My memory isn't very long these days, but?
Is that Ken Park's boat??
same thing with me with the numbers
When I started in 1955 I belonged to the "Little Rock Boat Club" whose headquarter lake was at Scott, Ar. just down river from L.R. on what was called an "old river" lake. Horseshoe shaped lake that at one time had been part of the Arkansas River channel but then had been closed in by whatever cause. I think I remember that some of the races I first attended were sanctioned by NOA, (could be mistaken about that) but our boat numbers at the time were not prefixed by the regular region number, but by the letters "LR" which of course stood for Little Rock Boat Club. L was also the region prefix for Arkansas. It seems from what I am reading that was a common thread that ran thru the boat racing organizations active in the south after WWII. We raced in several lakes in Arkansas, on a backwater of the Mississippi at Memphis, some in northern La., and also on the Red River on the Texas side of Texarkana, Tx. I will never forget the Red River races, as you could almost spit across the river where we raced, and the water was so muddy it was like molasses almost. Mud in the pits was knee deep and it took a long time to get in and out of the water.
As mentioned before in another thread, I had the good fortune to see Dieter Konig on what was supposedly his first trip to the US, race on Old River at Scott in probably about '56 or '57, don't remember which. He was not familiar with clock starts but it did not matter, as he started up to a half a lap behind and was that far or more ahead after four laps in all the hydro classes he ran. He ran a A, B, and C with the proper size engines and then stepped up and ran D and the "free for all" with his C and left everyone way behind. I understand he went to Memphis on the Mississippi the next weekend and did the same thing, although I did not get to see that race.
Seems there was much more autonomy insofar as boat numbers with the sanctioning organizations back then than there is now. With the LR prefix, and the BT for Baytown, plus probably others that Danny has spoken of, perhaps that made the "home folks" a little more excited and added to the general good time to be had at a boat race, by being able to readily identify a local driver.