Jim Hallum, he and others made British Anzani famous
I had a 2 hour conversation with Jim Hallum yesterday night. He is now 76 years young, fully retired living near Duval, Washington state, in what we, everyone east of the Rocky Mountains call God's country. Jim Hallum as many know co-opted with Ron Anderson, family and friends (in Washington state) and Bill Tenney (Minnesota) that marched forward in the 1960s to produce the British Anzani outboard racing A and B class Alky engines where the class Bs clobbered the century mark (100+miles per hour) in kilo events to set straightway records and speed runs as high as 107 mph to get the record eventually recognized at 101 mph. These days he enjoys his retirement and still has avid hobbies involving model aircraft that he builds and runs including versions powered Bill Tenney invented version of the pulse jet that push these RC aircraft into the 150 mph ranges. Speed is obviously still in his blood though he gave up the outboard racing and marine industry sides of it once he got into his later 60s.
Jim is quite thrilled that there is going to be the efforts to document and make historic his contributions to outboard racing that will be logged on to this site as technical articles on Anzani engines. From another standpoint he is thrilled to become part of the historic figures who contrbuted to the sport as part of the package to be developed for the Manitoba Marine Museum whose location is just a short stroll to the Red River and Selkirk race site that saw huge Service, Stock, Alky and Modified outboard racing meets that started from the 1950s. British Anzani was very prominent in these events during the earlier periods as were Quincy Mercs, Quincy Flatheads, Harrisons, Konigs, Crescents and other engines of that very progressive period. Jim Hallum was one of those west coast movers and shakers that gave outboard racing its west coast flavor and perspective front and center when all out speed was to be demonstrated. Readers can look forward to articles where Jim Hallum gives his perspective on things technical and historic in the near future under the threads involving A, B, C & D British Anzanis.
Now if we can shanghai Ron Anderson and others of that west coast group too, it can all be a well rounded historical exercise overall. Does anyone have Ron Anderson's and or other west coast historic figure's telephone numbers or email addresses if he is on the world wide web? All help in these efforts will be greatly appreciated.