Thread: Wayne Baldwin's Amazing Story: Baldy's Eual Eldred Baldwin

  1. #91
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    We didn't paint the number on our Mishey yet. We pitted on the far end. No one to our left and Steve Jones from Corpus Christi just to our right. It was the beginning of a long relationship with Steve. To the right of Steve was a guy who went by the name of "Whitey". C99. I don't remember his last name. He only raced here and the races close to Corpus Christi. In the middle of the pit picture is David Waggoner standing next to Dan's C77 runabout. These C boats weren't from California. C was Lone Star Boat Racing Association's letter designation for the Corpus Christi Boat Club. A lot of these drivers I don't know who they are. Maybe Joe can help.

    In one of the runabout classes, the Mexicans had an entry with a sport boat. You can see in one of the pit shots which looks like the Mexican press.
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    Those pictures are fantastic Wayne. It's hard to believe that they are in that good of shape after all these years. Steve Jones is easily recognizable also. Doe he still live in the Corpus area?

    That looks to be a BIG lake with not much protection from the wind. Could probably get rough with a little wind or pleasure boats just based on the waves coming in where the hydro is sitting on the stand. I especially enjoyed the last picture. Was that milling for the start or a typical Mexican boat race? Reason I ask is I remember the way the natives drove on the roads when I was building boats across the border from Rio Grande City.

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    It does get rough Bill Van. That last pic were Lone Star drivers. It was actually taken during testing and not racing. Yeah....Steve Jones looked the same the whole time I have known him. Especially that s*&t eatin' grin. But I have no clue where he is now. I have tried to find him for a number of years, but finally gave up. I last talked to him on the phone around 2004 and he was still in Corpus then.

    In the first pick you can see a guy left of the trailer with a straw hat. I believe that's Joe Fuqua because he wore a hat like that.

    I never went to the place where you built your boats Bill Van, but it would not be that far up U.S. 83 toward Laredo, and hang a left at Rio Grande City, or was it Roma a few miles further north.



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    Default Building boats in Mexico!!

    Right across the border from Rio Grande City in Camargo. I don't remember the name of the small motel in Rio Grande City I stayed at but I do remember two things about it. The room rent was 6.00 per nite, tax included, and there was a sign displayed in every room that said "DO NOT CLEAN DOVES IN SINK OR BATHTUB", referring to the white wing dove season in that area.

    It was very clean and neat, although nothing fancy of course. I don't remember there being more than the one motel in town at that time although I could be mistaken. That was a very interesting time in my life with many experiences indelibly imprinted on my brain that I will NEVER forget.

    Among many other experiences in my life at that time, the Rio Grande City times provided Baldy and I many interesting conversations for quite a while afterwards. I learned from that experience what other folks meant when I had heard them say "that guy better hope I never find out I have a terminal illness with only 30 days to live".

    When you get to that time frame in the thread, if you want, I will contribute a few stories that might be interesting now 35 years later, especially since Baldy was the primary instigator of that adventure. Like the guy said that was drafted in the army, "I would not take anything for the experience, but I would never want to repeat it."

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    Yeah....keep your thoughts. Ray Hardy was part of our Rio Grande City experience as well, though not connected in any way with boats. Incicentally, the famous Capt Richard King was able to get his river boat all the way up to Rio Grande City when he did that prior to buying up land and starting the famous King Ranch.



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    After we got our A hydro rigged up, I went out on the water to test. This was the first time we tested at a race. Our first race we didn't know about testing, and we didn't need to either. So I got out and started doing practice laps. Normally, it is calm in south Texas this time of year, which should also apply to northern Mexico. However, the wind was already up early. I was circling the bouys and pounding those sponsons across the tops of the waves. I was used to rough water on our lake, but I had never taken the Mishey out before when it was rough. I didn't know any better and as other drivers were going out, I did also. The others though were all in runabouts. Texas in those days was primarily a hot spot for runabout drivers. I don't have any pictures of hydros running, so maybe I was the only one that went out.

    After about four laps, I was halfway through turn two when I topped a wave going too fast and spun out. Water was everywhere and I had the throttle open. As the boat came to a stop going backwards the engine suddenly stopped. I got towed in and we unclamped the Merc, took out the two sparkplugs and dumped the water out of the cylinders. We then attempted to get it started again in the same manner we successfully used after I had sunk the boat earlier that summer. In spite of all we tried we could not get it started. By then it was time for the races to get kicked off, so we became much more familiar with Steve Jones by helping in his pits. He was by himself, but as typical of racers you could always find help in the pits.



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    A few more pit shots. The 44T runabout is Phil Crown's boat.

    The second pic was my first fan. He was a young Mexican boy. He spoke no English and I spoke no Tex Mex, but he came up and made it clear he wanted to hang around and help us. We let him help lift the Mishey on the trailer and set it up, and other little things like that. He was very much enthused about the boat races and I guess since I was the youngest driver and closest to his age, I was the most approachable. I wonder if he still remembers the races?

    I'm not sure who is in the pits helping Steve, but I think they came from the S10 Fillinger? It's hard to make out the numbers, but it wasn't Kay Harrison. There is a list of abbreviations for the letters of the Lone Star clubs on the Lone Star thread.

    After the races started, they were competing against Steve so Mark and I helped as I mentioned previously. It got rougher as the day went on. I think Steve had an A Merc on his Ashburn and he stepped up into B runabout and maybe C. What I clearly remember is having to go get our sponge in addition to his to help get the water out of his boat. There were no corks. While waiting for the 5 minute gun we were bailing, then Steve kept having trouble getting his motor started. After two or three heats it seemed like we couldn't keep up with the water. As soon as Steve got into his runabout we started soaking up the water, but when the motor wouldn't start, and we set it momentarily back in the water to rest, when the water that was up in the bow rushed back and settled down, it seemed like there was more than before. Mark and I wore getting worn out lifting the back of the boat and then bailing like crazy when we set it back in the water. Finally I told Steve that I thought his boat had a leak somewhere. It must have been when we couldn't get it started and the one minute gun fired that we put it on the stands with a lot of water still in it. Then we could see water leaking at the joint between the transom and the bottom. That pounding on Falcon Lake just made it worse each time he went out. All that work though cemented the friendship between us and Steve and was just the beginning of a number of calamities with Steve over the years of our racing together.

    ADD: The guy in the orange sherbet shirt looks kind of like Larry Baker from the side. He was from Corpus, but I never was around him much. He quit around 1967 and came back briefly for a race or two in the early 70's.
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    It was the following Saturday I took our 15 cu. in. Merc/Quincy to Dan Waggoner's shop to diagnose why our dependable little motor wouldn't start after it was completely dry..had decent plugs and the fuel was fresh.

    I had called Dan to make sure it would be OK if I came over. He was ready. I brought the motor into his shop and he had me set it on a slanted 2X8 or 2X10 rack where he set motors. He had already made a space. Since Dan had just come from the race where our motor quit...and he apparently had watched or heard of the laps I was making, he had made a quick inspection and showed me something we never noticed.

    On the right side of the block (looking forward), there was a solid crack. It started at the top and ran through the tower housing until it quit where the lower unit was bolted on,

    All the science I had learned at that point about water, and hydraulic pressure didn't mean anything compared to what Dan showed me. He said I had the motor running and the carb open......yes!......and water came into the motor.........Yes!..........and the motor quit.......Yes! Then he traced with his finger, the crack running from the block, down to where it was so great it split the tower housing. Dan's explanation of how the water did all that in just a couple of minutes was more than I ever got in science class.

    I don't remember what happened next. I don't know if Baldy had Dan replace the busted parts and rebuild the motor and buy a new tower housing, or if we replaced the old powerhead with another used one. Some of these parts are not forgotten....but that Baldy did stuff that I didn't know about.



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    Default Hope you don't mind a temporary hi-jack......

    Quote Originally Posted by Master Oil Racing Team View Post
    I wanted to buy a junk motor to practice on to learn the ins and outs of Mercury's.
    Your story reminded me of when I was very young my dad gave me a blown up 4 cyl Merc after he had scavenged everything usable. He gave me enough burnt pistons, bent rods, etc so I could "build" the engine. With no bearings or reed blocks I could put it together and turn the crank and everything would move. I was maybe 6 or 7. One day a friend of my dad's was over and I showed it to him and when I turned it he said it sounded like it was full of rocks. That kinda bummed me out so I asked my dad why it sounded that way and he told me it had no bearings or reed blocks. Some time later when my dad was at work I dug through his "good" stuff and got some reed blocks and bearings and stuff and tried to put my motor back together. I could no longer turn it over and Pops wasn't too pleased with my "taphammer" method of trying to get everything to fit. Good times........

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    No Joe....that's not a temporary Hi Jack. You did exactly what I was hoping for. Adding your own personal stories as a kid growing up into a boat racing family...or starting out on your own as Tim Butts and I did.

    I still haven't finished "An Amazing Story", but I changed the dialog up as I went along, because I had no idea of the following, and the many comments along the way. It brought out members that had not posted before, and many that had but added more to the story that they knew from a different angle.

    No one ever remembers ALL that happened at an event, or even remembers things that happened to them or those around them, but sometimes they get a spark from something someone else said or posted. Joe Rome and I do that all the time.

    So the way I approached this particular thread was.......I would tell the story of the beginnings of my boat racing career, add some spices to it along the way, and in between hope for and respond to comments. Without my Dad Baldy Baldwin...it would have never happened, and this is about him for the encylopedia. He did so much for our sport behind the scenes that I didn't want to just list the few titles he had. It was so much more than that. I am doing the racing part of the thread because it introduces all the people that entered into our lives, and how Baldy thrived on entertaining our boat racing friends.

    So the way I plan to do it is to tell the tale as it goes, then respond to any comments or stories in between. And that was an excellent story Joe. Stay tuned for some really old Lone Star photos coming up.



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