Once popular hydros struggling to keep their roostertails flying

By PAUL DELANEY

Staff Reporter

A generation before the Sonics, Pilots/Mariners or Seahawks, the notion of anything Major League in the Northwest was a nebulous thing.

Back when the Washington Huskies and Oregon Ducks were more often than not college football whipping boys — and the WSU Cougars were, well, same-o-same-o — the Northwest’s only claim to the national sports spotlight came on the water.

Within just short of a month in 1950, the state went bonkers over boat racing and for good reason. On June 26, the Slo-mo-shun IV unlimited hydroplane – Slo-mo for short – set a world, one-mile spee...