Dave Bell is guilty as charged for moonlighting.
He works three 12-hour days on and three days off as master sergeant for the Des Moines police department, and on nights, off days and vacation days he doubles as a crew chief for the U-17 Miss Red Dot hydroplane on the unlimited circuit.

And he is not just any crew chief -- he was voted as the Crew Chief of the Year.

"Dave was chosen as the No. 1 crew chief of the sport," said U-17 fellow part owner John O'Brien.

Bell played his selection down, however.

"(Principle owner) Nate (Brown) is the crew chief on record, so he technically won it," Bell said. "The award is to the team, pretty much."
But Bell is putting in long hours, although he finds it pleasurable on the boat based in Preston, Wash.

"To me it's relaxing and I enjoy it," Bell said. "I can go up there and work in the middle of the night if I want to. The races are fun, and the interaction with people is at a different level than work. It's a lot more fun. People want to get up on the boat and everything."

Vacation time does not run out fast for Bell, who is a 32-year employee for the Des Moines police.

"It takes vacation, but I've been there a long time and it builds up a lot," Bell said. "I work 12 hour shifts three days and three days off, so some weekends I might take one day off. Sometimes it lands where it's not taking too much time, but sometimes it's a whole week."
Brown and five part owners including Bell and O'Brien decided to jump into the sport five years ago.

"Nate Brown is the principle behind the whole thing," Bell said. "He's been in hydros for 30 years, and he's been in unlimited boats for 20 of those. He just decided one day he wanted his own team."

The crew and ownership group known as "Our Gang Racing" then went to work.

"We built it from scratch," Bell said.

"We built the boat five years ago," said O'Brien. "We put it together in six months and it usually takes a year and a half."

Bell was not the crew chief until this past summer's season.

"This is my first experience boat racing," Bell said. "This was the first time I did the crew chief thing for a whole season."

Using his skills the boat had three podium finishes and nine heat wins in 2011 with a fifth place high points season finish.

Running the boat is not cheap.

"It runs $25,000 per weekend to run the boat, provided nothing breaks or blows up," Bell said.

That is where sponsorship comes in, and Red Dot Corporation is the main sponsor even though the U-17 goes by other more local names for some races.

"The big thing is sponsorship," Bell said. "We were just going to do the Tri-Cities and Seattle, but the sponsorship was not there. So we go to all of them."

This coming season is set to start with a test session in June in the Tri-Cities, followed by the first weekend of racing starting July 5 in Madison, Ind. and running through July 8.

Racing then shifts to Detroit from July 12-15 with the Tri-Cities next July 26-29 and then the Seafair races in Seattle from Aug. 2-5. Racing on San Diego's Mission Bay follows with a Sept. 16 ending.

"The Tri-Cities, that's the place you want to go if you want to have a good time," Bell said of the circuit stops. "Madison, Ind. is a fun place, too."

After the regular state-side racing ends, the U-17 crew goes to Qatar in the Middle East for more action ending Saturday, Nov. 17. Qatar is on a peninsula in the Persian Gulf and only has a land border with Saudi Arabia to the south.

Qatar (pronounced "cutter") has a land area about the size of Connecticut and around 800,000 people, according to Bell.

"It has the second highest per capita income behind Kuwait," Bell said. "It's a fun place and we're treated very well there. We have a five-year contract to go over and this is our third year to go over."

Getting the boat to Qatar is a challenge.

"We drive into Jacksonville, Florida and go over," Bell said. "We take the boat and trailer, drive everything onto a ship and ship it over. Then we race, pack up and go home."

Qatar is in the same season -- almost winter -- as Washington, although there the temperature is still in the range of 60 to 70 degrees.

"You go outside, and people are wearing winter parkas," Bell said. "The security guy was in a down parka, and I'm in shorts and a T-shirt. He's looking at me like I'm some kind of a nut."

China is also looking to lure the hydroplanes in the future.

"We're waiting on the China thing," Bell said. "They are talking about two events in China (in October). We have to get the scheduling and logistics figured out to go from there to Qatar."

Not bad travel plans for an off hours job.