Everyone who has lived in the fast lane, had to start somewhere. For Pete Giroux, life began in the San Francisco area with summers spent at Clear Lake. Pete's Aunt and Uncle owned the resort at the lake, which immersed Pete in all things water related. Learning to water ski at the age of 4 years old, behind dad's 17 ft. Chris Craft set the tone for future activities. Using the boat as their only mode of transportation to Lake Port for shopping trips with mom when dad was in the city on business, Pete quickly learned how to handle watercraft.
The year 1955, brought about changes for Pete. Pete's father relocated the family from San Francisco to the San Fernando Valley to further dad's career in radio and television. The family's lake trips continued but the lake location changed as well. Bass Lake became the lake of choice along with winter trips to the hot new recreation area known as the Salton Sea. In 1959 Pete's dad sold the Chris Craft and bought a Century, which became the water workhorse.
Pete met Clayton John when Clayton moved in next door to Pete in Tarzana. Clayton would build a wood boat every year and then sell it to build another. Pete tagged along with Clayton and his buddies who would spend summers at Bass Lake working on new boat designs. Like most other young "gear heads" in Southern California during time that period, Pete was initially drawn to building and modifying hotrods. T bucket roadsters were all the rage and Pete had built several and competed in the show circuit. At around the same time Pete was building hot rods, he sealed the deal with his lifelong spouse "Shorty" as everyone knows her.
In 1969, Pete started a small welding business and in 1971 he bought his first modern speed boat in a Green metal flake Ski Sanger flat bottom. Pete built his own trailer for the Sanger using rectangular steel tubing, which was a new look at the time as most other trailer manufactures where still using channel steel. Pete took what he learned building high quality show hot rods and applied it to his boat trailer, and blew away everyone in the process. The next thing Pete knew, he was in the boat trailer business. From 1971 through 1975 Pete's little welding business was producing 5 trailers a day for all the major boat builders such as, Eliminator, Rogers, Kona, Southwind to name a few.
As the trailer business blossomed, Pete felt the need for speed and the Ski Sanger was pressed into service, a 1/4 mile at a time. The boat ran a fuel injected 427 Chevrolet, which most said would not work. With several final round appearances, Pete proved he could not only build a bitchin boat trailer, he could tune a boat and make it run as well. Pete raced the Sanger through the 1972-73 seasons. In 1975, Pete sold the boat trailer business and began welding pipeline, which paid better with much fewer headaches. The sale of the trailer business allowed Pete to focus his efforts on the fast lane.
Having driven several Blown Gas Flats, which really got his attention, Pete's racing continued and in 1981, he stepped up his game. Pete contacted longtime friend Jim Cole and ordered a brand new drag hydro. At the time, Cole was a major player in the drag boat scene and his hulls had set records in every class. Pete purchased blown gas Arias motor, to provide motivation for his effort. He set the hull up with the 565ci Arias and they won the first race they entered at Ski Land Raceway at Lake Perris, in the Giroux Engineering Special. Pete's best time in the boat was just shy of 180mph with a 6:13e.t..
Things went along well for Pete, Shorty and their crew for several seasons with lots of final round appearances until September 20th 1986. On that terrible day in September, Bill Todd (aka Billy the Kid) made a pass that he would not recover from. For many reasons which have been the subject of much debate, the boats were going faster and more racers were losing their lives (6 were killed in 1986 alone).
Pete parked his boat and decided that his driving days were over. Rex Hutchinson and his son Glenn partnered with Pete for Rex to maintain the motors and Glenn piloting the Giroux Engineering Special. More final rounds were attended and things went along well with the Hutchinson partnership.
Pete's son Sean, who spent his formidable years crewing on dad's boat, had begun his own racing career. Starting out in dads old Sanger Flat Bottom, Sean worked his way up before getting the chance to step into the Giroux Engineering Special BGH at the tender age of 18 years old. Sean would go on to his own successful driving and crew work for other well-known race teams.
In 1989, Pete made the decision to retire completely from racing when safety capsules became mandatory. Cutting up the hull of his boat was not something Pete was interested in and in fact life in the fast lane had taken its toll. At that point in his life, Pete and Shorty were looking at the slow lane as a change in pace. You couldn't get any slower than building a house in Mexico and flying his plane down south for major siesta time.
After living life at 180mph, it didn't take long for Pete to get bored with his "easy" life in Mexico. While sitting in the living room of his south of border location, Pete began to consider getting back into drag boats or drag racing in some fashion. He had always thought about building his own boat and began to sniff around. Pete bumped into Wayne Mettler and shared his interest in a boat mold. Wayne mentioned to Pete that the Hondo XH511 was available.
A deal was stuck for the Hondo mold and Pete was in the boat building business. Pete contacted James Brendel who was also a longtime friend from their racing days together. James personally instructed Pete and Sean in the proper way to lay up the hulls. Pete had always dreamed of building a new boat with a wood deck that would look like an old school build. He began work on a brand new Hondo wood decker that set the industry on its ear. No one, at the time, nor in the recent past was building a brand new wood decker. The plan was for Pete and Sean to build the hull and then call on Pete's childhood friend Clayton John to build the wood deck. What they came up with is simply a work of art.
Before retiring from racing and leaving the drag boat world, Pete had mentioned to Jim Cole that if Jim ever wanted to sell the boat business, Pete would be interested. As luck would have it, Jim wanted out of the boating business at about the same time Pete was looking to get in. Pete was only interested in the drag boat TR2 and drag hydro molds. Once again a deal was struck and Pete's stable of high quality drag boat molds had just doubled.
While the recent recession has had a devastating effect on the high performance boat industry, there is light at the end of the tunnel. With several orders pending, Pete's business model never included high production numbers of hulls. Pete personally lays up each hull with the highest quality Vinyl Ester Resins. In the last 9 years, Pete has lost count of the wood deck boats they have built and restored. Each hull is custom built with the owner's final purpose in mind. Light or Heavy layups are available, along with carbon fiber inlay into the floors. A recent trademark addition to the hulls, are stringers with contrasting wood full-length inlays. Add to the handmade craftsman style of the construction on the hull, is the machine artwork and rigging of Sean with much of the hardware manufactured in house.
Both Pete and Sean have built and driven some fast hardware to final rounds and recent championships,
they understand what it takes to go fast and can help a prospective owner find their place in the fast lane.
Written by - Bob Steele (aka Rickybobby)
