Burger debt paid

COEUR d'ALENE - Mira Slovak leaned his elbows on the counter at Hudson's Hamburgers counter on Friday, Skip Murphy and Todd Hudson watching him on either side.

As they waited for the burgers sizzling on the grill, Todd ventured, "Why don't you tell us about the '63 race?"

Clasping his hands, Slovak stared into space.

"'63 ..." he mused.

The hydroplane racing champion says he didn't have time to notice exactly what went wrong during the Diamond Cup race that day on Lake Coeur d'Alene.

He just knows when his hydroplane "Miss Exide" kicked up speed on the crystalline water, the vessel couldn't take it.

"I just exploded," Slovak said, his Czechoslovakian accent lilting the words. "When I woke up, I was on a boat, and a priest was bending over and saying my last rites. I said, 'Hey, padre, I don't want to go yet!'"

The story of the crash has been told many times at Hudson's Hamburgers, Todd said.

His father, Roger, a lifelong hydroplane enthusiast, had been watching at the race.

And later, motivated by his long friendship with Mira "The Fighting Czech" Slovak, Roger asked if he could have the racer's jumpsuit and helmet from that day for his collection of hydroplane memorabilia.

"I said, 'It's still bloody, but you can have it,'" Slovak remembered. "He said, 'How much do you want for it?' and I said, 'How about you owe me a hamburger?'"

Decades later, Slovak returned to collect.

In town for the Diamond Cup Regatta historic exhibition and banquet this weekend, the 81-year-old racing legend moseyed into the burger joint on Friday morning to order the cheeseburger his friend had promised him so long ago.

"All these years, you were too busy," Steve Hudson chided Slovak, who currently lives outside San Diego. "You weren't collecting interest, were you?"

As Steve cooked the burgers, Slovak caught up with Todd and Murphy, who had helped set up the Diamond Cup course every year it was held in Coeur d'Alene between 1958 and '68.

Slovak remembered being flung from his hydroplane in the '63 crash, which sliced open the right side of his face from ear to jaw.

"The injury wasn't too bad. I just lost 20 teeth," he said. "When I woke up in the hospital, I felt something under my chin, and the doctor said, 'Be quiet, I'm finishing.' He was sewing me up."

Slovak still returned to Coeur d'Alene in 1966 to win the Regatta in a sturdier vessel, the "Tahoe Miss."

It was one of many triumphs.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Slovak moved to the U.S. as an adult and became personal pilot for Bill Boeing Jr. He won hydroplane races across the country in the '50s and '60s, including the 1959 President's Cup.

He raced the Lake Coeur d'Alene course three different years, he said.

"It was an excellent course," Slovak said. "Good winds, nicely laid out. Lots of room."

Todd said it was amazing to honor the agreement his late father made with the racing champion.

"It's totally cool," he said. "It's one of those rarities you can do that, pay back a debt."

Todd and Steve have saved their father's expansive hydroplane collection, displayed in glass cases at the back of the restaurant.

Amidst the bounty of racing shirts, photos, buttons and boat models is Slovak's orange and white jumpsuit and orange helmet.

Beside it are three photos: One of Slovak's vessel shooting across the waves in the '63 race, the next of it exploding. The last shows the destroyed vessel recovered the day after.

The collection also includes a photo of one Diamond Cup course, which Roger helped set up every year.

"He was very passionate about it (his collection)," Todd said.

When Steve served a sizzling cheeseburger to each of the men, Mira smiled.

"I wish Roger were here," he said.

"Me too," Todd said.

Picking up the burgers, they said, "cheers," and tapped the burgers together.

Taking a hearty bite, Slovak nodded as he chewed.

"Excellent," he murmured.

"Worth the wait?" Murphy asked.

Taking another bite and chewing it slow, Slovak nodded.

Debt repaid.