Communications between Marsha and I dwindled down to zero. I didn't like to call her because I thought Mr. or Mrs. Wetherbeemight answer and she did not have her own line. I guess we both quit writing letters, I can't remember, but since racing was over for a few months, we didn't see each other for awhile. It would turn out to be for quite awhile.
Baldy and Joe Hendricks were very busy with their new partnership. The general manager of Alice Specialty, Cheney Custer, was well qualified to run Alice Specialty, and Emmords was an ongoing business, so Joe and Baldy turned their attention to primarily getting Barbon surveyed and roads built.
There was one caliche road that wound around the waterfront property and one straight caliche road ran across the spine of the property. They decided to use these as a basis for the main roads. The upper caliched road was just graded and packed while the one that ran down near the water was widened, more caliche brought in, rolled and packed. It took several months to complete the three or so mile road.
The entrance to Barbon was about six miles closer to Baldy's house in Alice than the one in Pernitas Point, and it was also on the same road to Pernitas Point. That made it very easy for Baldy to check on progress either to or from the house at Pernitas Point.
In the meantime, I began hanging out more with Mark and our other friends at Pernitas Point. Even though their families all lived forty five minutes to more than an hour away very near the King Ranch, they usually spent the weekends at the lake. Even during the winter months. They never liked me having a girlfriend outside the group, and no one within the group dated. We all just hung out and had lots of fun both on and off the water. I had painted my Gordie that blue and black color I mentioned earlier, and rather than going all the way to the beach during the winter, I started wake surfing behind the Turcotte's Starcraft outfitted with a Mercruiser with a stern drive.
On the heels of success from the very late, and cold race in November of 1967, Baldy was anxious to put on another one. The feedback he got from the racers and officials regarding how drastic the weather change was, and we were still able to pull of a good race with mostly full fields even in November impressed a lot of the racing crowd. And, that the the program was hustled along so that all the racing was done in a little over four hours also stood out .
Baldy was ready to start the 1968 season of racing in our backyard. He got with Lone Star Commodore/District 15 NOA Chairman Charles Fowler to file the proper paperwork for a race at Lake Corpus Christi April 7, 1968. That race never came off.
Road construction at Barbon had begun in earnest. The general contractor had gone over with Baldy and Joe Hedricks the layout. All agreed to follow the original caliche tracks, and scrape, level, fill, crown and compact the road per specifications prior to laying down a couple of courses of asphalt on top of compacted oiled caliche.
It was more or less a one and three quarter car lane. No shoulders. Two cars could meet and pass, but not at high speed. Not much was going on real estate wise at Lake Corpus Christi at this time, and so traffic was not a big problem. Baldy and Joe wanted to get the road in so the Sunday drivers could cruise aroung the newly filled lake, and maybe get an itch to buy some lakefront property.
Baldy's short term interest was to get the road built in order to get a boat race going. He already had his property claimed, and was preparing to build a judges stand for the boat racing.
Baldy was very good at timing. He knew more or less how long it would take to put a project together and build it, yet he didn't know anything about road preparation and how long that would take. Him and his partner Joe insisted that they didn't want a roadway laid in a flash. They wanted something to last. Even though they started with less than a full two lane road, they wanted a road to withstand a community that lived in Barbon Estates full time, and that when the road would be widened, the base would already be there. At that time, there were no full time communities living anywhere on the 240 mile circumference of Lake Corpus Christi.
It became apparent soon to Baldy, that there was no way that the road could be built to have a race at Barbon anytime during the spring of 1968. I don't know this to be a fact, but knowing Baldy, he contacted the Texas Parks and Wildlife to have another race in the State Park. Since it was the beginning of tourism in the park with picnics, boating, barbequeing, and swimming, I am sure they turned him down. I didn't remember any of this sanction or the notice in the Roostertail. I found this in by research in the history of the Baldy story. I remember the road construction at Barbon, and how long they were taking. I'm just surmising the part about the State Park. I do know Baldy though, and I know that he would have tried all angles to make it work, if at all possible. He also had support of the local racers, but...in essence..it was Baldy. The Corpus Christi Boat Club was in name only dropping from around 200 members only a decade earlier. Baldy's dual sanction was in the name of the South Texas Boat Racing Club.
As Far as I know, this was the only sanction submitted and paid for by this club, and the race never came off.
ADD: I did not edit the Roostertail to isolate the race date. I thought many might be interested in what else was scheduled in early 1968. The race that never happened was the first entry.
I've given it some thought as to why the race did not happen. Baldy would not have gotten so far into scheduling and publicizing an event and then it not come off. There are a couple of scenarios that come into play, and one event in particular that I know happened in early 1968.
The very first thing that was built at Barbon Estates after it was purchased from Mrs. Wade was a judges stand for boat racing. It was built on the six acres Baldy set aside for his future home. The homesite was on a large caliche hill with the surrounding area sloping down from the roadway. It was a perfect arena for watching the races. Only the first turn was obscured about three forths to the top of the hill, but that was where spectators would park their cars.
The biggest roadblock to a spring race there, was in fact a blocked road.
I am just guessing here, but I think the State was more than happy to allow for a race in November when the park would not be used at all, but not right in the middle of spring when school was about to be out, wildflowers were blooming everywhere, and the park would be full of picknickers, water skiings, and family with kids swimming and fishing. Another possiblility is that the Texas Parks & Wildlife would have considered it, but knew that there would be somebody in the crowd that would show there was a ten or fifteen mile per hour speed limit within 50 feet of the shoreline. In any event, the race was cancelled long before any other preparations were made.
It was at this time however, that Baldy hired a surveyor to start surveying the water out in front of his house, and draw up a plat to submit to the Jim Wells County Commissioners. I don't know the dateline, but there has to be three readings before the court prior to the Commissioners make a ruling. Baldy submitted a plat and argued for an exemption from the speed limit which was allowed for by Texas State Law. Conditions were for the plat and conditions to be filed with the County Clerk upon passing the Commissioners Court. Conditions included that the speed limit applied only for sanctioned events with insurance, it would only be for the days set aside for testing and actual racing, traffic from the main lake would be shut off and controlled by the Texas Parks & Wildlife (I think it was a thousand feet at least, or possibly a quarter mile), ambulance and rescue personell would be present, and some other conditions which I don't remember. There was also something concrete that insured lawyers couldn't get the races shut down because of noise or other types of objections. Only lawyers know how to stick in such a provision, but it guaranteed we could race. Only the weather could stop us.
In 1968 the average cost of a new house was right at $15,000. The average income was $7850.00, (and I add this to the statistic....only the husband generally had to work to make ends meet.) The average price of gas was $.34 per gallon. The symbol for cents was not on my keyboard. The average price for a new car was $2822.00, and movie tickets cost $1.50.
Martin and Rowan's "LAUGH IN" debuted on January 22. On February 1 Viet Cong executive officer Nguyen Van Dem was executed and the exact moment was captured on film. It has been one of the most widely circulated war time films in history, and was a major factor in turning America against the fight against communism. It ranks alongside the one with the naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack that burned off her clothes.
The Tet offensive began on January 30 and was halted February 24.
London Bridge was bought in 1968 to later be reassembled at Havasu.
The Zodiac murders which have never been solved began in early 1968.
The Beatles created, or traded for Apple Records, and the first single was "Hey Jude".
The maiden flight of the first Boeing 747 occurred and Apollo 8 orbited the moon.
Most incredibly though in the first part of 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. This terrible incident changed the course of the nation. It was a tragic time in our history leading to strife, turmoil, and fueling the rebellion in the streets. The anti war crowd was in full force, and the news media was helping pour gasoline on the fire.
The television broadcasts at that time were ABC, CBS, and NBC. Until these days, there was not much in the way of news in the afternoon or evenings. This is pretty much when the media conglomerates started to increase the news broadcasts, and support personnel.
¢Originally Posted by master oil racing team
Hold the ALT key and hit 0162.
¢.Wow! how in the world did you know that Joe?.
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