an Oberto boat at
one time or another.
The very first Oberto-sponsored hydroplane
was Bob Murphy's veteran U-4. The hull had been built in 1962 as
NOTRE DAME and made its debut as OH BOY! OBERTO at the 1975 Tri-Cities
Gold Cup race. With Hickling at the wheel, the U-4 finished seventh
in a fifteen-boat field.
In the years that followed, the Oberto
family bankrolled boats for owners Bill Wurster, Steve LaCava,
Fred Leland, Bill McFadden, Mike Eacrett, Jim Harvey, Ed Cooper,
and most recently the city of Madison, Indiana.
The Obertos have
had their ups and their downs in the Unlimited sport. One of the "down" times
occurred at the Tri-Cities, Washington, in 1994 when their boat
became airborne,
crashed, and disintegrated during a test run on the Columbia River.
Fortunately, pilot Eacrett was not seriously injured.
Art Oberto upped his ante in Unlimited
racing when he inked a sponsorship pact with owner Jim Harvey in
1987. With George Woods driving, the Obertos took home the third-place
trophy that year in their hometown Seattle Seafair Regatta.
At a time when most Thunderboat teams
were changing over to jet turbine power, Harvey and the Obertos
decided to stay with the tried and proven Rolls-Royce Merlin a
while longer. Driver Woods served notice that the piston engine
wasn't dead yet in Unlimited racing. In 1988, OH BOY! OBERTO won
both of the salt water races--where turbines traditionally have
difficulty--at Miami and San Diego.
Woods averaged 105.739 miles per hour
in the Final Heat at Miami Marine Stadium, outrunning Ron Snyder
in HOLSET MISS MADISON and Jerry Hopp in JACKPOT FOOD MART.
OH BOY! OBERTO was the only finisher
in the Final on San Diego's Mission Bay but still averaged 113.243.
The team finished second at Miami, Madison,
and San Diego in 1989 with Woods driving and second at Honolulu
in 1990 with Mark Tate in the cockpit.
Following a brief retirement from the
sport, the Oberto family returned to the hydroplane wars during
the western half of the 2000 season. As sponsor of the community-owned
U-6 from southern Indiana, the Obertos finished third, fourth,
and third at the Tri-Cities, Seattle, and San Diego races with
Nate Brown at the wheel.
This set the stage for a richly sentimental
triumph in the Indiana Governor's Cup on the Ohio River at Madison
in 2001. Driver Steve David made a perfect on-the-nose start in
the Final Heat and went on to win all the marbles, while holding
off a persistent challenge from second-place Greg Hopp in ZNETIX.
David averaged 130.074 to Hopp's 128.109 for the final 12-1/2 miles.
This marked the first victory on home waters by the U-6 team in
thirty years.
On the day following
the win at Madison, the headline for the local newspaper consisted
of two words: "Oh
Boy!"
Between 1975 and 2001, the Oberto sponsorship
has thrilled a generation of sports fans. Of all the sponsors active
in the sport in 1975, only Oberto and Anheuser-Busch (of MISS BUDWEISER)
are still active.
Here's to the next 26 years of the Oberto
family and the OH BOY! OBERTO Unlimited hydroplane!
Copyright © Fred Farley
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