Racing Family Connections

April 30, 2026 - 4:38pm

Madison Regatta, Madison, Indiana, July 4, 2004: (L-R) the U-8 leads the U-100 and U-6 across the line to start the final. J. W. Myers, U-8 Llumar, Greg Hopp, U-100 Leland Unlimited & Steve David, U-6 Oh Boy! Oberto. Photo credit: ©F.Peirce Williams

By Craig Fjarlie

This past February, in our profile of Jan Shaw, she talked about her connections in racing and how she regarded them as her extended family. She specifically mentioned the Myers family—John Myers and his parents Bill and Ella Mae. Recently, J. W. Myers, the son of John Myers and grandson of Bill and Ella Mae, explained the connections from his perspective and additional connections he has made during his years in racing.

J. W., known as J Dub to his friends and family, was born on April 10, 1973, in Seattle. The fabled Sammamish Slough race was scheduled for April 8. John Myers wanted to compete in the Slough race and he was worried that his wife, Kathy, would give birth to J. W. in conflict with the race. “It was a big concern for my dad, that I was going to show up on the Slough race day,” J. W. explains with a laugh. “Fortunately, that worked out. I know he never won the race, but it was his favorite race.”

At the Slough Exhibition April 11, 2026, J. W. Myers, talking with veteran outboard racer Drew Thompson. Photo by Craig Fjarlie

John Myers began racing in the A Runabout class in 1959. “Grandpa started racing probably in ‘62 or ‘63,” J. W. says. “It was a few years before my grandpa started racing. My grandpa only raced for about 10 years or so. My grandmother did not race.”

J. W. tells how his family became friends with Howard and Jan Shaw. “Howard got into racing because my dad was dating Howard’s sister. I think Howard was about five or six years younger than my dad. Howard came around, hanging out with my dad. I have videos of Howard at my grandparents’ house. He is riding shotgun with my grandparents, leaving to go to the race. I never knew this until I saw the 8 mm film. Howard had a ‘59 El Camino they put his A Runabout on. I’ve got a photo of it somewhere; it’s really cool.”

The earliest memories that J. W. has of outboard racing was as a spectator at the Slough races. “I was a three- or four-year-old kid, sitting underneath the hood of my mom’s Volkswagen bug, watching the boat race.”

John Myers built outboard boats that his family drove. “My dad built my brother, Dick, a boat in ‘78. He ran that for a couple of seasons. Greg Hopp had actually run that boat as well, when he was running J. I started in ‘82,” J. W. remembers. “I had my brother’s first boat. My dad had built my brother a second boat in 1980 or ‘81. Then when I started in ‘82, I had his back-up engine and his previous boat. In ‘83 my brother didn’t race, so I got the so-called ‘good boat’ and was able to get Region High Points a couple times with that. My brother had done it as well, in J Hydro. We didn’t have a J Runabout class in the Northwest in the early ‘80s. Maybe once Mike Jones showed up with a whole fleet of J Hydros and J Runabouts and we’d all get put into boats. I ran J Runabout, I think, twice. My little sister, Kay, has the second J boat. That was her first race boat.”

J. W. Myers’ favorite class was 1100 Runabout in the PRO category. Here he races the R-7 in 350 Hydro at the 2010 UIM Worlds, Lake Alfred, Florida. Photo Credit: ©F. Peirce Williams 2010

J. W. moved up through a variety of outboard classes. “Eventually I started running 25SS with the long tower Mercury with a modern motor,” he says. “25 Runabout with the short Merc was definitely my favorite as I was growing up. I always wanted a really fast 1100 Runabout, which came much later.” J. W. says his racing heroes ran 1100 Runabout. He lists the names: “Robert Waite, Howard Anderson, Howard Shaw, my dad, Jim Rea from Idaho, Jim Allen, and Kevin Christianson. There were a lot of really cool 1100 Runabouts in this region in the early and middle 1980s. That was always my thing.”

One of his fondest memories was winning a heat of 1100 Runabout at the Nationals in Constantine. “Chad Eagon and I worked on this thing for a long time to get it right, get it consistent. I built and designed a unique boat, my gear and propeller combination was unique, everything about it was unique. I only won one heat, but I drove through traffic in a full field. I remember Austin VanOver won that year. I got third or fourth—I don’t recall—but winning that single heat race was the coolest thing.”

J. W. later drove an Unlimited Light hydroplane and Unlimited hydroplanes. Initially, he worked on the crew of Miss Budweiser, starting in 1995. “I was the lead lug nut polisher and I was low level,” he remarks. A couple of years later he worked on the crew of the Unlimited owned by Mike and Lori Jones, where he met driver Mike Weber. Following that, J. W. worked on the crew of Ken Muscatel’s Unlimited. Jim Bakke introduced J. W. to Bob Larimore, owner of the Unlimited Light Pegasus, UL-23. Larimore gave J. W. a chance to drive the boat in San Diego. “With the exception of a 45SS, I’d never driven a race boat sitting down.” Weber was on the radio and talked him through his first test laps. J. W. later drove the boat in competition.

“I always wanted to drive an Unlimited hydroplane, like any other kid that grew up in Seattle, had gone through Seattle Outboard, and all that stuff,” J. W. admits. The opportunity came in 2003. Greg Hopp had been driving an Unlimited for Fred Leland. He was injured at a race in Madison, Indiana, and Leland needed a substitute driver when the series moved to Tri-Cities, Washington. J. W. finished the season driving for Leland.

Winner! J.W. Myers and crew at the Madison Regatta in Madison, Indiana July 3, 2005. Photo Credit: ©F.Peirce Williams 2005

In 2004, J. W. drove the Unlimited Llumar for Bill Wurster, who years before had raced outboards with Seattle Outboard Association. Then in 2005 he drove the Unlimited Miss Elam Plus for Erick Ellstrom. He scored a win at the regatta in Madison, Indiana. J. W. drove intermittently in the Unlimited class for a few more years, but by 2017 he knew he no longer had the passion for it and decided it was time to stop.

J. W. currently lives in North Carolina, but he remains involved with racing primarily as a boat builder. “I did a lot of J Hydros for the HRL in the Montreal area. They have a lot of those boats up there.” He is also working on boats with electric power for Princeton University. “We set the electric kilo speed record of 114 in 2023, with Jon Peeters driving. I built them a new boat that should be well north of 140,” he predicts. Peeters, a champion who competed against J. W. in outboard races, will be the driver for the next speed record attempt.

The many connections that J. W. Myers made through his racing family have given him a lifetime of friendships and success in his pursuits. His experience confirms what Jan Shaw stated about her racing friends: “That’s family, and that is really important.”

J. W. would certainly agree.