The Champion Dealership

After the first Champion tournament, I had a chance to sell another boat. I talked to John Storie again and this time he said: "I guess we need to set you up as a dealer if we are going to keep having the tournament there." So, in 1985 we became a Champion dealer. Boy was it fun handling those shiny new boats and motors and rigging them up. We didn't have a shop back then, so we used a hoist in my father-in-law John Luna's garage to hang the motors. We even made a hoist for the back of my pickup.

Norman and I rigged most of the first boats, but he soon became the only rigger. When I first met Norman, I wasn't sure he knew which way to turn a wrench. Next thing I knew I was turning him loose with power tools, and he was drilling holes in expensive boats. We needed a mechanic to help set up and service the boats, but Phil Petars, our mechanic at the time, didn't want any part of these high-powered rigs, so I ran an ad in the paper. I requested the responses be mailed so I could screen the applicants before meeting or talking to them. But then one day I got a call, and the guy on the other end asked if I was the one looking for a mechanic. I said I was, so we set up an interview. I didn't have to think about it long after I met him. And that's when I hired Dave Schlicht.

Dave Schlicht, the best mechanic I know.

As our sales grew, we built a shop on the hill by my mom's house, and our new business became "Pontiac Cove Marine Sales."

A couple of new Champions outside our shop (what we call "the barn" now). The sign posts are still there today.

Seeing the picture of the boats above reminds me of a story about their design. My old buddy, Quentin Moore, bought a Champion from me. Quentin was a civil engineer, and after taking delivery he called to tell me the boats weren't symmetrical. I asked him how he knew. He said he had bought a special set of numbers for the side of the boat and was going to put them at the exact same place on either side of his boat in the "arrow." Well the arrows did not match. I didn't believe him at first, but sure enough, he was right. I called Champion, and they weren't surprised. They told me that each hull mold only fit certain top molds. They concentrated on how the boats handled and let a few other details go. That was changed later as all the molds were redesigned so any top would fit any hull, and then everything was symmetrical.

The pink stripe on the boat pictured above is called the "arrow."

The boat and motor business was really fun. It was very exciting back in those days to sell something worth $15,000 and to be entrusted to custom rig it for each customer. We really wanted to get out and market our new product, but the venues for showcasing our custom rigs were few and far between. Norman and I worked the boat show at the fairgrounds in Mountain Home. One year they had a couple of Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders there, and of course, we had to have our picture taken with them.

Written by Cap'n T. Morgan