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

  1. #71
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    Default "one's of a kind"

    I never had the good fortune to meet or know Ted May, but I feel like I knew him a little based on the stories about him here on BRF and I certainly think I am poorer that I never had the opportunity to meet him in person and enjoy his company as the many who have posted here did. The same goes for those reading this that never had the opportunity to know Baldy.

    I did have that opportunity to meet and get to know "Baldy", and Eileen and I both are better off for that unique experience. From his cooking skills, to all the hunts, both deer and quail we enjoyed together, and just the fun, interesting times we spent together from the very early 70's when I first had the opportunity to interact with him in the sport of boat racing, to the long phone calls continuing our friendship after he withdrew from the sport, I would be hard pressed to say I ever met a more interesting and fun person to be around. When Wayne called to tell me of his death, I felt like my own father had passed away.

    He could be stubborn, and he was opinionated about the things he felt strongly about, both in and out of boat racing, but you could have strong disagreements with him about most anything, and when it was over, it was over, and there were no hard feelings if he respected you and conducted yourself in a way to deserve that respect. He did much for the sport of PRO Racing in the 70's and 80's, promoting out of his own pocket many World Championship races around the country, including several at the Dayton Hydrobowl that will probably never be exceeded in the number of foreign entries. In addition to that type of promotion of the sport, he promoted several National Championships and finished up one that had been blown out earlier by having the balance of the program at his place on Lake Corpus Christi.

    He never shied from controversy, but he promoted and ran his boat races by the book, and everyone was treated the same. He was highly visible in his red, white, and blue uniform, and his large size made him even more so. Some disagreed with him and did not like him as a result, but if he was wrong about something, he was a "big enough man" to admit it, NO PUN INTENDED. You had to look a long time to find a mistake he made in the conduct of a boat race, IF EVER, for he knew his rule book, as many found out.

    As Wayne gets further into the narrative, I will post a few "Baldy" stories that have to do with my interaction with him over those years. I know I provided him with a lot of amusement, primarily because of several stupid things I did that unfortunately he witnessed, and consequently I never heard the end of. It was all in fun, he was never mean spirited, and I really miss him since his passing. I look forward to this thread and am sure many of the rest of you will be interested and entertained by Wayne's story about him.

  2. #72
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    Default Hyacinths

    Water hyacinths Ron.. I don't blame you though. Most people call them water lillies. I thought you were going to add a story about an asian recipe. I know exactly the story you mean now...and Joe has more to add about Ted from what he saw, but that will come at Baldy's new place a couple of years down the road. Keep that story in the making because a lot of things happened that long weekend at Baldy's. Many of the historical racing people from those days were there.

    ADD: I forgot to say Ron that yes they served in the Navy at the same time. Also, by the time I remembered about the Navy part of your question Bill Van confirmed the plant in question as his query beat mine, but finished second in reply because I started my answer first but was more windy. And I might add Bill Van and Eileen will have a prominant part in the hospitality of "Baldy's" as it plays out.



  3. #73
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    Mark and I were very enthused about the race and so got back to work on our runabout right away. In the meantime Baldy had made his first contact with boat racers. I don't remember whether I forgot, or most likely never knew when Baldy got with Curtis Michalchek to buy that Mishey, but it was probably in the pits at Fiesta Marina. He did a lot of things behind the scenes I never knew about or was only vaguely aware of.

    It must have been a hot time all around the country for performance boats because OPC racing was growing and manufacturers were making more hulls meant for hot rodding on the water rather than skiing, cruising or fishing. There was a group of five or six guys from Corpus Christi that started coming up to the lake every weekend. At least half were owners or worked at AB Johnston Automatic Transmission in Corpus. I will look in some old magazines to see if I can find ads of the type of boats they ran. Scat Cat comes to mind, but I am not totally sure. They were catamarans I think around 15 or 16 feet in length and were all Merc powered. I think they must have been 80 hp or maybe 85. The cowlings were black and it seemed like after the color scheme like Sam's Mark 75 they went to black . I'll look that up too, unless Sam wants to fill us in first. I just can't remember.

    They stayed at Western Shores Motel which was just up a cliff overlooking the lake and Fiesta Marina. You could enter it off the main road running down the spine of Pernitas Point, but my favorite route was a very steep winding one way road from Fiesta Marina to the top of the hill where Western Shores was located. You could only see about fifty feet ahead of you so whether you were headed up or down you didn't know if you were going to meet anyone else or not until you met head on. I backed down many times when I was almost to the top and met another vehicle. It was easier to back down than up. It was so steep some vehicles couldn't go up. The final 60 yards their tires would spin. But I still have fond memories of that road.

    We would drive by Western Shores after they had pulled their boats out of the water. While the boaters from Corpus were either BBQing, eating at the fabulous restaurant there with an equally fabulous view, or enjoying drinks on the porch hanging out right over the edge of the cliff, we were checking out the boats. I had never seen quicksilver racing units and the high performance props on motors like this. That had me enthralled.

    Then one weekend we were boating past Fiesta Marina when a small merc powered Vee bottom idled out. He had on a Gentex life jacket and helmet with a smoky bubble shield. When he punched it, the motor started screaming and he had to climb up on the bow for it to break over. He smoothly slid back into the single seat centered in the middle of the boat just as the prop grabbed and away he went. I watched that boat all day long master the waves, jumping and just flying. If that first race held out in front of Baldy's would have been an OPC race, I might have just become an OPC racer instead of alky.



  4. #74
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    The talk about the Scat Cats reminded me of Power Cat and an incident that happened during our first race that I had forgotten about.

    We had an elderly neighbor I only remember as Mr. Goff. He had a large Power Cat. At first he had two big mercs on it. Like I mentioned before, seems like a lot of the people on the lake then were searching for more power and it was common to see boats forming up then challenging one another to a high speed duel. Mr. Goff hung a third Merc on his Power Cat to try to best all the others in rough water. He was watching the races from his Powercat and right in the middle of one of the hydro races he pulled onto the course and ran with them. The race was immediately black flagged, but he made two laps before the Texas Parks and Wildlife boat was able to coax him off the course. He was known to tip the bottle a little, but whatever they told him, he put his boat up.

    The smaller more high performance Power Cats seemed to show up about this time too I think. I had thought they were made in Victoria, Texas back then, but I might be thinking of another similar boat. They seemed a little larger and more stable than the Scat Cats, and we saw them around the lake long after the Scat Cats quit coming.



  5. #75
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    I wish I could remember exactly when Baldy bought the Mishey. There was some elapsed time between when we raced and the next pics showed up. But maybe that's because I didn't finish off the roll at first. I only have two pics of the boat running and I think it was probably Mark driving and me with my Kodak Instamatic.

    Baldy gave me directions to Curtis Mihalcheks house in San Antonio to bring the rig back home to Alice, Texas. My first vehicle was a 1964 GMC column shift 1/2 ton pickup that I suppose was an Alice Specialty pickup. I didn't ask. I had an Alice Specialty Company credit card for gas so I didn't care, and I had no driving restrictions, so all was cool. So I figure it must have been June after school was out I went to pick it up.

    It was the first time I went to pick up a boat and the first time I ventured that far by myself. I knew most of the way though because it was the same way we went to the skeet contests in San Antonio. Just go straight up Memorial Highway out of Alice, north to the outskirts of San Antonio and exit west on Loop 410. Go past the stadium of caged monkeys and look for the exit on the right in the rolling hills on the southwest side of San Antonio.

    I don't remember the main road I exited, but the directions were simple. I only had to go a couple of miles then go through three red lights, turn right and there were only a couple of other streets that led to the one I needed to find. In those days that area inside the loop was not built up. It was easy driving to get to the first traffic signal. Since then I have always wondered why they give direction by red lights instead of green. I guess if you go through it....it doesn't register as a landmark.

    I go through the three red lights, turn right and wind up through the streets lining the hills. I go way too far. It's not supposed to be miles from the intersection....only a few streets and a only a mile or so. After driving around looking for the right street I go back to the first red light. I do the directions again, but end up in the same place so I circle around trying to cut the track of the street I am looking for. I was very anxious to get there, get the boat and get on back home so I spent more time looking than I probably should. I am a rookie at directions at this time so I firmly believe I have made a mistake myself.

    Confounded...and not knowing what else to do...I go back to the starting point once more. At the intersection of the first red light I was to start counting from, there was an Enco service station on the southeast corner. I turned left into the station, pulled up to the pump to fuel up, then went into the office to show them the directions I had. I asked the manager if he knew where this street was and he said he did. He then proceeded to tell me, pointing in the direction I had just come from, to go down three red lights, turn right....etc. I stopped him before he finished and asked him to come out with me to the edge of the highway and point out EXACTLY where I was to make the right. You could see a way down the main highway and it went downhill from the Enco service station, bottomed out and started to rise. I pointed with my finger counting out the red lights with number one, the light at the intersection where his service station was...then two a couple of blocks down the street.....and three, starting up the rise. He then corrected me pointing at the light directly at the intersection in front of his service station saying "You don't count that one!"

    So I found Curtis Mihalchek's house....finally....loaded up and headed back to Alice.



  6. #76
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    The one thing I can still recall the first time we tested the Mishey was the smell of castor oil that permeated the cockpit around the transom, and the smell of ether when we sprayed it into the carb. I can still smell that first day of testing. One of the things Curtis sent along was a big sponge. He said you need that when you race boats because you always need to soak up small amounts of water between the chines that aren't lined up with the drain holes. and you can't scoop it out. And he pointed out the little chrome tab about 2:00 from the carb and said not to mess with that. That was the spark advance and he had it secured with a heavy piece of rusty wire. The props were stainless steel and brass. I don't remember how long it took to rig up, but Curtis went over all that with me thorougly before I left San Antonio. It was fairly simple. I was used to the Merc style tower housing and clamps,. Attaching the bowden cable and securing the housing and adjusting the butterfly to the inner cable and tightening was simple. All that had to be because I knew absolutely nothing about mechanic work. We got it rigged up, started and out on the water. Unbelievable. The smell, the noise, the speed. This was heaven. I did not remember I had the next two pics until I started going through them for this thread. They were mixed in with the slides from our first race, but the coloring and water looked different. Upon checking the date, I found these were developed a couple of months later, and so after inspecting closely I realized this was either Mark or myself testing the Mishey out in front of our place. I am sure it was Mark in the boat and I took the pictures from our pier.

    ADD: I accidentally posted the same photo twice. I didn't know how to delete the duplicate for fear of wiping out the rest, so I just added the second. Sorry! (Its not hard, I did it for you -Sam)
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    Last edited by Mark75H; 07-09-2010 at 05:48 PM. Reason: duplicate photos



  7. #77
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    Default Thanks Sam!

    Curtis gave me the name of a man near Corpus Christi who could help us with our Merc Quincy deflector. His name was Dan Waggoner. He was the first one to help us, and give advice. Dan was racing long before I ever started and raced basically until Lone Star died a few years after we quit. Then his wife Blanche died, followed shortly by Dan himself, and not long after they were both gone, their only son, David died. I think it was all within a 6 month period. Dan was their only child and he was born with cerebral palsy. He always lived at home. They were a close knit family and always went everywhere together.

    I'm not sure when Dan started racing. He told me, but that was long ago. I think it may have been in the 40's. When I met Dan he was a foreman retired from Humble Oil & Refining. He lived in Flour Bluff just south of Corpus Christi and on the west side of the Laguna Madre. Flour Bluff was a bayside community and most of the roads were paved with oyster shells. Between the shells and the fine sand from Padre Island all the sunflowers in Flour Bluff were coated with a fine white dust. I thought until a few years ago that's where it got it's name, but it wasn't. Smugglers used to bring in flour and other items there to avoid taxes. There may have been a big raid when a lot of flour was being brought in, resulting in the name, but I don't remember that part.

    Flour Bluff was where Baldy stored our Thompson for salt water fishing so I knew the way well. I gave a call to Dan sometime in the summer of 1965 and he told me to come on over. He had a garage just south of the clapboard house where he kept his boat. That's the way it is with boat racers isn't it? The boats go in the garage whether or not there's room for cars.. I can't remember if he had any older boats around or not. Probably did. All I ever knew him to run was A/B runabout.

    His shop was built onto the east side of the garage and was about eight by ten or twelve. I wish I had taken a picture of it. It was wall to wall Merc and Merc/Quincy deflector and looper parts, with the occasional boat hardware and other things you need to work on racing rigs. It would be unbelievable to go back and look at that stuff now. I don't know whatever happened to any of it. I don't recall Dan ever talking about any other relatives.



  8. #78
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    I'm not sure how old David Waggoner was when I first met him. It was hard to tell his age. He was slightly bent and his right arm bent also. He could not fully open his right hand or close it around a glass. David was right handed so he had to drink by sticking his index finger inside the glass and grip it with the third and fourth fingers. It was awkward, but he had been managing it for years before I met him. His left hand and arm were okay, and that's how he helped Dan lift his runabout. He could walk okay, but had a slight limp. It was hard to understand him because he couldn't enunciate his letters very well although he knew how to read. I was around him enough where I could understand what he said while others not used to being around him could not. I always made sure I talked with him at all the races and would find out what he had been up to because some of the people who weren't around him much felt uncomfortable. Not that anyone was ever unkind or shyed away, but when you can't really understand much, it's hard to have a conversation. He had a sense of humour though and would laught a lot. Blanche and Dan devoted their lives to David. Maybe that's one reason Dan raced for so many years. David loved boat racing and was able to participate as a pit man.

    He did have a job. He worked in the maintenance department for the city of Corpus Christi. I'm not sure if he could drive a car. I never saw him drive one. But he sure could drive a motorcycle. One evening Dan and Blanche invited all the Corpus Christi Boat Club members to his house for a BBQ and David took me for a ride on his Triumph. It was a new one he just bought with more horsepower and he wanted to show it off. I think it was around 600 cc's or so. We had no helmets and it was night time. Waldron Road was one of the main blacktops that ran north and south just one block west of their house. Back then, there were no traffic lights on it, and no traffic either when he took me for a ride.

    He gradually brought the bike up to about 30 miles per hour, then suddenly punched it. I had my arms around his torso, but only loosely. I had to grab tight to hold on to keep from falling backward off the bike so suddenly was I thrown back. It seemed only an instant that we must have been doing eighty or more.. That was one of the scardest moments in my life. Since he couldn't actually close his right hand around the throttle for a proper grip, he did something with his right hand to ease off before shifting, then get back on the throttle for a constant acceleration. He did it as quickly as anyone with biking experience. To do it though, he had to jerk the bike to the left, then back straight again as he got back on it. It only took a fraction of a second, but I'm telling you it was frightening. I told I was going to suffer a long time before I quit tumbling and then died. Fortunately we only went straight and he turned around and took me back to the party. To this day that ride is burned in my memory.

    Here is a pic I took of David at Baytown after a hard day of racing and lifting boats up and down the seawall. The tide was out then. It was the first race I ever hit the starting line with an honest to goodness alky rig.

    I was in photography class then, and I took this for an assignment. I always liked the picture because it's kind of a bittersweet moment. While the cerebral palsy took a normal life away from David and his family, he was more fortunate than probably the vast majority in that we was able to do so much. You just wonder what he is thinking when this pic was taken. Alone amongst a lot of friends.
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    Last edited by Master Oil Racing Team; 07-10-2010 at 02:15 PM. Reason: photo didn't make trip 1st time



  9. #79
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    Mark and I had finished the runabout by the time I met with Dan the first time. I told Dan all about it, and I don't recall whether we wanted it fiberglassed or whether Dan suggested it, but he gave me the name and number of a guy in Corpus Christi that was good at fiberglassing over wood. We painted the boat all white. We took the runabout to Sam Savages shop for it to be fiberglassed and had to wait for a week or so until he got it done.



  10. #80
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    Default Dan Waggoner

    Wayne

    The bit about Mr. Waggoner brought back memory’s . Dan was just a great guy. I don’t know what happen to all his racing stuff but I bought his last B flathead in 1970. I think that was the year they quit racing.. I found a B swift hydro , if I remember from Phil Crown. Boy that flathead sure made that little swift go fast. Only problem was that thing would throw me out in a turn faster than you could blink. But it was a lot fun. A bit of history here, Phil Crown got my dad Stanley Henderson in racing in 1950 or 51. Then my dad’s brother Joe Henderson started racing also and that lead to, you know who Denny racing. I drove my first hydro 1952 and denny was 1 or 1 1\2. I had a picture of him setting in a Tide sope box on bank of mountin creak lake. I have look high and low for it but can;t find it.
    Long time of racing for the family.
    A lot memories.

    Stan Henderson

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