COEUR d'ALENE - He brought back the hydroplane bacon 55 years ago, and this weekend Duane Hagadone will be able to watch it sizzle some more.

He'll be watching from his sailboat - appropriately named Sizzler.

Hagadone, who was 25 years old at the time, traveled with Lee Brack to Detroit in April 1958 for a critical sales pitch. Their mission: To get hydroplane races sanctioned for Coeur d'Alene that summer.

"We had to prove we had the financial stability and could pull it off," said Hagadone, whose photo appeared with fellow hydro proponents on the front page of the Coeur d'Alene Press on April 14, 1958, under the headline, HYDRO COMMITTEE "BRINGS BACK THE BACON" FROM DETROIT MEETING.

"It was a challenge and I've always loved challenges. Lee Brack was very bright and between the two of us, we made a very good team."

Interviewed Wednesday, Hagadone conceded with a chuckle that he almost didn't make the trip. Brack, the race chairman, was to be accompanied by the commodore of the Coeur d'Alene Unlimited Hydroplane Association, John S. Richards. Only there was a problem.

"In those days, John wouldn't fly in an airplane," Hagadone said.

Thus the committee's vice commodore - young Hagadone, then advertising director of the Coeur d'Alene Press, a newspaper he now owns - was handed the responsibility.

Here's how the Press reported the successful Motor City sojourn in its top story that long-ago April 14:

The Coeur d'Alene Unlimited Hydroplane association is in business today.

The American Power Boat Association sanctioned the first running of the Diamond Cup for unlimited hydroplanes here June 28-29 yesterday, and today the local association set up headquarters in the Flamingo room in the Athletic Round Table and ordered 24,000 more booster buttons. . .

It will lead into the Fourth of July celebration here to make the week the biggest one the city has ever seen.

And the estimated 250,000 people the race will attract will make it the biggest promotion the state of Idaho has ever seen. A crowd of that size would increase the population by more than a third on that date.

Mother Nature would ensure those grandiose projections weren't realized, but first there was a lot of work to be done to get the inaugural Diamond Cup off the ground and into the water. Hagadone said the committee did an amazing job.

Committee members met daily with groups of all kinds throughout the area, drawing crowds to each gathering. To raise money and handle ticket sales at the same time, booster buttons were sold - Hagadone thinks they initially went for $10 apiece - and numerous other fundraisers were held.

"One of those buttons got a person in for the whole weekend," he said.

Committee members and supporters comprised a who's who of prominent Coeur d'Alene families. For instance, Richards owned Atlas Mill and his sons went on to lucrative careers in the timber industry; Brack owned Brack Motor Supply, a mainstay at 1823 N. Fourth St.; Ken McEuen's mother was none other than Mae McEuen of McEuen Field fame; and Carter Crimp was father of current Coeur d'Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem. The first Miss Diamond Cup, Ruthanna Hawkins, was the daughter of prominent local attorney Bill Hawkins, who became the Grand Exalted Ruler of the Elks club nationwide.

Hagadone, now 80, is the only surviving member of the first hydroplane committee.

"That was a really great group of fellows," he said. "I was pretty young. I was really proud to be asked to join the board at that young age. In fact, I don't know how the hell I got there."

Once he was, though, the committee came through.

"It was a huge job, especially putting that first one on," Hagadone said. "If we hadn't pulled it off, we wouldn't have had a second one."

The committee had momentum, as that same April 14 Coeur d'Alene Press attested. Another banner headline declared, "40,000 Watch Miss Spokane As Hydro Fever Hits Area; Miss Spokane Races at 140 Miles an Hour in First Public Test at Hayden Lake."

That harbinger of massive crowds lacked follow-through, however. Stormy weather leading to dangerous high waves canceled the limited Saturday races, and temperatures reaching only into the 60s on Sunday with the threat of more rain kept many fans away.

According to the Monday paper June 30, 1958:

The hydro committee will meet in the middle of the week to determine if the race was financially successful or not. Expenditures will exceed $40,000, and in view of the size of the crowd, it is doubtful that the committee will break even on its first Diamond Cup race.

However, much of the money spent was for facilities that are permanent, and which will not need to be constructed next year.

Police Chief Arnold Engen estimated the size of the crowd at about 35,000.

"That was still a huge crowd - huge crowd," Hagadone said, adding that spectators were packed along the western side of Tubbs Hill all the way across to City Beach. "I don't know what we would've done with 250,000. We didn't have nearly enough room for that size a crowd. We just didn't have enough hotel rooms 50 years ago. We had crews staying in the valley and in Spokane.

"Promoting Lake Coeur d'Alene - that's what it was all about. And it worked. Hydroplane races were much more in the forefront of sports then than they are today, and our races were regionally televised by KOMO in Seattle."

A young sports broadcaster named Keith Jackson covered the races for TV, Hagadone said, and other media flocked here from throughout the Northwest.

On Wednesday, Hagadone applauded the efforts of Doug Miller and his team to prepare for this weekend's Diamond Cup festivities, and he's thrilled that the group should get a little help from a key source.

"The weather looks perfect - sunshine and no wind," he said. "It's supposed to be just a great weekend, and that's what you need."