Autograph Collection

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The picture of Alan Ishii and Ray Rodda Was taken at Winona Minnesota. It was the Grain Belt Pro Nationals in 1975. I took a lot of pictures that year because I hadn't recovered from my crash on Memorial Day yet. Tim Butts drove our 250 and 350 hydros and Charlie Bailey ran 1 heat with our 500 hydro and set a record.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

This is a test for posting pictures

clayton-test-2.jpg

img300.jpg

[Master Oil Racing Team]

computer guy finally figured a way to do it. All my old pictures are now too large. I have to shrink new ones and go about it differently. Don't know how much of a pain it will be, but I will try to learn once again a new way to get pictures on here. Have to make chili now.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Don't like it thatScan10676.JPG way

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Can't believe that it's been that long since I posted here. Think I have several new photos I haven't posted yet. However, I did get some new ones today. Steve Wetherbee and I went to see his uncle Tommy at a nursing home in Alice, Texas. Steve was planning on bringing Tommy to my house to visit, look at my little boat racing museum and sign the photos, but he fell and messed up his his pelvis a week or two before he was to come over. Tommy had to go to a nursing home, or a rehab place to get through all his convalesence and since he has been doing well, Steve and I went to Alice today to visit and get the photos signed. We spent a very nice hour and a half visit outside under a wooden canopy. Tommy was doing very well and was very happy to see us. We will go back soon to visit again. Tomorrow or the next day I will post the pictures.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Here us the first photo, and it is a race at Highlands, Texas in 1974. The Highlands race course on the San Jacinto River is more commonly called the "Baytown" race because the Baytown Boat Clube is about 100 yards in a stright perpendicular line behind Tommy's Gentex life jacket. Baytown is a close nearby city where out of town races stay.

Tommy has grit on his expression like he was fixing to start that D Konig, but as you can see he has more than a full wrap like he is trying pump water out. I need to ask him next time I see him why he had to do that. I don't see anyone plugging the holes with fingers to help get water out. This was Tommy's final year of racing, having recovered from a bone breaking wreck at Hot Springs the past summer. He was testing when some cruiser showed up with a big wake and suddenly no place to go with the spped up. It was his first race after having bought, rigged out and tested his new Butts Aerowing. It was also his first Konig motor....a D!

Tommy broke 18 ribs and had a punctured lung. They brought him into the same hospital Jerry Waldman was taken to the previous year. They left him for awhile in his wet clothes in 68 degree temperature and he thought besides having a hard time to breathe, he might freeze to death. The same nurse that was there when Jerry Waldman was brought in was the same one that received Tommy. Tommy said she was very indignant and unlike any nurse he had ever had to be around before. She said to him "What's the matter with you people?" Then proceeded to lecture him on doing things that are dangerous and can kill you.

Tommy came back the next year, but only ran at Baytown and at my Dad's house only about 10 miles from where he lives now.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

These pictures were taken in Baldy's front yard at Barbon Estates on Lake Corpus Christi on March 31, 1973. Tommy Wetherbee had just bought a D Konig and a Butts Aerowing. He was testing for the first time. We took delivery of the first CDF Aerowing that Tim built at Alexandria, Louisiana in October 1972, so this was an early CDF Butts hydro....maybe the second one he built. In the beginning Tim was building mostly AB hydros. During December of 1972 Tim Butts came down to test drive "Hookin' Bull", that first CDF hydro he built for us. He wanted to see what kind of power was there and get a feel of the handling at speed so he could try to improve on his design for the bigger boats. We did this kind of thing with Tim the whole time we raced. I'm willing to bet that Tommy's boat was the second built and was different from the first with changes made from his test driving three months earlier.

[racnbns]

Here us the first photo, and it is a race at Highlands, Texas in 1974. The Highlands race course on the San Jacinto River is more commonly called the "Baytown" race because the Baytown Boat Clube is about 100 yards in a stright perpendicular line behind Tommy's Gentex life jacket. Baytown is a close nearby city where out of town races stay.

Tommy has grit on his expression like he was fixing to start that D Konig, but as you can see he has more than a full wrap like he is trying pump water out. I need to ask him next time I see him why he had to do that. I don't see anyone plugging the holes with fingers to help get water out. This was Tommy's final year of racing, having recovered from a bone breaking wreck at Hot Springs the past summer. He was testing when some cruiser showed up with a big wake and suddenly no place to go with the spped up. It was his first race after having bought, rigged out and tested his new Butts Aerowing. It was also his first Konig motor....a D!

Tommy broke 18 ribs and had a punctured lung. They brought him into the same hospital Jerry Waldman was taken to the previous year. They left him for awhile in his wet clothes in 68 degree temperature and he thought besides having a hard time to breathe, he might freeze to death. The same nurse that was there when Jerry Waldman was brought in was the same one that received Tommy. Tommy said she was very indignant and unlike any nurse he had ever had to be around before. She said to him "What's the matter with you people?" Then proceeded to lecture him on doing things that are dangerous and can kill you.

Tommy came back the next year, but only ran at Baytown and at my Dad's house only about 10 miles from where he lives now.

Must have got some water. No plugs in it and he's drying it out.
Bruce