LARRY LAUTERBACH

  Few people get to do what makes them happy for a living. Larry Lauterbach is one of the lucky ones. "All I ever wanted to do was build and drive race boats," he explains. Born and raised in Portsmouth, VA, he describes himself as "the third son of the best hydroplane designer, builder and driver of his time," Henry Lauterbach. "I've learned what I know from him," Larry emphasizes. "I had the best teacher in the world."

 

LARRY LAUTERBACH by Tracy Morgan for Propeller, January 2002

Larry currently resides in the Kent Narrows area of Maryland, next door to the Lauterbach Custom Boats shop. Alongside the shop are a creek and a small marina: the ideal location for building and repairing boats.

Lauterbach has designed and build not just adequate hydroplanes but extremely competitive ones...what many consider the finest and fastest hydroplanes in the world. The precise craftsmanship and the the pride in the work are all but obvious.

Although Larry has been around hydroplane racing all his life, his own hydroplane racing career began in 1965 when he drove Rudy's Comet owned by Rudy Gurley in competition in the same year he graduated from high school. He was already a crew chief for a man named Charlie Dunn and had a racing hero, Mike Thomas. In 1980, he would be presented with an award that means more to him than any he would acquire: the Mike Thomas Award, given to an Inboard hydroplane driver for outstanding sportsmanship based upon the composite of his conduct in boat racing, attitude toward APBA and his fellow drivers, and outstanding safety performance from which the sport or his fellow drivers benefit.

Lauterbach turned out to be quite a competent driver, and invitations to race began to pour in. Boats he piloted over the years include John Stauffer's Grand Prix hydroplane Edelweiss (later renamed Peanut), Robert Theroet's Grand Prix hydroplane GP Valleyfield, Jules LeBoeuf's Grand Prix hydroplane Boomerang, Butch Kropfeld's Grand Prix hydroplane Golden Nugget, and Mike Lipschutz' 850 hydroplane Lip Ship. Larry primarily drove boats he and/or his father built: he remembers driving only two or three Limited hills he didn't have some part in constructing. Larry also served two tours in Vietnam in the late 60's, in the construction batallion of the Navy.

Larry estimates he's driven some 35 boats in competition. In 2001 he won nearly every heat he competed in with Bobby Murray Jr.'s National Modified Murjr's Lauterbach Special and Sandy Thompson's 2.5 Modified Special Edition (two of the six Lauterbach cabover hulls built to date). When asked which boat was his all-time favorite to drive, Larry answered, "Bobby Murray's boat, without a doubt. It's the best thing I've ever built." [See the New Race Boats page of this website for a photo.]

Larry is a ten-time APBA National Champion, four-time National High Point Champion, three-time Hall of Champions inductee and has won more than 350 races in a career spanning four decades. He is the all-time US Grand Prix winner (second in total Grand Prix wins to Canada's Jean Theoret), and set five Union of International Motorboating World Records, two of which still stand. One of those is the APBA's fastest Limited heat ever.