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

  1. #51
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    Default Quite a steering set up

    That is some steering setup Wayne. I have never seen anything quite like that before. Was that something Miguel Sanchez rigged up for you?? (Private Joke)

    What ever happened to that boat? I don't ever remember seeing it during my visits with Baldy.

  2. #52
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    Back then Bill Van.....I knew nothing about rigging, set ups or anything. All I knew was to mix the oil in the gas, choke and crank it, then push in the choke and open the throttle all the way. I don't know who rigged it up, but I'm guessing since it went straight when you wanted it to....it must have not been Margil.

    You never saw the boat because Baldy sold it or gave it away sometime in 1966. Mark and I had pretty much torn out the transom by then anyway.



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    Baldy loaded us kids up into his Chrysler station wagon in the spring of 1965 and went to the Buccaneer Days Boat Show in Corpus Christi. It was held at Parkdale Plaza in Corpus Christi....the first strip mall I ever saw. That was our first boat show. I am not sure why we went, but it might have been because Baldy read in the newspaper that Miss Budweiser would be on display. It was right in the middle and we made a beeline for it. I stood there staring for a long time, not being able to absorb the size of it. It was a little disappointing that it wasn't the racing boat, but a 4 seater that Bernie Little built I guess to take friends and media for a ride. Nevertheless, it was still a great thrill to stand beside an unlimited boat and look at it closeup. I was also taken by the fact that it was tilted on its trailer. I had never considered how big the boats were and how they had to be loaded in order to get them down the road. I returned to stare at the Budweiser boat several times before we left. I really don't remember much about the rest of the boat show except that I left with a brochure with pictures of boats and motors. Don't remember if it was to sell boats or motors, but I can remember referring back to a particular page all the way home for a glimpse of a particularly sexy model in a bikini setting on the deck of a performance boat.



  4. #54
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    Baldy bought us a 16 foot fiberglass lap straked design semi vee with a 75 HP Evinrude.

    It was at this time that I would watch "Where the Action is" on TV while eating the newly introduced "Doritos", then wait the full hour as our Mom taught us before going back out on the lake during the weekends. Baldy was busy working and we more or less set our own schedule. We ate out a lot during those days while going to school, and there were a couple of pretty good restaurants in Alice, but Baldy preferred home cooking, and so was becoming a pretty good chef at things beside BBQ which he excelled in from the moment I took my first breath. On weekends he would cook up stuff, and growing kids always slopped it up.

    The Lake Mathis State Park was North of our place at Pernitas Point by about 1 1/2 miles. In 1965 there were a lot of people with small boats that wanted to challenge each other. The state park had a small body of water but about 20 boats of all sizes, shapes and power churning in a left hand circle built a good maelstrom in which to show off their rigs. There was no starting or stopping point. It was a lot of fun in those days of unorganized speed trials, white teeth behind the big grin of the pilot, and fortunately...not that I ever saw or heard of...no accidents.

    I was just a dumb kid then and never thought about what could happen, or even that us youngsters could get hurt. We hauled that MFG out of the water, took the windshield off and turned it over so we could really do a job on the bottom. Mark and I scraped, sanded and waxed the bottom. Then we put everything back together and Baldy first showed us how to cup a prop. Never asked him how he knew or where he learned. At that point of our lives....he knew most everything. Anway....he took a ball peen hammer and cuppped the three blade brass/?bronze prop on his trailer hitch. We took to racing out in the open water with mostly two foot swells. We always just raced straight ahead after challenging or accepting a challenge from a boat to see who was fastest. Before the summer was over, we had to pull the boat back out and reinforce the transom.

    The dumbest thing I ever did was to open up the throttle and go all the way back to the transom while in the boat by myself. Baldy told me the further you are in back of the boat, the faster it will go. The steering was tight, so I felt comfortable doing that. I wanted to see how fast it would go, so I lined the MFG up on a long straightaway, pushed the throttle all the way down and went back to the transom and sat on the 6 gallon red Evinrude gas tank. There were not any other boats on the water that day and there was only a slight ripple. I did have the good sense to head into the wind. I don't recall though that it made much difference if any in our top speed. Never tried that again.
    Last edited by Master Oil Racing Team; 07-04-2010 at 08:06 AM. Reason: correct mistake in memory



  5. #55
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    We did a lot of wave jumping to see how much air we could get. It wasn't long before we had the MFG out of the water and rigged down again so we could repair and reinforce the transom. Then sometime probably around April, Baldy found out there would be a an alky race at the lake in the very cove our house was. None of us kids had ever seen boat racing before, so we were very excited about the upcoming event. That got Mark and I stirred up enough to figure out how to make the deck work on our "racing boat" and go ahead and finish it up so we could enter the race.



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    Sam Cullis Mark75H's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Master Oil Racing Team View Post
    It was a little disappointing that it wasn't the racing boat, but a 4 seater that Bernie Little built I guess to take friends and media for a ride.

    The 4 seater was the original Miss Budweiser Unlimited racer. Dragging Auggie along for a ride was what got the sponsorship. His first move was putting it where Auggie would see it in storage. Bernie knew an opportunity when he saw it.
    Since 1925, about 150 different racing outboards have been made.


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    Wow! So now I know I saw the ORIGINAL Miss Budweiser up close and touched it. Even after all these years that still means something. Were there another other 2 or 4 seaters built and raced?



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    Some of my photos were stamped with May 1965, but I think it was maybe the last Sunday in April.

    Woke up early that Sunday morning to a throaty buzz echoing all around the hills in our cove. It was foggy and still, so the sound probably carried for a couple of miles. I jumped up and ran down to the end of the pier with my trusty Kodak Instamatic camera. Since we had never been to a race before, we were not familiar with the pre race testing.

    The bouys were laid out and the boats got on the water to check everything out. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, hearing and smelling. They were the most exoctic racing machines I had ever seen.

    Here are a couple pictures from that morning. I believe the first one was Lee Little who raced out of Dallas. I don't know who was in the Canalito. I only saw a couple of them during my first full year of racing.
    Attached Images Attached Images



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    Sam Cullis Mark75H's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Master Oil Racing Team View Post
    Were there another other 2 or 4 seaters built and raced?
    Before 1950 most Unlimiteds were 2 seaters. Into the early 50's some new boats retained the old 2 seat design. By the mid 50's all the front running new design boats were single seaters.

    The original Miss Bud was a 2 seater converted to seat more and was a fantastic publicity machine for Budweiser, Unlimiteds, boat racing in general ... and Bernie Little. The later boats were winners.
    Since 1925, about 150 different racing outboards have been made.


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    I have heard some criticism about Bernie, but you got to give him credit. Besides helping his own self, he did a lot helping the sport. It was Unlimiteds and Starflite that really helped capture my interest.



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