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

  1. #191
    Team Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Posts
    559
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default Baldy and the FDA

    Wayne:

    I seem to remember you are correct about the FDA being the agency involved in the approval process of the aloe product Baldy was trying to market. Eileen says the same and I think he really discussed it more with her than he did me. The thing he was most upset about was that they (FDA) wanted the marketer's in the approval process to prove that it would not harm humans. In other words, prove a negative. His thought about the approval process, at least the way we remember the discussions with him about that part of the story, were THEY should be showing him or anyone else trying to market something, that there was harm involved in it's use. If they could not, get out of the way. Doing it the other way round as they wanted was putting an undue hardship in the way of cost, time, etc., on someone trying to market something that there was no evidence of any kind to start with that the product had ever hurt anyone, especially one that was natural and had been used for centuries by many cultures and had obvious healing properties. Makes perfect sense to me, but what do I know?

    Regards the DMSO;

    When Eileen and I first got married in 1973, we rented a house from a farmer about 40 miles south of St. Louis. He was in his late 70's when we first met him, but like most folks as they get older, was bothered by arthritis, and other assorted aches and pains. Because of his farm animal experience, he was familiar with DMSO from vet use on his animals, and used it himself, on himself, by rubbing it into his skin around joints and other affected areas several times a week. He swore by it as a product/means to keep his joints flexible and allow him to do the work on the farm that had to be done. He finally passed away at around the age of 91, showing no ill effects from that type treatment for the 12 years we knew him. I do not recommend that anyone run right out and use this product for the reasons he did, but I think it does show that there is a lot of misinformation out there about various home remedy's, their effects both harmful and beneficial, along with many other present issues of the day that incomplete or misleading information is spread about.

  2. #192
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sandia, Texas
    Posts
    3,831
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    I think there's a whole lot of truth in what you're saying Bill Van. Baldy wasn't used to dealing with the scientific beauracrats, only the paper pushers and field personnel that worked the oilfield. He could lay such a barrage of b.s. and paper on them that they got out of his way. These Washington people were another story.

    Regarding DMSO, I had a personal experience with that. I was on an oilfield location about six years ago and had to "dress" about 75 joints of 13.50 (pounds per foot) 4 1/2 casing with one turbolizer per joint. This required bolting a steel band around the middle of the joint, and wrapping and pinning a flexible bow turbolizer around that band. Trouble was, about 120 joints were pushed all the way to the front of the pipe rack and I had to start on the first joint going in the hole and dress the next 75. So I had a lot of joints to roll back to get started. These joints weighed almost six hundred pounds each and I was by myself. I roll them by shoving on with my right foot to get it moving, then hopping on a board with my left foot while my right foot keeps the pipe rolling. I started limping a little about three fourths through the job. On the way home my knee just above my right kneecap started hurting so bad that it was very painful to lift my foot off the gas to apply the brake. I took off my steel toed boot. After awhile it got so bad I couldn't even lifted my stocking foot so I had to finish driving back using my left foot. I limped to the doctor the next day and she gave me some aniti inflammatories and something else. I went back again a few days later, but when it didn't improve at all, I went to a minor emergency clinic. They gave me stuff that didn't work either. It continued to be extremely painful for a long time, and no one could gve me a reason why, or what the problem was. More than a month had passed and I could not work in the field at all. I only went to the shop to pay bills, and take care of payrolls, taxes etc. The rest of the time I tried recuperating. Then I ran into a rancher friend that told me about DMSO. That day I went to the CO-OP in Orange Grove and bought a bottle and liberally soaked my knee. The next morning it was very much better. After the second day I could easily walk and lift my leg with just very little discomfort. By the third day, I could go out on deliveries again. I kept up the treatment for ten days, but by the fourth or fifth day I was just about fully recovered. I looked it up on the internet and found everything from dire warnings to ecstatic miraculous recoveries. I don't know what to believe and since the human body can be so different in people I just took the way of caution and quit using it. However, I can tell you for sure I've got it in my arsenal for short term cure when nothing else seems to work. You have to be very cautious though you don't get any harmful substance mixed in with it.



  3. #193
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sandia, Texas
    Posts
    3,831
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    I can't recall exactly when Baldy first invested in the aloe vera venture or when he got out, but his Aloe 99 business was less than a year from intial setup to going out of business. Sometime between around six months or so of his products being on the shelves some of the distributors began to complain that the Aloe 99 was starting to smell differently. It never had a pleasant odor, but it was not offensive. Somewhere along the way there was some contamination of sealed bottles, but open bottles would also start to smell after awhile from bacteria. The pastuerization and stabilizer could only last so long, so the aloe juice started to turn dark and give off a bad odor. At first Baldy and the others thought there were some isolated incidents, but then bad batches began to turn up all over. The spray bottles didn't turn so quickly because they were mostly sealed against oxygen unless you opened the cap, but the large volume of the gallons, plus opening the cap made them subject to bacteria. George Warren had advised Baldy against using 99% solution because it would be subject just to such degredation. He told Baldy that if he went with aloe vera in a concentration of around 50 to 75 % there would be a lot of room to put other additives in for a longer shelf life. Baldy though wanted a "liquid aloe vera leaf". He wanted his product to be as potent as a fresh leaf, but handier. That's the way Baldy always went about his business. Sometimes it was successful, sometimes it wasn't. He took a gamble this time that didn't pay off.

    Baldy laid off the second van driver, but kept Ray Pippin on to drive around and gather up all the Aloe 99 products left on the shelves. Many distributors had gotten a thriving little business and were reluctant to give up something that was attracting customers to their stores. With the consignment products, Ray just went around and loaded them up and brought them back to the warehouse. Anything paid for and still on the shelves, Baldy sent all their money back for what was left and had Ray tell the distributors to give money back to anyone who came in complaining, and to let Baldy know so he could reimburse them. Of course a lot of it was used up before it soured.

    The active ingredients of the aloe vera juice still worked, but nobody wants to put a stinking juice on a sunburn, and if you had a cut there could always be a chance for infection. After Ray finished gathering up what was left of all unsold Aloe 99, Baldy sold both Dodge Vans and kept Ray Pippin on as a salesman for our oilfield yard in Taft, Texas near the coast. He retired in 1986 after 20 years of loyal service to Alice Specialty and moved back to Oklahoma where he married his high school sweetheart about a year after they got reacquainted at their 50th high school reunion.

    The agreement that the partners had on the overall growing and harvesting of plants and pursuing getting FDA approval required each partner contribute funds to keep the operation moving forward based on his percentage of the deal. It cost Baldy his friendship with Dickie Haas, another oilfield person, who threw in his hat and walked away after another round of funding was required. Baldy lost his butt in the Aloe 99 side venture, and bowed out. The doctors continued on with the drug testing and were eventually able to get whatever they needed to go into business. I only remember the last name of one of the doctors was Coates. I am not positive, but I think the name of the company ended up being "Forever Living Products" George Warren and Wayne Hendricks did not have the money to stay in the venture either, but we all remained lifelong friends. Some years later, George came up with a vacuum distillation process that separated the aloe juices into around sixteen to 20 components and was able to remove all solids as well as the bile tasting components to where it tasted like spring water and would not spoil. The last time I saw George before he passed away he loaded me up with so many of his aloe vera based products, that I still have some. It is called "George's Alway's Active Aloe" I didn't ever know it before, but after Baldy passed away George told me that he was struggling to make ends meet while he was putting his company together and Baldy loaned him the money to get him by without asking to be a part of his venture and he had no obligation to pay him back if he failed. Baldy did that for a lot of people. Sometimes it was just give a .22 rifle to a kid who couldn't afford one, or sometimes it was quite a bit of money. George's company finally caught on and he built up a large plant between Austin and Dallas where he turned out large volumes of Aloe product.

    After Baldy was done with the aloe vera business, George Warren came to him and asked him if he remembered that hand creme that they had been playing around with and doing rat tests on. He did and George told him that one ingredient in it had a lot of potential and that was the base oil ingredient.

    George explained to Baldy that the oil was very unique. It was extracted by a patented method from a grain at a small independant company in Louisiana, and not only did it have superior penetrating qualities, but it was non flammable. It contained naturally occurring extreme pressure lubricants, but it could be improved with an additional boost of that and one other additive. Baldy was interested, so George began to work on some formulations. This was also in 1966 when the Aloe 99 venture collapsed. They had transitioned from one venture to another without even slowing down. This time George assured Baldy they don't have to get government approval. They were going to make the best damn penetrating, lubricating , cutting oil and rust inhibitor on the market. Sperm oil from the sperm whale was the premier cutting oil at that time for the toughest jobs, and a treaty banning the killing of sperm whales just came into effect. This oil, with George's additives was tested with the lowest co-efficient of friction up to that point that the reknowned Southwest Labratories had ever tested.

    Thus ends Baldy's Aloe Vera Venture, and begins what was to become MX-237 THE MASTER OIL.



  4. #194
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sandia, Texas
    Posts
    3,831
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    After I posted the above, I began to think about the very first cans of The Master Oil. They were silver and black. That's when I remembered that the company was called ALDAC, Inc. That is a combination of Alice and Dallas, where the principal work of both groups was being done. It's possible that Aloe 99 was under the ALDAC umbrella, but I don't recall and any paperwork about it is long gone. Regardless, the MX-237 venture did include the Doctor's and chemists from Dallas, and George Warren from Houston.

    The first aerosol can was only 8 ounces, and the gallon container was tin, not plastic. The containers were solid silver with black lettering. The MX-237 logo evolved over time, and I am not sure the silver and black even had a logo. I cannot recall. Some boat racer out there still has one of the original cans, but I can't remember who described it to me some years ago. It could be Denny Henderson, Bobby Wilson, or maybe Clayton Elmer.

    The first batch of MX-237 THE MASTER OIL that was made up in bulk, and outside a laborotory was in an Alice Specialty Company mud mixing tank in Alice, Texas. It was a 200 barrel tank (8,600 gallons) with guns that swiveled for throrough mixing and powered by a Detroit Diesel 6V71 turning a Mission Magnum 8X6 centrifugal pump. I wasn't there when the brought the oil in from Riviana Foods plant in Louisiana, so I don't know if it was by transport or a bunch of drums. Later shipments were all drummed and batch mixed in a 500 gallon aluminum vat with a water jacket.

    Baldy and Wayne Hendricks liked a lot of laughs and weren't immune to practical joking as the chemists learned early on when dealing with the aloe vera. So they conspired to pull a practical joke on Baldy and Wayne. Being non scientific, Baldy and Wayne believed whatever these chemists told them. They were advised that working with small quantities in a lab environment, it was pretty much safe in mixing this formulation because of all the safeguards and backup they had. They said that there was an order and rate in which the additives were put in the tank through a hopper as the base oil was being churned around and circulated through the lines. There was a critical time of several minutes in the process, that if the pump quit a layer of nitroglycerin would form and float to the top. If that happened then everyone would have to jump in the tank and swim around until the chemicals combined to make Master Oil. While it sounded preposterous, one of the ingredients was a form of glycerin, and neither Wayne nor Baldy knew what dibutyl sebacate or oleic acid was, so they took the warning with a grain of salt, but holding back the possiblity that the chemists weren't kidding.

    While the oil was circulating, about half a dozen of the group plus several Alice Specialty hands were standing on the grating above the rolling oil. Just before the process began to add the other ingredients, they had a safety meeting and reitrated that nobody could ran fast enough to get away if the pump quit, so be prepared to jump in and keep the oil from setting still. Just as long as there was some agitation, the nitroglycerin wouldn't form and rise to the surface. Well....everything worked out just fine and the oil was mixed and transferred to a 9,000 gallon storage tank. Back at Baldy's house at the lake the group celebrated over some steaks and beer while the chemists got a good laugh. They fessed up, and Baldy told the story to many people over the years. Mark however, got even with them by accident, and Baldy always finished the story with Mark's revenge.

    Mark had his driver's license by now, but no vehicle. I hung around the lakehouse on Saturday night, but Mark was always taking my Scout. I kept getting PO'd at him. He found three girls who were friends who's parents had lake houses a couple of miles from our place. He had them convinced I was a mean evil person, and they would not want to meet me. This went on all summer long. It was now shortly before Christmas in 1966 that the oil was mixed and the party was going on at Baldy's lake house at Pernitas Point. I was deer hunting and told Mark he couldn't have my Scout. Since Baldy wasn't going anywhere, he let Mark borrow his Chrysler New Yorker. He had bought some fireworks, and along with the girls and one of the girls brother, they drove around Pernitas Point popping firecrackers. Someone had put a half dozen or so in the ashtray down by the center console in the back seat.

    Baldy or Wayne had picked up the chemists at the Corpus Christi Airport when they had arrived from Dallas, and George Warren offered to borrow Baldy's New Yorker to take them back to the airport Sunday morning. About fifteen miles from the airport they were cutting through Robstown to pick up Highway 44 on the east side of town which would take them to Corpus Christi International. One of the chemists in the back seat had been smoking a cigar and stuck it in the backseat ashtray to put it out. Suddenly there was a pressure wave, bright flashes, smoke and loud noises filling the interior of the Chrysler. It is an automatic instinct instilled in chemists to run when things start to explode. They were in the middle of an intersection making a turn when the conflagration started, and instantly all four doors popped open. It ended up that nobody jumped out because the asphalt looked like it would hurt and the popping quit. There ears were ringing and they rolled down the windows to clear the smoke when they put two and two together. Boy did Baldy and Wayne get a hoot when George got back and told them what happened. Mark would have gotten in trouble over that had it not happened the way it did and Baldy loved to tell about it. Even the chemists had to admit it was funny and told it themselves.



  5. #195
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sandia, Texas
    Posts
    3,831
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    In July we travelled to our first ever race at Fort Buhlow Lake in Pineville, Lousiana. "The World's Fastest Water" proclaimed the sign at the entrance of the famed lake. It was the National Outboard Association "Southern Championships" to be held on July 17th and 18th following two days of qualifications.

    Once again we took the coastal route over to Sinton then up US 77 to Refugio where we caught Texas State Highway 774 to Texas 35 that paralled the coast. Refugio is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in the United States. There is nothing but Ranch land between Refugio and 35. It was always an easy drive going to the races that route, but coming back we had to be careful. It was always in the early morning hours, we were tired, and deer could jump the fence and be on the narrow two lane highway before you could react.

    We were excited to be going to Louisiana. We had almost tried to make one or another of the Louisiana races on the NOA circulars, but there was not time. This was the big one, and we got everything loaded the night before, with a late afternoon of measuring and mixing of fuel at the Alice Specialty warehouse before heading back home to pack up clothes. This would be our first trip out of state to race.

    Heading north on 35 very near the Aransasa Wildlife Refuge where the whooping cranes winter, we made our way to Port Lavaca. For many years we would time our trip to stop for lunch at Gordon's Seafood Restaurant on the southern shore of Lavaca Bay. We made our way through all the small towns along the way, and most of the time just got through Sweeny just when the 3:00 p.m. shift changed at the Phillips 66 refinery. On up through West Columbia, and Angleton where 35 took a 90 degree easterly bend then find the road that would carry us over to 146 leading to Baytown. We weren't stopping at Jack Chance's everytime we went that way yet. We were friends with Jack and Clayton, and they helped us, but we had not yet teamed up.

    We went on through Baytown and to Highlands where we picked up Interstate 10, then we were headed east making good progress. We treaded through the speed trap at Winnie and it was a long stretch to Beaumont. We finally got through there, then through the infamous town of Vidor in KKK territory and on to Orange and past the Sabine River. Sulphur Louisiana means Lake Charles is coming up then after that is the left under the overpass at Kenner where we pick up 165 north to Alexandria. We always got a good view on the high bridge coming into Lake Charles overlooking the race course where both alky and OPC racing took place, and maybe mods as well.

    It was like a second wind, or breath of fresh air when we made that turn north on 165. We still had deputies of the parishes to watch out for as well as waiting for an opening to blow down hill past logging trucks, but we were on the final leg. As we got close to Alexandria we would start to see bars set out in the piney woods off the road with yellow lights strung among the pine trees. Then suddenly the road would widen and soon we were on a traffic circle. We always had to make one loop before we chose the right one for MacArthur Blvd. It always came up sooner than we expected, and although we knew it was coming, we were always in the inside lane at the first pass, and could not get over. I remember it fondly now how we could never get it right on the first go around.

    Our first time at Alexandria we stayed at the Holiday Inn on MacArthur on the west side just south of another traffic circle. On the east side was the Ramada Inn. Almost all of the racers stayed at one or another of these motels.



  6. #196
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sandia, Texas
    Posts
    3,831
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    Like us, a lot of the drivers that came later in the afternoon or night just came to the motels with their rigs. There were a lot of letters preceeding race numbers I never saw before...particulary "V"s and "F"s. It was really looking to be a big and exciting race.

    We got up the next morning and headed north to cross over the Red River on an old cast iron bridge. I seem to remember that it was named the "Huey P. Long" bridge, a colorful governor from the past whose career was a model of corruption for Louisiana legislators, and was the subject of a movie starring Paul Newman. The race course was not far from the motels, and you had to drive past the first paved road to enter through the second. The road looped down and around between the concession stand with a covered viewing stand on the roof, and the judges stand. The pits were already crowded with boats and trailers several teams deep to the right of the judges stand. We drove on past and found a spot almost at the very end of the pits back in the sandy cove. Just slighty to the left above the treeline on the opposite bank of the little cove, we could see the arch of the cast iron bridge about a half mile distant. We were just to the right of a small stand of willow trees and just immediately left of W.O. Thompson from Haltom City between Dallas and Fort Worth. A couple more teams ended up past us on the other side of the willows, but I forget who they were.

    We knew W.O. from our racing in North Texas, so it was good to be pitted next to a familiar face among the drivers who came from all over the south and midwest. He was a shriveled up man of about mid fifties and ran A and B merc deflectors in A and B runabout and hydro. I can't remember what the make of his boats were. He had one of those red and white puffed up life jackets and wore a motorcycle cop style half helmet with leather like we started out with. W.O. Thompson was a very nice guy and him and Baldy enjoyed each others company. I don't recall he had much help so we helped him in the pits.

    It was a nice clear morning while rigging up, and I was in awe that we were about to be a part of the Southern Championships and competing against some of the best alky drivers in the country. The only ones missing were the drivers from California and Arizona, the Northwest and Northeast. It is possible that one or two like Rich Fuschlin or Ted May came, but I don't recall that.

    It was the first time since 1963 that the Southern Championships would be held in Alexandria. They held the NOA World in 1965, after having to cancel in 1964 due to low water, and this year the NOA World Championships would be in Sanford, Michigan. The Fort Buhlow course was a surveyed 1 1/4 mile course, and the races were to be four laps, so 5 mile competition records were up for grabs.

    Mark and I pretty much stayed around our pits while Baldy went up and down the line meeting people and gabbing with our growing list of friends. There were very few racers and pit crews of our age. I don't remember seeing Denny Henderson there, and I had seen Joe Rome at the races, but did not know him yet, as he was pitting for our "arch enemy" Louis Williams. Joe Bowdler was teamed up with Raymond Jefferies so they were on the other side of the judges stand where the San Antonio bunch usually found a spot. Jack and Clayton had gotten in early enough to get a good choice spot over that way as well, so we just hung out by ourselves back in the cove. The pits covered from our area, swept around the cove, past the judges stand and the little "gut" halfway down the front straight, all the way to the last black & white checkered bouy before the first turn bouy. It was quite a turnout and we didn't know even one fourth of the teams.

    I broke down somewhere around the bottom turn while testing A runabout. The water was smooth and a lot of boats were out testing. There were also a number of them breaking down for one reason or another like myself. A lot of trouble back then came from the Konig check valves that did not have the relief valve. I had to wait a little while for a tow, but we still had plenty of time to get ready before qualifying, so I was in no hurry. As I was being towed in, I was scanning the pits, and trying to grasp the size of the event and take it all in. About halfway between where we were pitted and where the cove made the right hand turn just before the judges stand, I happened to see two young girls in bikinis standing in water halfway up their knees looking at a boat coming around the bottom turn. One was just a little bit older, but not by much. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She had long sunstreaked brown hair, and looked like nothing I had ever seen in the pits of a boat race before. Who were they....who was the one closest to me, I wondered? Then before the tow boat got closer, they both turned and walked back to their trailer. Hah! It was the Wetherbee's, Alex and Tommy, from Corpus Christi. I had known who Alex Wetherbee's son Steve was, but we didn't hang out. He was a couple of years younger than Mark. So who were these nubile young creatures? I had not seen them before. I was smitten, but I knew I was too old for them at seventeen.

    I was unable to find any results, but I did learn that Jerry Waldman barely lost overall points to Jim Schoch having won 5 hydro classes. I had not met Jerry at that time, but I knew who he was, and it was amazing and exciting to be able to watch the boat racer of boat racers perform his skills. It was less than a year earlier he broke his back here at Fort Buhlow Lake attempting a straightaway record on Monday after the races. This was the guy that Dan Waggoner told me was killed in the attempt, and also that we needn't bother to go to Alexandria because there were too many boats and we could never compete. That was the wrong thing to tell Baldy. Now here we were, and a better feeling about racing I never had. Somehow I was able to qualify a couple of classes and I ended up with $5.00 for one 5th place finish in B runabout and $5.00 for a fourth place in one heat of A hydro.



  7. #197
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sandia, Texas
    Posts
    3,831
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    I had a bad problem making starts at Alex. That first time I was not used to having so much milling room. At Baytown there was not much room at all. You had to circulate past the start bouy and back or you would risk getting into roostertails.. In the races around Dallas, you dare not mill around the bottom turn lest you run into swells or yachts.. Alex was the perfectly controlled lake that you could test and race without worrying about outside traffic. This caught the attention of Baldy. He immediately understood how important that was in not only getting a race run on time, but most importantly, to control the safety of the boat racers. Denny Henderson's accident earlier in the year was most likely from an outside wake. We had seen other problems with open race courses, and Carl Riley ran absolute control over Fort Buhlow Lake. We left Alexandria monday morning with the satisfaction that we were able to at least get into the finals, and not only that....but get at least as far up as into placing into a money position. Since it was summertime, we only had to head south as fast as Baldy felt he needed to go to get home. He must have been fully satisfied himself as we didn't get scared with him driving a breakneck speed. Myself....I reflected on a girl standing halfway to her knees in the water.



  8. #198
    Team Member Gene East's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    Quincy, IL
    Posts
    593
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    Wayne,

    I loved to race at Alex. The MOD guys call it Pineville these days, but it will always be Alex to me.

    You are absolutely correct in your assessment of Carl and his crew. They ran a great race every year.

    I can relate to your experience with the girls in bikinis at Alex. There were always lots of them.

    I remember well one day when a spectator built like Dolly Parton was standing under a willow tree near our pits. I must have been enchanted by her beauty or something else and apparently was staring ( Imagine that).

    I snapped back to reality when I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a cajun voice say, "Ey Gene, how you lak t' walk bare foots ovah 10 acahs of dem tings"?

    The Hebert brothers from Quebec liked racing at Alex as well. That was one of the few venues in the States where the P.A. announcer pronounced their names correctly.

  9. #199
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sandia, Texas
    Posts
    3,831
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    Funny Gene. I broke down during testing once at Alex and had drifted against the cattails over by the airport. After the elderly cajun gentleman was under way with me on tow he said "Yuh know whut aahm doin'? I said "No." He said "Trollin' for alligator!"

    It will always be Alex to me, and also my favorite place to race of all time. Sometimes Carl Rylee was criticized for playing favorites, or for certain decisions he made, but I think anyone who raced at Alex will look back and remember that him and the others who made the race work will agree that they were second to none. They put in a lot of hours of hard work and made it a lot easier for us who just showed up to race, pit or watch the show. That cajun who was towing me always came to our pits with his grandson. Joe remembers his name, but I can't recall it. The people were friendly, food was good, and the water was the best.



  10. #200
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Sandia, Texas
    Posts
    3,831
    Post Thanks / Like

    Default

    His name was Rabalais. His son Bobby raced and sometime Reles LeBlanc worked his motor over at Bobby's house before the race at Alex. He took a liking to Baldy and myself and always came around to our pits. Joe first met Bobby's Dad, the one that towed in many a boat racer, back in 1956 at the first race at Alex. Mr. Rabalais and Louis Williams were tight...tight...tight! (That must mean something else besides paying for lunch, knowing Louis)



Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 14 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 14 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. An Amazing Story: Part 2
    By Mark75H in forum Outboard Racing History
    Replies: 555
    Last Post: 10-13-2008, 05:44 PM

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •