Ron Hill Family: Hill Marine and Signature Propellers

Here is my dad, 1945, I was a year old. It was a Rockholt, Evinrude, Six Stud motor, called a 60-42, serial number 0041. They only made 50 of these six studs, The cylinders were made of mostly nickle, which helped them stay straight, and that was one reason they were fast.

My dad had sold this engine, about the time I was born, and he was supposed to go in the Army. He had it sold for $250. All night before the guy was to pick up the motor, my dad didn't sleep. Next morning, he told my mom he wasn't selling the motor. She said, "She never asked him to sell it." I was born a week later.

My dad was to go in the Army, he'd sold his car and boarded up the cabin, at Lake Elsinore, and quit his job...Sunday before he was to report, President, Roosevelt said, "The war was changing and married men, with children, over 40 would not need to report effective immediately."

My dad was listening to the radio, coming home from Elsinore, in his '37 Plymouth....when he heard Roosevelt speak!!!

This picture hung in my grandmother's house until she died. The blacked out part had said, "Love, Your Son".

My dad got the boat racing bug in 1935 and never lost it....He died in 1997. He had the "BUG" for 62 years!!!

The Old Man, never listened to Johnny Cash music, except when he rode in the car with me...But he was a "MAN IN BLACK" for many of the same reasons Johnny wore black. This is the Hearst Regatta, 1948. 35,000 lined the shores.

The Old Man's Rockholt had silver leaf numbers...Skippy was the boat's name, because when he bought it, it had a big rocker in the bottom and all she'd do was skip. My dad flattened the bottom and she ran like an ARROW. After that, my dad was a BUG about flat bottoms.

Any of you guys that used to watch us run at Nationals, my dad would never put the motor on the boat until about 15 minutes before the race. Last thing he'd do was sand the bottom lightly, making sure it was "Flat as a NUN'S CHEST and he always said that was pretty flat".....The Hill Family got that line from Lee Morehouse who built many of our boats....Lee loved saying he'd gotten the boat's bottom slicker than S on a BH.... Which translated means, slicker than snot on a broom handle. Lee loved to say, also, that the bottoms of his boats were so smooth that a fly couldn't land on them without breaking a leg...

Other last thing my dad would do before a finals, would be to sharpen my prop and square up the trailing edges with his pocket knife.....

My father never won a Hearst Regatta, seems Rocky Stone from Willamina, Oregon won almost all of them...

My dad had a new DeSilva in 1949...From the Kids, you know...Billy and Ralph DeSilva were considered the "KIDS" in 1949,

My dad got the name Forever Amber about the time the book came out...Seems, when he played poker with the boys at Lake Elsinore he could get "AMBER" and still play pretty well...The boat club guys would go down to our cabin and raise hell for a few days at a time...

My dad was leading this race, when a guy, Lee Cockren, got al ap late start, it was legal in those days, and Lee pulled out in front of my dad, my dad hit his swell and blew over backwards, knocking his two front teeth out. My dad never raced after the 1949 Hearst. My brother won A Hydro that day.. There were 32 hydros...they ran them in two heats...

You can see the six studs on the head and the Perfect Circle piston Ring decal on the tank..This engine ran alcohol and it would take a decal off, if any alcohol was spilled on the motor....The decal was their, until we changed to a different fuel tank...

Funny, I thought I was the "ORIGINAL" Party Animal in the Family...Now, my kids tell me they thought THEY were the "ORGINAL" Party Animals...

Partying may, run in the family...My Old man has the cigar, in the middle of the picture, and no hair!!!!

There were 32 A Hydros, my brother started last in the first heat and worked his way to the front, in five laps. My dad chewed his butt between heats to get a better start, but he started last again, and again passed 31 boats. The Boat was a Fillinger, the name was Pumper. As the Johnson KR motors, or at least some parts, were also Fire Fighting Pumpers used in the BIG WAR...You know, the one we won!!! My dad had bought some Pumpers surplus after the war. They made my brother's A out of a Pumper. They did get a "FACTORY" block...


Once, my brother was testing at Long Beach, he was watching the speedometer and hit a wave, in this Fillinger, he flew up in the air and his butt went through the cloth deck. My dad got mad as hell at him, which is something he did in those days,..and he then helped a guy make a "Lie Detector" for speedometers....It was basically a check valve in the line, and it would hold your fastest speed, no need to look at the speedometer, you could look where you were going. Though a great idea, my brother still managed to blow his Swift Hydro over because he could not believe he was going 70 and he watched the speedo until the deck hit him in the face...His face went right through the plywood deck. When they pulled the boat in, the speedo still said, "70."

Maybe, I liked the 36 Class because my dad started racing is C Service and C Service, in those days was a "FISHING" Motor... If you notice, this old P-50 had the muffler....a requirement of the class..

My dad''s "SKIPPY"...at speed, the old man ran them wide open...He was a "RACER"...

I was 3 when he blew this motor up at Havasu Landing...I asked my dad what happened and he said, "He blew the motor all to hell." For the next year, I was asked to repeat that line about 500 times...Everyone thought it cute, to hear a three year old say, "Yea, my dad blew his C Service all to hell."

After Havasu Landing, 1947, my dad never raced C Service again...ONLY "RACING C"....

Russ Hill, Sr. and Ronnie Hill, August 12, 1956 Stock Outboard Nationals, Cambridge, Maryland...Photo by Hank Bowman.

I finished third to Dean Chenowith and Billy Schumaker....Don Pontius was 4th...

The badge did say Ronnie Hill.....

Jimbo please note: The K on the SPARK HANDLE is for a KG-4, NOT KG-7...

This was live TV, my brother had just won the "TROPHY DASH" with his C-6 Swift....Upset win for Russ, as Howard Thompson, 2-C usually won D Stock Hydro.

Second picture, again live TV, Dick Lane from KTTV announces as Russ Hill, Jr. gets his trophy for WINNING D Stock Hydro...

White T Shirt is Bobby Willlard, from Oildale, who, along with his dad, raced for 26 straight weeks...Gene Bettis is next to Bobby...

ADD: The kid holding C-6 is Me, Bill DeSilva is walking toward me with the hip boots on..Howard Thompson is standing behind his KG-9 holding the flywheel...That KG-9 of Howards, was once on the cover of Speed and Spray or Boat Sport where they had two D Hydros, side by side...Jack Maypole was driving one of the boats, as I recall!!!! (Found the Link Boat Sport ...Hmm, it was June 1953).

3-C, Bobby Willard from Oildale, California, leads Ronnie Hill and Gene Bettis is AU Trophy Dash...

Oh, I remember now, as I see Bobby Willard is leading, fastest guys started last.....and we only ran three laps....Hard to come from last to first, I never did!!!!

Here Lee Morehouse (Back to us)..is holding my brother as he starts his KG-9 powered, Swift hydro...A C, D, F, X Hydro....as they were called...

Lee may have built more than 50 Morehouse runabouts, he had been an artist for Walt Disney, and on every boat bottom he'd draw Mickey Mouse before he put the glass on!!!!

The Morehouse Family, Lee, Ibby and Danny were great supporters of Boat Racing both with CASH, and hard work at the races...Not to mention the boats Lee built and repaired for little or no money!!!

My brother won at Brawley, in 1956. The lake is just like it was in 1957....One of the few places in California that hasn't changed....I plan to offer Imperial County a dollar for the lake...If private ownership was allowed they area would BLOOM.....

The bottom picture is at the San Diego Food Control Channel, 1956, my brother is running Ed Kuracowa's Morehouse and his Hubbell PR...This is only Hubbell PR that was built completly from Hubbell parts. My dad bought every piece new from Pep and assembled this motor...

The motor is still in the barn, where it was placed in 1957.....

This is my brother, at San Diego again, but it is 1960, as he got his Sid Craft after the 1959 Nationals in Seattle...

444 is Kenny Pyle and driving the cab over is Gary Ferguson, who is the head tooler at Advantage Boats in Lake Havasu...Gary is and was quite a boat designer....

This is my brother, Russ Hill, Jr. with his girl friend...Phyllis Winger. Phyllis was the only woman in John Wayne's movie, Island in the Sky...Russ and his good friend John Drake both dated Phyllis....Maybe, you can see why!!!

We raced 39 straight weeks. The Old Man inspected every week. It was live TV in those days...Speedboat Rodeo KTLA-TV Channel 5...

11 year old Ronnie Hill wins AU...It was only after I won High Point that they decided I was a year too young to race...So, they beached my dad for ayear....APBA lost a motor inspector for a year...Lucky for me, I finally grew into my ears and feet...

My dad always said that races were won in the garage, we just proved it at the race course..He even tested alone, at Lake Elsinore. Testing alone was a family no, no...But sometimes you've got to make sure those new Turner pistons will work...

Evinrude 6042, DeSilva runabout...Forever Amber....(In silver Leaf)...

This picture was taken by the Mirror Daily News on February 24, 1956. It appeared in an article written about the HILL FAMILY!!!

The engine is my dad's Six Stud, an Evinrude 6042 engine!!!!

I've been told that my dad didn't invent the Test Wheel, but he may have been the first one to ever try and market them...Here, from 1951 is my dad's "Stedi-Pull."

Twin Engine Glastron powered by Evinrude X-115's built by Ray Nydahl....Second Overall, First Twin, $8,500 in cash...and a lot in Havasu City...

I think this is 1982...19 Foot Daytona Eliminator, powered by a Russ Hill. Sr. 235 Evinrude...We lead, until the throttle wire pulled out...96 MPH with 55 gallons of gas...

The OLD MAN loved to build motors...We had five 235's at this time...OMC learned somethig from us...it was called how to buy LA SLEEVES and re sleeve your block!!!!

NOTE: Young man in the boat is John Soares...He drove the Lucas Oil boat at Parker this October...Kneeling is my dad, behind him is Fred Hauenstein...Freddy is telling my dad, it wasn't his fault we'd lost...

Bill Muncey and John Daley had driven together at Havasu in a Glastron.... When John got this 19 foot Daytona, Bill made me promise I wouldn't get JOHNNY hurt....This is me behind the wheel...we finished third.... What year was Muncey killed??? I always thought of the IRONY of Bill telling me to take care of Johnny!!!

This is the same John Daley who ran the San Diego Regatta many years..

82 MPH all day!!!! (And we were the fastest in class)....

16 year old Chad Hill, is being backed in for his first 45 SS Enduro ride... Second pictrure is the start. Winner was Jason Campbell, Chad finished second....

12 years ago!!!!

My brother aways says, "You were what your were when."...

This was 1964....I had just raised the kilo record in DU and this picture went in to the Modesto Bee Newspaper...

Close up of the helmet...painted by Phil Nichols of the Fuzz Nichols Family...Dave Nichol's little brother...Came from Minnesota to California...

This is at the NEW LAKE LOS ANGELES, a fresh water lake, where John Puesto and I promoted a Stock race.... The land company gave me $5,000 to put on the race...We ran four races there before the land use rules changed....

I loved this Sid Craft...I raced it in C and D Stock plus A and B Alkie...

Bought it from Stan Armstrong in Beaver Falls, PA at the 1965 Nationals....

Every night, in Beaver Falls, we'd go Arm Wrestling for beers....I won a ton of beers for them Bowman, Oller, Simmons........group!!! Nobody could beat me left handed...and I'm right handed...But my throttle arm was strong!!!!

To the left is Olin Griswold, we called him the Needles Playboy...He never liked the name, but his parents had bucks, they owned the Dr. Pepper, Diet Rite, Seven Up and other bottling company in the Needles area... He reportedly loaned Don Laughlin $5,000 when Don started Laughlin, Nevada... He's dead now, but in my college days were we as close as real brothers, though we were only fraternity brothers...We drifted apart after I married...he never married, he just stayed The Needles Playboy...To the right is CAPNZEE..... That is my 1968 Chevy Wagon...MY TRANSPORTER to all the races....

Thems ain't beers, them is "FROSTY DEVILS"....

Harry Bartolomei loved new boats and new engines, he just didn't like to paint his boats...Here is Harry and Lee Harris launching me for a D Racing Runabout Kilo run...I think I went 97...The record was a UIM record, but never an APBA record....as the rotary valve (VC) Konig wasn't approved that early in 1967..

See the handle on the side deck...? that was for my deck rider to hang on to...We broke the F Racing Runabout record the next day...

The Old Man (My dad) is showing off the block to his LAST C Service...He built her up and didn't know about some new rods...the old rod cut that sucker in two......

I have some relatives still racing in Seattle...John Peters is some kind of a relative...John Heggenburger is my cousin...he raced D Hyro, 20SS and 25 for a long time...He strat out in JU ina Larry Castineto JU that I bought for him...This is Robin Mayer next to John.....Robin was a hell of a racer and should be listed in women racers...Dave Mayer is the last ALKIE RACER in Region 12...He's been to DePue for the last two years.

Funny how many lives I have crossed paths with in boat racing.....

This race was at Lake Weist, both KID JACKETS were CUSTOM Laura Hill jackets...My mom made just about everyone's jackets...

Hey Broc... I just saw this picture and thought it was you....This is your dad, 1964....I was 20....Kristy Johnson, my college sweetie is in the middle and that is my mom next to my '59 Chevy....Take a look at me for a peek at your future...

Cool shoes I had...$2.50 a pair at the VANS Store in Garden Grove....

This is the start at Victorville...C-6 is Russ Hill, Jr. in the roostertail is Jimbo in his May Craft (Swift Copy)...D Stock Hydro....Can't recall who is leading..Gentex jacket and a Sid Craft.....

The '56 Ford truck was my Old Man's...We drove the fire out of that thing...Jimbo and I use to see if we could "Peel Rubber", we'd floor her in neutral, and rev the fire out of her, then drop her in gear... Damn tuff truck as we never blew anything up on her....

Once, when my dad first installed the Smog Device, the engine woulkd backfire, he opened the hood and told me to rev her up and I did, she back fired and shot the dip stiick over the neighbor's house...never to be found...

1-C is my C Stock Runabout...a Morehouse Meteor with a Mark 30-H....

17 foot Glastron called "SNAPPER".....I loved to drive this boat...I lead the twin class for 8 hours, and loved every minute of it...I called her a "GAS STRON" as I thought she was a "GAS" to drive... Twin Ray Nydhal Evinrude X-115's....

Man my pants were ready for Katrina... this was 1967...

The blue boat was for JIMBO, it was his BU... The top two are my marathon boat.....and kilo boat, DU!!!! The named got changed from SNAPPER to FLIPPER.....

This was down at Blythe, I was testing, the tan gentleman is Carl Meyers.....Carl was from Iowa and loved them boats....I raced many a Carl Meyers's BU's!!!

Second pictures is Parker, at a Stock race....

Bunker took thess pictures of Jimbo and me, Thanksgiving, 2005, ...That Jimbo is getting fat....Hard to believe he's six months younger than me!!!

This was the FIRST SNAPPER....had Jerry Waldman not been killed, I would have kept track of all my Snappers. Jerry's boats were all called "SPOOKER". I think he was up to "Spooker XXX" when he was killed.

After that, I just called all my boats "SNAPPER"....without numbers....Snappers is what Ted May called the street walkers in Boston.....


Here is my CU, I was in second place, at the time, to Gary Stippich, Modesto Nationals, 1964....Gary won, I was 4th, after breaking a rewind....starter and having Charlie Strang DQ me!!!

I had broken the kilo record the day before and 64.661... Old Kilo Record was 60...Charlie Strang was quite impressed that HIS DESIGNED Mark 30-H would go that fast on a runabout!


Red and white striped Tee Shirts is what the Hill Boys wore and BAGGY Surf trunks....

19-C Ron Hill...Carl Meyers, in the straw hat, is Ron's number one crew man.... Roy Miner, AKA, Smoooth Water Miner, is in the Sid Son DSH behined 19-C...A May Craft powered by a VC Konig...

Jimbo and I won this race...Boat 22 is what we drove, you can see my back and Kenny.......from OMC...Second picture is after the race...

Since Ron does most of the writing for the Hill family (and everything else in this site), I thought I'd tell you all more than you ever wanted to know about RONALD LLOYD HILL.

Ron is the quintessential boat racer. His first race boat was a rocking horse he received for Christmas a few months before his second birthday. He immediately converted it into a race boat. He took the eyes out of the horse and inserted spark plugs. He removed the rope tail and bolted a propeller into the hole. And he made obnoxiously loud engine noises.

He went through boat race tricycles and bicycles. He even suggested the local gardeners have a power mower race. When he was nearly eleven, he was given his first real boat, an A Stock runabout (then called Utility). Since he was a big boy and had, essentially, 10 plus years race boat experience, he officially began his racing. Twelve was the minimum age for class A, but due to a parental clerical error, he started at eleven.

About six months after he starting racing, a Sunday afternoon live TV show started. It was called SPEEDBOAT RODEO and ran for 39 consecutive weeks. "Ronnie Hill" hadn't won any races yet, but the TV show did hold a Most Popular Driver contest, soliciting postcard votes. He won with more votes than the next ten other guys combined. I was 3rd or 4th with several thousand votes. His number was around 30-40,000 votes.

One other little rule "infraction" occurred when he was 15. He was running several Stock Outboard classes by then, but a rule was passed that, for safety, 16 would become the minimum age for Class D. That presented a slight enforcement dilemma for the officials: He was reining D Runabout National Champion, National High point winner, and held the straightaway and competition world records. That rule kind of got laughed off the books

Well, 50 years later, he hasn't lost an ounce of that enthusiasm that won him the TV popularity contest in the Speedboat Rodeo, so I'll summarize a little by listing some of his racing accomplishments:

• Seventeen times National champion in various classes.
• Two time World champion.
• I don't know how many dozen world records or National high point championships, but they would be counted by the dozen.
• He only won the Parker 9-hour once but he was 2nd 4 times, and had a 3rd and a 4th. Was also the first outboard to lead the 9-hour, when it was clearly an inboard event.
• He won the Berlin 6-Hour, Jimbo McConnell was his co-driver, who drove the middle 2 hours. He ran 2nd in the Paris 6-hour with Ted May.
• He won the Milwaukee to Chicago race in a boat that literally sunk when he stepped out, it was so broken up.
• He was inducted into the American Power Boat Association’s Honor Squadron (Hall of Fame).
• He won 12 consecutive Needles Marathons.
A two time member of APBA Hall of Champions.
John Ward Trophy Racing winner.

The Needles Marathon was a phenom in itself. It was the first stock outboard marathon ever run and was Needles' biggest event of the year. Studying all sports strings, I have never found a run of victories quite 12 years long. He loves Needles to this day, and rightfully so. It's been at least 20 years since the last Marathon there, but when Ron Hill walks down the street in Needles, lot of (the older) people still recognize him and are happy to see him.

I fancy myself as Mr. Absolute Facts, but I am a Hill. Most people have learned that Ron never lets facts stand in the way of his good stories. And he's into self improvement, which means that the more often he tells the story, the better it gets. I've probably embellished a little here and there, but hopefully anybody who would know the difference is dead, anyway.

We're pretty close brothers. I'm 10 years, 6 months and 4 days older. I can still tell him what a dumb sh-- he is. But don't YOU even think that in my presence.

I've made it to Amarillo, but wanted to post this pictures from Flagstaff... In September, 1964, my fraternity brothers and I build this split rail fence... I made the yearbook with my picture from splitting logs, which I'll find and post, but none of us would have dreamed that 42 years later, this damn split rail fence would still be across the street from the Chilli Bean Dine...in down town Flagstaff, Arizona...trouble is, the Chilli Bean Diner is gone...Damn, they had great chilli and 2 A.M.

I only went to Flagstaff for two years, the ratio of women was two women to one guy...I tried my best to make up of the the other guys that weren't carrying their load...I never had a bad day in Flag...and IF I DIED TOMORROW, the undertaker would never be able to get the smile off my face because of the POLE...I was a SIGMA CHI...and the women from ARIZONA WERE GLAD TO MEET A MAN FROM CALIFORNIA!!!

Dug out my 1965 yearbook from NAU (In 1965 it was still ASC or Arizona Stat College, but when I graduated it became Northern Arizona University).Our fraternity was called Sigma Chi Omega, in 1967 the Omega was dropped and we became Sigma Chi National....Kind of like being in APBA as the parent club...

Hard for me to believe that the "STUD" without hair and the big nose ...and BIG MOTHER ARM MUSCLES is me....I had actually forgotten that my Fraternity Brothers had put my Boat Racing pictures in the year book...Two women per guy at Arizona in those days, probably the same today...did my damnest to do my share with that ratio....

I guess from seeing the picture in the yearbook, I must have been hustling Boat Racing up at the "POLE" too...

Bottom picture, same Sid Craft, same Modesto Nationals...just can see the duct tape...