“This boy here was decapitated by my brother,” Murray says, pointing to a yellowed newspaper clipping showing a helmeted gentleman being ejected from a flipping, end-over-end spray-throwing powerboat. “Course my brother didn’t realize he’d even run him over until he got back to shore.
“When you get behind a rooster tail of spray being thrown up by a boat going 130 to 140 miles per hour you can’t see a whole lot.”
Murray, 53, of Southern Pines, like his bother, Bobby, races boats. Actually, calling them boats is an understatement akin to comparing Jeff Gordon’s ride to a ’74 Gremlin.
The super stock class vehicle Murray helms in weekend races ranging from Oregon to Massachusetts to North Carolina is constructed from a fiberglass/Kevlar composite powered by a 427 Chevrolet engine that generates a kidney smashing 780 horsepower.
The fuel used by Murray’s racer is 118 octane — the very same used by Gordon and Petty and Bodine. And just like NASCAR’s participants, a man racing boats can get seriously messed up, or worse, in the blink of an eye.
Murray, who’s won more hardware than can be found at the Home Depot — including a national championship — continues his litany of carnage as we watch a videotape of one of his recent races up at Lake Wheeler in Raleigh.
“Now this boy here,” Murray points to a gentleman sporting a huge bandage on his hand while walking the dock. “He got his hand cut off when he wrecked. Actually, it was just half his hand — it went through the windshield.
“And this guy here, his boat flipped over and he almost drowned. We’ve got a 40-minute air supply and his was just about gone by the time they got a crane and put his boat upright. I believe he had three minutes of air left when they got to him.”
Murray’s best friend was killed in Oregon, and Murray himself nearly went to that great car lot in the sky back in 1979 when he crashed at the Tar Heel Regatta held at Lake Wheeler.
While attempting to pass another boat, Murray’s boat flipped, and he ended up breaking the fall of his 1,800-pound craft with his head.
“They got me out of the water and all I remember is waking up on the dock,” Murray says. “Luckily, all I really suffered was a concussion.”
And Murray survived another crash only to see his boat immolated in a dockside funeral pyre.
“My boat was leaking fuel pretty heavily and someone had a fire going near it and it caught and went up in flames,” Murray says sadly, as if reminiscing over the loss of a friend.
And the danger can extend to the spectators as well. In sort of a reverse view on the traditional infield at NASCAR races, spectators at boat races ring the perimeter of the 1.4-mile circular course, putting themselves smack dab in harm’s way if something goes awry.
At a recent race attended by Murray, the steering cable snapped on another competitor’s boat in mid-race, sending boat and driver plowing into a group of sunning spectators at over 100 miles-per-hour.
“They really should change that,” Murray says. “It’s just too dangerous. We don’t have breaks on these things you know.”
Nor reverse. The boasts have to be lowered into the water via a crane. And there’s no such thing as practicing. There’s a five-minute “warm up” before the race actually starts, but the danger of cracking up and the lack of adequate waterways to run makes practice impractical.
And then, there’s the lack of insurance.
“Are you kidding,” Murray says incredulously. “Nobody’s going to insure us. If we wreck our boat it’s all on us.”
Despite the dangers inherent in travelling faster than God intended for any watercraft — and watching the men who do it — Murray enjoys himself too much to think about the risks.
He’s been racing power boats since 1973, squeezing his “hobby” around the work of running Bobby Murray Chevrolet in Raleigh and eventually owning his own Toyota dealerships in Pinehurst and Rocky Mount.
Murray comes by his “need for speed” naturally, as his father, Bobby Murray, was a long-time associate of Richard Petty. In fact, Vann’s dad purchased his son’s first two boats back in 1972. Murray Sr. even arranged for legendary engine builder Maurice Petty to construct engines for his son.
In the years since, Murray has gone through a number of boats, racing his current incarnation known as Angel Fire. For luck, Murray has put the names of his children on the rainbow colored craft, as well as numerous eye-catching graphics. He even met his wife, Pattie, at a boat race.
In a story too corny even for Hollywood, Pattie is the former Miss Raleigh and they met when she was serving as a beauty queen hostess at the races.
“She gets awfully nervous when I race,” Murray said. “But she realizes that this is what makes me happy.”
Murray is enjoying a “comeback” of sorts, as he took about five years off to just “take it easy.” The former Viet Nam military policeman found sedentary life too boring. And now he’s paying the price for his layoff as he attempts to whip himself back into race shape.
“I’m a little out of shape,” Murray says. “Mainly it’s my arms. They take a real beating when you’re racing around the track fighting the waves and the wake of other racers.”
Despite the importance of physical conditioning, Murray points out that boat racing is not ruled by “young Turks.”
He says that the average racer is probably in his 40s, as most young men are “scared to death” the first time they rip across the water at 130 mph. And the prohibitive cost of a super stock boat — about $60,000 — can also shut out younger competitors.
“And we don’t make any money out of this,” Murray says. “You might win $1,000 or so.
“The guys who do this do it for the love of the sport. And the excitement. It gets in your blood. I know it’s in mine.”
