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

  1. #231
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    Teresa Heinz Kerry, heiress to the company, finances the gigolo John Kerry's political campaigns. Same reason my Dad refused to have Cutty Sark in his house because the bootlegger old man Kenedy had exclusive importation rights. What's with those guys from Boston now? Heck, they're the ones that held the first tea party. That was very funny about the chick Joe. I busted out laughing.

    BTW Gene, I meant to ask what were the differences between you Mom's chicken and dumplings and Baldy's?



  2. #232
    Team Member Jeff Lytle's Avatar
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    Default This post is for Debbie Baldwin--GO TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE WAYNE!

    Good Morning Debbie!

    Happy Thanksgiving!


    First things first.......ask Wayne to take the garbage out cause' this posting is for you!


    I wish to thank you for Wayne's time, and your understanding in his new found BRF passion.

    When he first signed in as a member here, I knew this place was in for a special treat with his

    creative writings and fantastic memory for detail. I for one, remember his articles he wrote

    for Powerboat magazine, and still can quote some of his writings I read over 30 years ago!

    That's quite impressive......how something I read over that long ago can still stick in my

    memory--Ask my Wife.....I can't remember what I had for breakfast most days!


    I don't know if he has showed you the number of times the threads he started have been viewed.

    From "An Amazing Story", "Random Shots From The Pits", and now his latest creation "Baldy's",

    there are thousands upon thousands of views by interested people like me who simply love his

    stuff, either by reading it the first time, or many times over like I do.


    I am looking forward to the development and writing of his new (old) adventures with his Dad.

    I know he will take us through every detail of the journey to the best of his ability, with

    his usual passion for realism and detail. I'm sure I can speak for many other old broken down

    boat racers, we'll be there every day.......re-living our racing days with Wayne as his incredible

    stories continue.

  3. #233
    Team Member Gene East's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Master Oil Racing Team View Post
    Teresa Heinz Kerry, heiress to the company, finances the gigolo John Kerry's political campaigns. Same reason my Dad refused to have Cutty Sark in his house because the bootlegger old man Kenedy had exclusive importation rights. What's with those guys from Boston now? Heck, they're the ones that held the first tea party. That was very funny about the chick Joe. I busted out laughing.

    BTW Gene, I meant to ask what were the differences between you Mom's chicken and dumplings and Baldy's?
    Mom cut her dough in strips instead of squares and called them "noodles". To her, "dumplings" were dumped into the broth from a spoon rather than being rolled and cut like a "noodle".

    Same dough, but her dumplings had a slightly moister consistancy than her noodles, but same great taste. I was going to say since she had 8 kids to feed she used bigger chickens than Baldy, but since he was feeding the whole neighborhood, perhaps that's not the case.

    I cheat when I make dumplings or noodles. I use store bought. Some times I even use Bisquick. Does it taste the same? Of course not! We ain't talkin about pancakes!

    P.S. Debbie, I echo what Jeff just said. Thank you!

  4. #234
    Allen J. Lang
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    Jeff, I have to add my amen to your writting to Debbie.

  5. #235
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    Smile

    Jeff, I can't thank you enough for your Thanksgiving Day message! It was very thoughtful. I was really glad when Wayne started getting on BRFF. I could see how much he enjoyed it and you are right - He does have a lot to share. Anyway, it keeps him out of trouble!!

    Debbie



  6. #236
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    First off I am humbled by your comments Jeff, and appreciate the opinions of Gene and Allen. Debbie very seldom reads anything I write, including none of the boat racing articles I wrote years ago. But the way you laid it out Jeff, I had no choice.....even if the garbage trailer won't come around again for six days. She says it keeps me out of trouble. Should I remind her of that next time she tries to get me off the computer so she can work on her business stuff?

    As I mentioned at the start of this thread, I started it not only to honor my Dad for the known and documented things that he did for boat racing, but bring out some of the things he did that people were not aware of, including many that knew him well. Besides bringing out some of the photos and published history of some of those days, I hoped to kick in the memories of a lot of people that went through those times, and for those who didn't kind of set the scene for what it was like. That's why I divert to some of the highlights of things that happened in those days along with the music, movies and TV shows that were playing.

    It's my thought that, even if a boat racer, pit crew, family or friend ever went to many races, there are a lot of things I write about that they can relate to, and that was one of the inspirations for creating the thread. I can't thank Ron and Ted enough for masterminding and overseeing this operation, along with all the help from the moderators such as yourself Jeff, Sam and Broc. While I look through old films, photos, newspaper and magazine articles I am brought back to one of the most wonderful times of my life. From the many pm's and emails I have received over the past couple of years, (including from overseas), I can tell that my hopes are being fulfilled. Not only has it caused me to reconnect with friends from across North America, but also Europe, and in turn many of these people have also been reconnecting with one another by phone, email, reunions, club meetings, races and other events.

    BRF has inspired the likes of Danny Piggot, George Taylor, Tex Flagg and others to tell their stories and post pictures and documents. Ken of Liquid Nirvana fame along with John Sheldon put up an enormous amount of info regarding the rotary engine. It goes on and on, the wealth of information on this website. To try to relive my entry into boat racing, and do so in a manner that gets other people's interest gives me great satisfaction. Without Baldy, I never would have started racing. Without Freddie Goehl, Arlen Crouch, Jack Chance and Clayton Elmer, we might not have continued, without my cameras and packrat genes I would be sucking air, without BRF all my stuff would just be aging in the darkroom and study, and without the continually growing membership of BRF a lot of stories and pictures would be lost forever.

    So with the garbage out and Debbie on the way to Kingsville with a friend to shop while getting her "Z 350" serviced, I have the computer all day. The bad news is I may have to go to Radio Shack for a connection. The good news is that I got the taped interview I did of Dieter in Berlin in 1975 reconnected to the spool.



  7. #237
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    Baldy got the trailer modified and brought it home for me to add the finishing touches. We added on to the box, but we also now had to have three sets of wooden rails to carry the boats on. I had to measure and cut the wood, fasten it to the channel steel uprights and then tack on the carpeting. It didn't seem like much of a chore, but a one hundred twenty pound kid trying to push a 5/16's inch bit in a Black & Decker hand drill through 5/16's channel in order to bolt down brackets for the cross members was a very slow process. There's no weight behind it when you are standing up and just about pushing yourself off and much as you are trying to penetrate the steel. When Baldy got home, I showed him my progress. I had only three or four holes drilled after a few hours. He said O.K., we could take care of it tommorrow. I was wanting to get it done, but I knew I would just be wasting time and energy when Baldy already had a plan.

    The next day was Saturday. We hooked the trailer up and took it to the Alice Specialty yard and to the very back where the sandblasting yard was located. He didn't say a word about what he had planned. There were no workers back there then. There was nothing behind that part of the yard but open farmland, resting out the winter, and a trailer house over to the northwest corner. About one third mile further northwest was the Alice Gun Club, the rifle range and all the buildings on the site of the Jim Wells County Fairgrounds.

    It was hunting season, so at that time of the day there were usually people sighting in rifles. Occassional reports from a wide variety of rifles and pistols was common this time of year...especially on Saturday morning.

    After Baldy pulled the trailer up to where he wanted it, I unhooked it from the Dodge station wagon as instructed and Baldy drove around parallel to the trailer which was situated between us and the open field. Beyond was nothing but farmland for a couple of miles before the land became brush country. During hunting season we kept our rifles, pistols, ammo and knives in our vehicles because if we decided to go hunting at the last minute, the lease was only a twenty minute drive north. Baldy pulled out his 264 magnum rifle, slid the bolt back, then ran a round forward into the chamber. My eyes wide and surprised I shouted "Whatter you doin'?" Baldy answered "I'm going to drill the holes for you."

    I didn't know what would happen. I had been around all sorts of firearms, and even down at the hundred yard range operating a running deer target with lead thumping into the dirt backstop only feet from where we ran the deer out. But I had never been only a few feet in front of a solid steel target set to receive a copper jacketed slug head on from only a few feet away. Baldy twisted the variable power Redfield scope down to 3, raised his window halfway up, took a deep breath, let it out, then one more breath and took steady aim about two inches to the side of a hole I had previously drilled. I was terrified something might happen to my Dad if the bullet zinged around in that piece of channel iron and shrapnel came back to him. I ducked down before he fired, and forgot to cover my ears. Baldy knew what he was doing beforehand and had stuffed something in his ears. A booming high powered rifle fired from the inside of a vehicle will make unstopped up ears ring for awhile. That's what mine were doing when I looked up, but I didn't care because Baldy was alright.

    We got out of the car to inspect the hole. It was a clean shot with a little sharp ridge on the exit side, but that could be ground down very easily. It didn't even need to be though if I didn't want to because it would bite into the wood when I tightened the bolts down. I was drilling holes for a 1/4 inch bolt, so the 264 calibre rifle shot a perfect sized hole only 14 thousandths larger than the bolts I would use. That being successful, Baldy gave me a yellow paint marker commonly used in the oilfield and told me to make a yellow mark where each of the remaining holes were to be punched. He had to move the car around for each double set of holes to get them as close to perpendicular as possible, then we had to hook back up to the trailer and turn it around to do the other side, making sure the collapsed bullets would safely land in clods of plowed up farmland. I can't remember how Baldy did the holes for the top rail, but I imagine he laid his hunting jacket on the top of the roof of his car and got on the other side to get a good rest. We were in and out of there in less than a half hour....much, much less time and labor than it would have taken me to drill the holes. I would have probably spent three or four days drilling, yet it took Baldy only a few seconds to come up with the solution, and I have remembered that day he drilled the holes with his rifle ever since. And because we were doing it during hunting season, the sheriff's department wasn't called out to see what was going on half a mile south of the city limits of Alice.



  8. #238
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    Our original motor box was ugly. But I learned to paint letters. It was very painstaking, but with time I learned to speed up the process with the right amount of paint thinner and a swirl of my wrist on making the turn of a letter.

    My Mom enrolled me in a private art class when I showed and interest in art. I actually was drawing pictures of Sgt. Rock of the comics on a chalkboard when she decided I should take lessons. So I did that for a couple of years. I was much better at copying what someone else painted than doing original work. I was in the midst of copying a scene of wild turkeys amongst a stand of hardwood trees in a forest with a blooming dogwood tree in the foreground when she became very ill. I wanted very much for her to see it, but she died before I finished. It was a year later before I added the last of the dogwood blooms in the foreground.

    I didn't paint anything again until we started to race. I had already painted BALDWIN RACING TEAM and the other stuff on that flat brown original trailer box. That type of painting I was not used to, and it was slow as I mentioned earlier. I did not want to have to do all that over again so soon. But I wanted our trailer to stand out. Having been a year on the circuit, we got a better idea of racing and I wanted our trailer to have a better look.

    I went down to JE Moore Lumber & Hardware and ordered several thin sheet of Mahogany faced plywood. Mr. Moore was very knowledgeble and told me how to add the mahogany on top of the existing box. That was my first experience with a two part epoxy. It was a mixture of a thick blue paste and other similar yellow paste. In the winter, they were slow moving and hard to mix, but when I blended the two together the mixture became a sickly industrial green. After letting it stand for a little while according to directions I began buttering up the mahogany panels I had sanded and finished with a clear epoxy. I placed each panel one at a time where it was supposed to go on the box, anchored it in place, and let it set for a day to set up and be fixed in place. I did that on each side and the back. Since it was cold, It was on the verge of not setting up, but it did.

    The mahogany panels were to match the wood finishes of our DeSilva's and Sid Craft soon to be replaced by an equally clear wood finished Marchetti. After getting the panels fixed in place I cut aluminum angle pieces to finish the edges all around. Then I had to repaint all the letters again. I was not looking forward to that, but then again.....that's how I got to get together with Pam. So I did the painting when I figured she would be driving down the street....and she did.....and would honk as she sped by while I put the letters on the remodeled boat trailer.



  9. #239
    Team Member Jeff Lytle's Avatar
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    Default Baldwin Withdrawl........

    Wayne must be away--It's been 4 days!

  10. #240
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    Default gone to Galveston

    Wayne and Debbie went to Galveston.

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