1976

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Coming soon the 1976 editions of Propeller , after 1976 is done i will be going way back in time and doing 1955 and follow in yearly order thru 1971, a couple of those years are not complete but they are pretty close.

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Here is the January 1976 issue.

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Here is the February 1976 edition

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Here is the March 1976 edition

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Here is the April 1976 edition

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Here is the May 1976 edition.

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Here is the June 1976 Propeller edition.

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Here is the July 1976 Propeller edition.

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Here is the August 1976 edition of Propeller.

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[Master Oil Racing Team]

I was kind of wondering about that 186 mph record I supposedly beat with my 110 mph speed in 725 hydro on page 10. I don't exactly remember Jim McKeans kilo record I beat, but I'm sure it was 106 something so the 8 should have been a 0. South African Dino Candiotes' UIM World Record was also somewhere around 106. I find it remarkable that we even got the record in the first place. The Butts hydro was of slightly different design than his previous boats as this was the first one to have wings at the transom. They were illegal at the time, but according to the rule book, all hydroplanes were illegal because every hydro, with maybe the exception of Wayne Walgrave's Chapparal boats used aeronautics to create lift which was illegal. Tim Chance had wings on the back of one of his hydro's that was obvious. Tim's were disguised as supports.

Tim and Ruth met us at Kaukauna with this new aerowing, later to be named "Shadowfax", and it had no paint, varnish, or a number. It just had a coat or two of wood sealer. Of course we didn't have any chance to test, we just rigged it up and Tim set the kickout where he thought it should be. We were up at 4:00 am and went out to the course on the Fox River. I think the driver's meeting was around 5:00 or so. There were a lot of drivers there from all over the country, and boats from the smallest stock class to the largest OPC class and everything in between. We had picked a very high number and it was taking a long time to get boats run through the course. For example a J Stock Runabout went out for his run and he went up the river about half a mile to turn around for his run. It was several minutes before he even entered the first trap. That two way run alone probably took close to ten minutes. All the boats were taking a long run up to the traps, so even faster ones were taking time. Sometime in mid morning the wind began to kick up. It wasn't long until it was up to about 15mph and greater. Boats began to scratch one after another and soon it was out turn.

We did not have a straightaway setup, or any special lower units or anything. Our boat was set up just as we would to race in a national championship race on a 1 1/4 mile course. We knew from Phoenix that we would hit around 115-116 down the straights in good water, so we figured we could get the record if we were able to get close on a good set up with estimated guesswork. We were running Marshall Grant's old D Konig and it had lot's of power. There was a small island off to the side a little way before you enter the traps. Tim told me to drive around that island like it was a turn, then punch it and enter the traps. He wanted the acceleration to lift the transom up to get a proper angle so that when I got up to speed, the wings could take over their effect. I don't know if any of that did any good because the wind was blowing so hard. It was only about 150 yards from when I punched it until I entered the traps. I was headed directly into the wind and could not go wide open. The bow was high and I had to keep feathering the pipes back and forth to balance the boat. It was trying to blow over, but I was able to keep it down by backing off. I had to work both the throttle and the pipe lever to do that. When I got turned around and running with the wind it was totally opposite. Rather than running into a noisy, turbulent storm and having all my senses on edge, the return trip was very quiet. The wind was blowing so hard that it took all the lift away, and the boat was running with its sponsons flat on the water. I had the throttle wide open and the pipes pulled up and it seemed like I was plowing water. I scooted back as far as I could to reduce forward weight and it still plowed on. It was so quiet I started hearing noises like rattling in the lower unit. I never ran flat out that far and so quiet before and my mind got to wondering about all the sounds I was hearing. I was in no danger of blowing over or losing control and so I started thinking that we blew it. I could not run wide open into the wind, and I was so slow coming back that there was no way we would get a record. If we had only drawn a lower number when the morning was calm. Oh well, the boat seems like it will be a good one. It was a big surprise to find that we actually set a new record. Into the wind we ran 112, and the return trip was 108. In good water we would have gotten another 5 or 6 mph or maybe more. We got into the Evinrude 100 mph club with the fastest outboard of 1976. I've got the certificate signed by Ralph Evinrude hanging proudly on the wall. Shadowfax turned out to be one of our best boats and we set several other records with it.

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Here is the September 1976 edition which includes the recap of the Mod Nationals from Kingston TN.

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Here is the October 1976 edition

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Here is the November 1976 edition which contains a recap of the Olympia PRO Nationals from Winona MN.

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Here is the December 1976 edition , near the end is a recap of the World Championships from Fort Buhlow Lake and a special insert on election results and rule changes.

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cont5 Here is the special insert from the December issue , the first two pages are in reverse order but the rest is correct.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We had mostly a good year in 1976. Started out great then kind of disappointed toward the end. We won the UIM OD World Championships in Phoenix, set an APBA kilo record and UIM OD World Record at Kaukauna with an untested boat and competition setup. Won some Eastern and Western Divisional championships. First disappointment was failing to win the 725 APBA Nationals at Winona. I was previously qualified, but it probably would have been better if I had had to run a qualifying heat. Then we might have qualified and found out what turned out to be a problem with our motor. We tested it, but did not race it. It was hard to start and when I tried to get on a plane, it was not hitting, I turned back to the pits and a chain of other pit crews swam and pulled me back to the pits, but it would not start in time to clear out and try to make the heat.

I did win the 250 nationals, but probably the most fun was 1100 hydro. I was running Marshall Grant's old 2 rotary valve F and I got a good start. Going down the back straight I was right up to the steering wheel and hunkered down low. From the pits, if you look at Sugarloaf in the distance (a piece of mountain that stuck up into the sky), the part of the race course in line from the pits to Sugarloaf on the back straight was where all the blowovers took place. I had a very big lead coming out of the first turn, and normally would have backed off, but this was a surveyed mile and a quarter course, so I was going for the record, and as such, needed to be right up on the steering wheel and down low. As I started to back off to set up for the turn I found I could not do so. The loop on the left hand side of my Gentex holding the collar in place had slipped over the throttle and pipe lever. I could not back off the throttle or let off the pipes. I could not turn loose the steering wheel to pull the loop loose. I tried lifting up, but with the loop caught, I was stuck. I tried to move forward and up a little bit, but that didn't work either. Finally I thought I had to break the loop, (which I don't think was possible), so I jerked forward and up very hard to break it, and the loop just slipped off the throttle. Luckily Shadowfax remained stable and I immediately backed off and made a hard left hand turn after overshooting the turn buoys by fifty or sixty yards. I was still in the lead and continued to push Shadowfax, but this time I made sure to keep my life jacket collar away from the throttle. I ended up setting the record, and was the first outboard of all makes, models, and displacement to break 80 mph on a mile and a quarter course. Unfortunately when Baldy cranked the motor for the start of the second heat, a rotary valve belt broke. Only a couple of times before we had a rotary valve break on that motor and it was always when we started it. So no national championship, but we got a good record. Don't know what it might have been if I didn't overshoot the bottom turn on the first lap.

We blew some lower units at Alex, then we went to Yelm. No testing, so no way to get a good set up prior to the race. I messed up on the start of 1100 hydro because I could not see the hand moving, and went back around only to find it was a pie type clock where there was no hand.....the white got smaller and smaller until the face was black at the start. So I was a quarter of the field behind when I crossed the start. I won the race and set a new 1100 hydro record at 90.817. My first lap was in the 80's because of the start my last lap was 96mph and I could not run wide open because I was fighting to keep the boat on the water. We made some adjustment for the next heat, but blew the lower unit going into the turn at the beginning of the next heat. So we had a good year overall, but some major disappointment too with the 725 Nationals. After missing most of 1975 due to an accident, we did around 30,000 miles going to Phoenix, the Texas races, West Berlin, Germany, Gadsden, Alabama, Kaukauna, Wisconsin, Valleyfield Canada, Winona, Minnesota, Alexandria, Louisiana and Yelm, Washington.

[zul8tr]

Would be nice to finish the 70's decade!