Lawrence Reichert an area racing pioneer

Brent Harnack’s mentor, Lawrence Reichert, is a story unto himself.

Reichert, a pioneer in boat racing lived to be 103 and died in 1994, according to Harnack. He drove his car until he was 99.

Reichert was a member of the Canadian Army in World War I where he was a tail-gunner in a DeHaviland biplane. “He used to sit on an apple box and drop bombs by hand,” Harnack said.

Reichert’s plane crashed in France and he spent a significant time in the hospital recuperating.

Upon his return to Spokane after the war, Reichert built and raced cars at Playfair Race Course. And then he became a force in boat racing.

Reichert later started Reichert Sales and Service, located on First Avenue near the Fox Theater, Harnack recalled. The business was first automotive-related and then shifted to boats. “He was the first Johnson motor and Crestliner dealer in the area,” said Harnack.

As a racer, Reichert ran boats that had to be steered with a tiller. “He beat hydros in 50 mile races,” Harnack recalled.

While Reichert was a huge factor in Harnack’s life, he also helped a lot of other kids too. “I used to ask him why he was helping them and not just me?” Harnack recalled.

Among his many talents, Reichert was a seat-of-the-pants technician, according to Harnack. To get more performance out of a propeller “he’d pound cup,” or adjust the pitch by laying it over a trailer hitch ball and hit it with a hammer.

He’d tell Harnack to go out and run the prop and report back whether the boat went faster or slower.

Reichert, along with Buss Pringle started the Harrison Outboard Association, which later became the Stateline Outboard Racing Association.

Reichert also crewed for the old Dollar Bill cqunlimited hydro at Coeur d’Alene’s Diamond Cup in the 1950s and 1960s.