Bill Cooper

[Ron Hill]

I went to St. George, Utah, last weekend. On the way I stopped and met Dave Bryan for lunch at the Bass Pro Shop. Dave is a past C runabout National Champion, High Point Champion and Competition Record holder....

Dave and I have always been very close....he'ds always been a good "SOUNDING BOARD" for some of my crazy ideas....Dave has made a lot on money building houses and being a dry wall contractor, but he's always had he feet on the ground...

Once when we were going to build a house out in Corona, we met Dave and we went and looked at the schools...My wife said something like this is the school my daughter would go to???? Dave's answer, 30 years ago, was, "This ain't Irvine." (We lived in Irvine, a classy area, and Dave just reminded us if we wanted to build a house that the area would be different......well...as it turned out we never built that house...but thirty years later, when push comes to shove in our family is often quoted as saying, "THIS ISN'T IRVINE".

As we were sitting down having lunch, Dave said, "Who was they guy you once asked the question, "Where did you get all those stitches?" Dave said, "Seems you asked this guy about all the stiches in his neck...He replied it was cancer....and you said, you can die from cancer...He said, "Yes...Then got into his tunnel boat and drove off..." I said, "It was Bill Cooper."

This article below came from Powerboat, December 1968...Bill co drove with Rudy Raymos and Mike Reagan (The Governor's son) in the 1967 Havasu Classic. The boat was a 21 foot Rayson Craft powered by three Mercury Outboards. I was second overall and first in the "T" Class that year.

In 1968's Havasu Classic, Bill drove an all aluminum tunnel.....He and the boat didn't last long...The coolest part was that Bill brought FAYE DUNAWAY to the race with him. She had just finished and released Bonny and Clyde. He was THE MAN!!! Bill had this cool motorhome...he borrow my station wagon so he and Fay could go grocery shopping...My fraternity brothers kept licking my car's seat for months...

In the spring of 1968 he was hurt in Houston in a GN boat at the Galveston Speed Classic...He and his prop got tangled up and he ended up with 2,000 stitches in his neck...

Bill drove the first 18 foot Ron Jones tunnel to a win at Long Beach, CA and Galveston, Texas in 1968 also. At the Long Beach race, he didn't have Faye Dunaway with him, he had Keye Ralphs...(Her daddy owned Ralph's markets)...

I didn't have a boat to race with at the Elsinore 500 in the fall of '68, so I went to the races with the DeSilva brothers...We saw this cool Molinari tunnel with a small block Chevy in it and I we went right up to her...Bill had this 1812 tractor launching her...and as I always do, when people look short handed, I started helping Coop...By this time we were friends...he knew I drooled over his women...he'd told me about owning an amfibious Duck that he drove to College...(Donny Hauenstein had a DUCK that he drove to Junior College in Reedley...he also pulled a power pole over in the King's River..once...)...

As I'm helping Bill get the boat off the trailer, I see like 200 stitches in and around his neck... (Now, I knew he'd been hurt in June at Galveston...but I thought what did he do THIS TIME???) So iI say, "Bill where'd you get all them stitches this time??...He said, "Cancer." I said, "Like the cancer you can die from??" He said, "Yes, then lit that Chevy off and roared off...".....Bill passed away the next spring....The Boat Racing World lost a great guy....to this day I can't believe how big my mouth is sometimes....

The Fountain Powerboat has a "SNOOT" on it, Bill Cooper was the first Offshore Racer to ever race a "SNOOT"...it was because he took a 15 foot boat and made it into a 17 foot boat...

If COOP was alive today, he'd be driving some damn fool thing that no one had ever even dream about!!!!