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

[Allen J. Lang]

Hi Wayne-Thanks for posting my question about V4 rods in C Service Speeditwins. That was many moons ago and when the late Pete Hellsten was still running Speeditwins and we were looking to build up engines. Many years later when I was living in MI, I was looking to get back into racing in C Service and corresponded with the late Bud Wiget. He told me about many odds and ends to look for or do, but, could not figure out how the V4 rods would work in a Speeditwin. Needless to say, our move to AZ put an end to any plans plus the wife also said no racing. Sold off some of the parts I accumulated.
Boy, I wish I still had all my Rooster Tail and Propeller magazines. At least my friend Ed Hatch has a web site with most of the Boat Sport, Speed and Spray and Hydroplane Quarterly. Love reading through them. To many moves and loss of the magazines.
Love your postings.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

It's been great Allen to reread those old Roostertails with now knowing people I read about. It's too bad you lost your Roostertails, but I know how that happens. Luckily there are people like Ed that have spent so much time to make some of those magazines available to read.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

After having raced all day and all the excitement of making a start...getting wet down.... and spinning out in B runabout, we had a very full day. I only wrote down the final results, and not any notes of what happened. I did review the 8mm film Baldy took though to kind of refresh my memory. I spun out in the first turn of B runabout the first heat, and the Konig died. In one heat of B hydro I not only spun out in the same spot,but flipped over the right side. Baldy filmed the whole episode , including my paddling to the outside of the turn before the other hydros came around. That was my first annointing into the water.

In the end I got a check for $5.00 for 4th place in B runabout. I was surprised about that but it must have been from attrition and maybe a gun jumper or two. That was 4th for one heat only, as I spun out in one heat. Baldy, Mark and I were very happy though, and it was a long, tired drive home. Worse though was the next day in school. We didn't get much sleep so it was a loonngg day.

Baldy was hopped up about the racing, how we had done, and he wanted to talk to his new found friend Jack Chance. Jack and Clayton had not attended any of the races we had been to previously. At Baytown it was obvious that Jack as mechanic and team owner, and driver Clayton were at the top of their game. Jack had raced in years past, but now Clayton was driving. Clayton was a natural....and he was in top form. Baldy didn't cultivate a relationship because he thought he could take advantage of the two nor did Jack or Clayton think they could profit from a guy who knew nothing but to chrome the exhaust pipes to look shiny in the pits. We all left the race with friendships that would do nothing but grow. And Reles LeBlac and Ray Yates left lasting memories from that first race as well.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We were now getting acquainted with more boat racers. The race at Highlands was the first two day race and Baldy had time to spend talking around the pits Saturday evening. We knew who Bruce Nicholson and Bill Knipe were from the race in front of our house, but we had not talked to them yet. We came away from the race at Highlands though with a sense that we could fit in with these people. Despite the feeling we got from Louis Williams that we were just show off's with a complete collection of tools hanging on a peg board, no grease on the helmets or life jackets, brand new motors and runabout, and chromed exhausts, everyone else was very friendly and helpful. Baldy of course was very familiar with Louis' "leader of the pack" attitude when a new dog shows up in the neighborhood. That's the way the oilfield has operated since it got organized, and continues that way to this day....though not as rough. Baldy shook it off and we started getting things together for the next race. In the meantime, we had gotten our latest issue of Roostertail----the April one, along with race circulars that started coming in regularly.

ADD: That's Baldy's handwriting marking which races he planned for us to attend. Although he marked the NOA Nationals at Sanford, Michigan. We did not attend that race.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I failed to mention that the notations on upcoming races were Baldy's. As I said earlier, Baldy made the choices of where we would race.

Back home at Alice, I had Mark help me unload the boats in the driveway so I could clean and polish them, and try practicing on some of the timing, plug cleaning and other suggestion Jack had. And with the boats in the driveway....Pam would drive by and see a real boat racer as she tooted her horn.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We did not make the race at Beaumont a couple of weeks later. I am not sure why, but I think it had to do with being close to the end of the school year and it was a seven hour drive back home to put us into Alice around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. by the time we got cleaned up and had supper. Of the Texas races, we missed more of the Beaumont races than any because their first race of the season was usually close to finals and the end of school. Louis may have taken it as a snub from Baldy, but that wasn't the case.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The next race we made was in Texarkana, Texas. Baldy had business to attend to and would not be able to drive up. I had never driven that far in Texas before, let alone pulling a boat trailer. Baldy talked his mom, Grandma Arkie, to go along with us. Other than the one out in front of our house the previous spring, that was the only other race she went to. It wasn't for her to help with the driving so much, and being a responsible adult, but Baldy figured two seventeen and one fifteen year old boys with a 12 year old girl would not be able to get a hotel room anywhere, and may even be picked up by the cops for questioning. Along for the ride and to pit were Mark and a high school friend Tommy Albert and my youngest sister Jan.

Before U.S. Highway 59 was widened, it was a two lane road for most of the way.....and you had to go through downtown of most of the towns and cities we encountered. Nowadays it is a nostalgic trip back into the past to visit those east Texas towns with buildings built in the late 1800's and early 1900's. It''s a big tourist thing now, but back then we were really put out by the delays.

That's not all that delayed us. Many times when we would stop on the road to eat, Baldy would pay the bill and get up from the table while I was still finishing the last of my meal off. Good thing he flew into Texarkana, because Tommy was almost twice as slow as eating as I was. I was getting impatient and ready to get back on the road myself, but I knew how it was to be rushed. I'm not saying Baldy or the others wolfed their food down like starving Doberman's, because he truly did savor a good meal, but I was a slow eater and Tommy was even worse.

It took us around twelve hours to get to Texarkana. We found a motel where a lot of the racers were staying and it was in Arkansas. The cafe just westward across the four lane highway where we ate breakfast the next morning was in Texas. Many of you remember the song sung by Johnny Cash as well as others that has the line "Way down yonder in Louisiana.....just about a mile from Texarkana...." is not true. Louisiana is a hundred miles or more south of Texarkana. Sometimes songwriters just have to do what it takes for the rhyme and count to work out..

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We got a late start to the race course Saturday morning. As we were winding through the deep piney woods, a red dust from the iron laden road coated everything on the edges as well as the boats, trailers and vehicles pulling them. We were not sure we took the right turnoff and were just about ready to find a place to turnaround and go back to our last reference point when we rounded a curve and saw red dust hanging in the air from someone had that just passed through. Baldy sped up, and we were all happy to see a tree frog green/tannish red boat racing trailer just ahead of us with Marioneaux written across the motor box. Baldy was relieved, as we all were, and he backed off far enough so we wouldn't be choking in dust all the way to the pits. Boat racer directions weren't nearly as accurate and well marked as the oilfield locations we were used to.

The race was on what was called Waterworks Lake. The pits were similar to the layout at Lake Lawrence in that they were looking head on into a turn. The main differences were the clock was on the opposite side, we were looking at the 2nd turn, and the pits were shunted to the right so that racers pitting on the right could not see the full race course. Having gotten their too late, we were mostly all the way to the right and were pitted with several of the OPC teams. Jack Chance and Clayton Elmer found a spot closer toward the middle about six or seven teams to our left. We pitted close to the Marioneaux's and got to meet Bruce and Lucien Marioneaux along with pit chief and "handler" Clyde LaFitte. The first time we looked in their trailer, we were blown away. The lid was the only wooden wall that did not have propellers on it. The row of props started about a foot from the top and it went down the left side, all across the back and back to the front on the right side. And they were all R. Allen "Papa" Smith props. It turned out that Papa Smith worked for H.B. Harry Marioneaux.

[jrome]

Wayne I think it was the brewster company that Harry owned. I can remember looking inside the trailer and counting 160 props . I have never seen a trailer with more props.

[Gene East]

I always enjoyed racing in Texas and Louisiana. I remember the Marioneaux brothers, but who was sponsored by the Cajun Egg Co?

Lucy, the bookkeeper at QW was not familiar with the term "cajun". She always pronounced it
cuh joon