Fundraising underway for Miss Spokane restoration

OUTLAWS RETURN TO QLISPE

SPOKANE — The effort to restore the Miss Spokane unlimited hydroplane has entered its next and perhaps most important phase.

The renovation, whose price tag is not final nor official but will certainly run in the 10s of thousands of dollars, has begun the sale of vintage original Miss Spokane pins.

Available is the 3-inch, metal Miss Spokane Restoration Booster pin that was first offered back in 1983 by Ron Miller and the team that brought the Miss Lapeer back to Spokane from Detroit.

The 1983 team had hopes of restoring the hull to its original configuration as the Lilac Lady, Miss Spokane, but that effort faltered.

These are the original pins created by Ron Miller and not reproductions. They have been carefully stored away since that time and are now being made available to help raise money for the 2025 restoration effort.

The price of this pin has been set at $15 per button. Due to a recent increase in postal rates, the shipping fee for each shipment has been raised to $7.00.

There are three payment methods: By Check, By Venmo, or by PayPal. The address to submit payment by check is:
Hydromaniacs Unlimited
1120 W. Fallview Rd.
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho 83815

Make checks payable to Hydromaniacs Unlimited, and please include mailing address with your order.
Scan the QR code for direct access to payment or for those who would prefer a link rather than a QR code: 
PayPal.com/ncp/payment/GAL8QJ3NW86JQ.

The Miss Spokane was a community-owned and sponsored hydro that ran for several years starting in 1958 and its final race sunk in a crash while leading the 1961 Gold Cup at Pyramid Lake near Reno, Nevada.

“The badly damaged boat was leased to Bob Gilliam of Seattle in 1962, and the hull would never raced as Miss Spokane again. Home supply store owner Dave Heerensperger would sponsor the boat’s next campaign as Miss Eagle Electric for two seasons (1963 and 1964), and Jim Herrington of Michigan would race it as the Miss Lapeer from 1965 to 1967). As Miss Lapeer it would win its one and only race in the 1966 Sacramento Cup on Lake Folsom,” according to thunderboats.ning.com.

The boat is currently owned and stored locally with Pancho Simonson, whose father Kent was the crew chief of the boat.

Deer Park Drag Strip reunion set for Sept. 13 Event honors a track that first brought sport to area

DEER PARK — A little over 70 years ago with the opening of the Deer Park Dragstrip came the official start of the sport of drag racing in the Inland Northwest.

And while that track is long gone its glory days are remembered each September when racers and fans gather at the Deer Park Auto Show and Drag Strip Reunion, now in a 20th milestone year.

The event takes place Saturday, Sept. 13 at Parkway Automotive Center & RV just off U.S. 395 in Deer Park from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event generally draws vintage Deer Park-era race cars and the people who both built and drove them.

Money raised through donations will be presented to Hospice of Spokane which has been the recipient of an estimated $50,000 over the previous 19 years.

According to local drag racing historian and author, Gary Hordemann, the strip was first used for racing by the Spokane Roadster Racing Association (SRRA). At its meeting of March 2, 1950 the Deer Park City Council had agreed to let the SRRA use it on two dates, April 2 and April 9, 1950.

This first use was not for drag racing, but rather for roadster racing. The circle track sport was popular at the time, but was soon replaced by stock car racing.

“The first use of the airport for drag racing took place in 1953 when a group called the Lilac City Timing Association staged the first organized drag races on March 15, 1953,”Hordemann wrote in an email.”
The Inland Empire Timing Association took over the strip and held biweekly races every year from March through October every year from 1953 through 1961. The strip was later operated by the Spokane Timing Association (STA) under the direction of Orville Moe who ran it through 1969.

In 1970 the Deer Park Raceway, Inc. came into the picture. They ran it through 1974 when the opening of Moe’s Spokane Raceway Park invoked a clause that canceled their five-year contract with Deer Park.
The state of Washington was once home to nearly two-dozen drag strips, many housed on former military airfields, Deer Park’s included. Just a handful remain. Portions of the Deer Park track are still sometimes used for autocross racing.

Some of the pioneers and biggest names in drag racing like Jerry Ruth, Ed McCulloch, Gordie Bonin and many more got their starts on home-grown tracks like Deer Park.

More information on Washington dragstrips both past and present can be found at dragstriplist.com/washington.

KBlaney's win at Daytona powerful omen for Team Penske
From Reid Spencer-NASCAR Wire Service

Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 Advance Auto Parts Ford, crosses the start finish line to win the NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway on August 23. NASCAR Photo

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.— (August 24, 2025) It happens every fall—in NASCAR’s Next Gen era, at least.
As reliably as jack-o’-lanterns populate the front porches of America with Halloween approaching, the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs take a turn toward a certain Ford team when the end of summer nears.

Ever since the Next Gen race car debuted in the series in 2022, Team Penske drivers—specifically Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney—have blossomed during the postseason.

Logano won the second title of his career in 2022 and added a third last year, outrunning Blaney in the Championship 4 event at Phoenix Raceway.

Blaney claimed the championship in 2023, giving team owner Roger Penske a monopoly on Next Gen-era titles.
After Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, drivers outside the Team Penske stable might well be thinking “What? Not again!”

With Blaney’s victory in the final regular-season race, the Ford contingent awoke from an 11-week slumber dating to Blaney’s win at Nashville Superspeedway on June 1.

There’s a discernible pattern here. In each of the last three seasons, Team Penske drivers have emerged from summer doldrums to prevail in NASCAR’s postseason. The difference this year is that Blaney, in particular, has shown consistent speed throughout the year—without the victories to show for it.

Blaney entered Saturday’s Daytona race with a string of five straight top-10 finishes. Despite suffering seven DNFs (did not finish) in the first 20 races, he leap-frogged Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson to secure a second-place finish in the regular season and claim the 10 Playoff points that accompany the spot.
“To get to second in regular-season points after the year we’ve had with seven DNFs, I think it just shows how good we’ve been,” Blaney said after the race. “And the good thing about the last six weeks, I feel like we’ve been finishing where we’ve been running and deserve to finish. Nothing foolish has happened. We’ve been able to have solid weeks and just kind of put things together.

“I’ve been really happy with the effort of us all year, that’s for sure. I think these guys (Blaney’s crew) are even better than they were when we won the championship, better than what we were last year,” said Blaney. “They just keep maturing, and their confidence is high. Hopefully, we can make another run and start off next week. We’ll see.”

The Playoffs open with the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Aug. 31.
The only Fords in the Playoffs this year are those of Blaney, Logano, Cindric and Josh Berry in the No. 21 Mustang of Team Penske affiliate Wood Brothers Racing.

There also was a tinge of irony in Blaney’s win at Daytona. His victory kept Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver Alex Bowman in the Playoffs on points. Last year, it was Bowman’s disqualification in the Round of 12 elimination race at the Charlotte ROVAL that kept Logano in the postseason and preserved his championship run.

After Saturday’s race, Bowman asserted that he owed Blaney “seven million beers.”
The real question, though, is whether any other driver can prevent Blaney or one of his teammates from toasting with champagne after the checkered flag in the Nov. 3 Championship 4 Race at Phoenix.