Thunder Across the Waves and the Boardroom

When Buddy Byers Rode the Waves

Words: Roger Meiners

I first saw George “Buddy” Byers, Jr. on January 2, 1962 when he went past me at nearly 150 mph behind the wheel of the Chrysler Queen, a Seven-Liter hydroplane with a supercharged Chrysler 392 HEMI®, the engine bellowing across the still waters of a narrow canal west of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. I stood not 30 feet away as Byers captained the flying prop-riding wooden craft to a new world record in the Flying Kilometer.

I finally met Byers 46 years later at the American Power Boat Association (APBA) convention in Detroit. He is still captain of his ship. Only this time we are talking more than one ship. Byers is Chairman of the Board of Byers Holding Co., and runs a 110-year-old auto retail business in Columbus, Ohio, that sells over $300 million worth of 21 different brands, including sales of Chrysler and Dodge vehicles and Mopar® parts. He also served as APBA Driver Representative and ran the Unlimited Hydroplane series. Now, at age 80, Buddy chairs the APBA Historical Society, a group he founded and which today has more than half a million dollars to use in promoting the heritage of powerboat racing. He is also chairman of the APBA Honor Squadron—a prestigious hall of fame group of legendary boat racing drivers. He is also an honored member of that group.

The Byers Company traces its origin back to the year 1898 when Buddy’s grandfather, George Byers, established a livery and sales business, the Blue Ribbon Stable, in Columbus. According to newspaper accounts, the company was reorganized by George’s sons in 1918 under the name George Byers Sons to sell cars, including Chrysler predecessors Willys-Overland and Hudson. In 1929, the Byers brothers became DeSoto-Plymouth car and parts distributors for Columbus and 23 central Ohio counties. In 1940, they added parts of Indiana and Kentucky to their trade territory. “We just got a 75 year award from Chrysler,” said Byers.

Buddy started racing boats in 1947—running outboards initially and then graduating up the ranks all the way to the hot seven-liter class, just under the vaunted Unlimited Hydroplanes. The seven-liter boat had a Hilborn-injected DeSoto hemispherical V8 in a Henry Lauterbach-built boat called Miss DeSoto. He proceeded to win races and set records with a succession of Lauterbach Miss DeSotos, and then he moved up to a Chrysler FirePower HEMI® and began using the name Chrysler Queen for the crafts, still built by Lauterbach. The quest for power led to a top-mounted supercharger, but he didn’t like that arrangement. The blower was right in his line of sight, so his mechanic, Bob Cunningham, mounted the supercharger on the front of the engine, driven off the crankshaft.

The boat also had a Hall Craft gearbox running the prop at 66 percent overdrive. When set up right, the hydro was designed to ride on the rear tips of two wide-mounted structures (sponsons) in front and the bottom half of the propeller in back, which spins at over 10,000 rpm. The wildly thrashing prop is what causes the spectacular spray called a “roostertail.”

Byers was one of the best limited hydroplane pilots of his era, winning the Prestigious Grand Prix at the Orange Bowl Regatta in Miami three times (1957, 1960 and 1963), and dominating the Seven Liter inboard hydroplane class with six APBA National Championships from 1956 through 1962. He also repeatedly smashed the world speed record in his class, including his 148.151 mph blast in 1962 on that dangerous canal in Ft. Lauderdale (it was densely lined on one side by huge, unforgiving cypress trees).

Byers also drove the Miss Madison unlimited hydroplane and was set to move over to Bill Harrah’s Tahoe Miss for the 1966 season when he was injured at the Orange Bowl Regatta and had to retire. Harrah was to pay Byers $100,000 to drive the boat for the season. “I told him I don’t take money to drive,” said Byers. “But he told me I had no choice. One of the hardest things I ever did was to sit down and write the letter to Bill telling him that I couldn’t take the job,” Byers said.

A recent story in a Columbus business magazine gives some insight into why Byers is successful in racing and in selling cars. “You’ve got to pay to put the right players in place. Once you do, treat them right, and they’ll stay and play their hearts out for you,” he is quoted as saying. He gets good people and gives them a level of autonomy that challenges them to make their own decisions, without approval from the boss. “You have to be ready to make decisions immediately … that’s the reason I don’t put any strings on people,” he says, according to the magazine story. The results: Byers’ company has sold 704,000 Chryslers since 1929.

Byers played that philosophy out in his boat racing, hiring the best mechanic in Bob Cunningham, getting the best boats from Henry Lauterbach and using the best engine—Chrysler, of course.