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

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Next day we were up early, ate breakfast and were back on IH-35, though not for long. Just north of Oklahoma City we turned east on IH-44. It was a long smooth road for the most part with gently rolling hills and a lot of flat areas and grass. Tall grass grew everywhere. Not familiar with that area or hazards that prairie fires presented, I was confused for awhile at the signs every few miles that said "Do Not Drive Into Smoke". We drove on for awhile and breezed right on through Tulsa. It been a long time and I'm not sure about some parts of my memory, but it seems like between OK City and Tulsa was a toll road. I can remember there not being much in the way of places to gas up or eat, but that there was a gas station and restaurant halfway between those two cities and we took the opportunity to stop and get gas and switch drivers.

After hitting the road again and getting through Tulsa, the next big city was Joplin, Missouri. When we crossed the Oklahoma state line it was the first time any of us had ever been in Missouri. So far it had been a good and interesting trips with nothing out of the ordinary happening except all the new scenery and states and big cities we had never been in before. Having crossed the Mississippi River at New Orleans several times and again at Memphis, I was looking forward to the bridge at St Louis. All these bridges are huge and majestic and I knew it would be a good sight looking at the river from those heights.

ADD: I looked it up and indeed there were tollways on both sides of Tulsa. The one heading toward St Louis was called the Will Rogers Tollway. I remembered the toll, but my mind told me that Illinois was the only state in recent memory that collected money from vehicles that the U.S. taxpayers had already paid for.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Of the top ten hits on the pop chart that week, half I liked, the other half I didn't. As I mentioned earlier Brenda had remarked when we pulled out from Bud Turcotte's house near Sarita how much she liked the Rascal's song "People got to be free". That was probably the most played song on our trip up and back because it was number one that week. Something Brenda said somewhere on that first day probably within an hour or two of our leaving has stuck with me since then and I tease her about it every now and then. As we were driving north, the Rascals song came on the radio again, and Brenda said with some vehemence "I can't stand that song!". To which I replied "It wasn't very long ago you said you liked it." She started laughing and said "Well...a lot of them sound alike to me. I just got mixed up."

Number two that week is a song that is always on today's playlist and ended up having a movie made about it. It was "Harper Valley" by Jeanine C. Riley and was also a hit on the country charts. Jack Chance really liked that song. Number three was Steppenwolf's first big hit "Born to be Wild" and was featured along with another of their hits from the same time, "The Pusher", in the cult film "Easy Rider". Jack Nicholson's launch into fame. Number four was the Doors "Hello--I Love You". The rest of the top ten I couldn't stand except for number nine, "Sunshine of your Love" by Cream. Number five was "123 Red Light", six "Light my Fire by Jose Feliciano, seven "Love Makes a Woman", eight "The House That Jack Built", and ten "All you need to Get By". I particularly didn't like Jose Feliciano's cover of the great Doors song that got them started. I switched stations or turned the volume down when it came on.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

While Brenda, Bud and I were traveling north, Baldy was working with his partner Joe Hendricks in all the moving parts of their several new ventures.

Alice Specialty Company had the cash infusion to build the fleet, while Barbon Corporation was still in construction mode. Emmord's though, was an established and very successful marine/motorcycle dealership with new owners with no prior experience in the marine or motorcycle business. At this particular time, Clayton Elmer and his wife Doris were in the midst of a big change in their lives. Clayton was to become the manager of Emmords, and they had to settle their affairs in Baytown, find a place to live in Corpus Christi, and be ready to race at the NOA World Championships in Forest Lake, Minnesota in the middle of August.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

There is a small town just across the border from Oklahoma that always struck me for some reason every time we passed through it, but I cannot remember the name or why. The next big town was Joplin and I can always remember a lot of construction near the interstate.

We cruised east listening to music, talking and just taking in the scenery. Our first time in and through St. Louis was not the problem we worried about. After we got turned to the North and picked up 51, everything seemed to be going our way.

We had been driving awhile. Roads were not as good off the interstate system as they were in Texas. After we had crossed into Illinois, probably after a gas stop, Brenda took over driving. Bud and I were tired and we tried to sleep. After some time behind the wheel, Brenda was on a two lane highway with no shoulder. She moved to the right for an oncoming vehicle (maybe a truck) and dropped the trailer off the shoulder. She felt that and turned left. When the trailer tires jumped back on the road, the trailer skewed into the oncoming lane. Brenda turned right causing the trailer to follow and went off the road and shoulder again. Bud and I were instanty awake. I don't remember who was in the front right passenger seat and who was in back, but we got Brenda calmed down and found a place to pull over to switch drivers.

We drove on until around Bloomington, Illinois where we decided to shut down for the night. We got a room at a motel then found a restaurant to eat supper. We were not far from DePue, and so we would get a good meal then get into DePue early the next day.

It was dark, but only around 9:30 or so and we sat down at a table. We were from South Texas and had never come this far north before. We had had already discovered that hamburgers up north were not the same as we were used to down home. For one thing...they didn't know anything about chicken fried steak. So when the waitress started taking our orders, we kind of looked for something that sounded familiar. Bud sat directly across from me and ordered first. Brenda was to my right and ordered next, without any trouble. After I gave the waitress my order she asked "Superjuice?" I guess I ordered something different than Bud or Brenda that I got Superjuice. I didn't know what that was, but Baldy always was one to introduce us to new foods, or just lay it on us and eat it.

I just nodded my head. The waitress then repeated more loudly "Superjuice". And I said "Yeah". Exasperated by that time she forcefully and explicitly said "Soup...or...Juice?". Bud and Brenda had figured out what she was saying just a fraction before her outburst, but I was still just processing what she was saying.

It was our first experience in hearing someone up north with a strange accent speaking so fast. I don't remember what I wanted, but it was probably soup.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We left our rooms early the next morning and drove up to DePue on 51 which is now also IH 39. We took the exit to what was the old highway 51, and headed more or less in a northwest direction. We had not gone far when the flat land dropped out from under us. Suddenly we were going down a fairly steep grade on a narrow winding two lane road. We rapidly descended down into the valley and came out on an old iron bridge that crossed the Illinois River and into Peru.

It was a quaint and old looking town. We followed our map and wound around the countryside, but a lot of the scenery was blocked by fields of tall corn. This was also our first trip into corn country, and despite seeing pictures and movies with corn fields, it is nothing like being among them in person. I had no idea until then how tall corn grew.

down in another valley on the other side of the river we came to the outskirts of DePue. There were a lot of cars and lots of activity then. The zinc smelter was still in operation and there were a lot of cars and people around. It didn't take long to follow the signs and see where people were headed before we found the race course. We didn't know where to park though. We ended up driving to where the VFW is now. Somehow we accidentally ended up in the right place because the boats Nick Marchetti brought for us were on a trailer very close to the launch ramp.

I don't recall if Nick brought them on a trailer of his own, or somebody else hauled them for him. Seems like he had someone else bring them, but I don't know how they had room for three hydros. I just can't remember that part. I just remember looking up at a couple of them on top of a trailer and being surprised to see they were already numbered T-73. I didn't particularly like the paint scheme, but they were ready to go and I wouldn't have to do it. They were varnished would the the cloth deck baby blue and a white ray starting on each side of the bow handle and widening out, splitting the blue field, back to the end of the sponson on either side. The numbers were solid black outlined in a half inch red stripe.

I don't know if Pat Marchetti was there or not. I knew Nick, but as far as I know I didn't meet Pat until they moved to Florida. At the time of the 1968 Nationals at DePue, Nick was still building boats in Bristol, Pennsylvania.

We got the boats transferred to our trailer and tied down, moved the Chrysler, trailer and boats to some other place to get out of the way, and then went to visit friends. I was very surprised to see how many people we knew. We had not gone to Lakeland up to this time, and there were not any APBA alky races anywhere else we went. We saw Bruce Nicholson (the only Texas racer there), the Dortch's, the Seebolds, the Harrisons, Jim Schoch, Jerry Waldman, Bob Hering, Ralph Donald, Wally Roman, Scott Smith, Walt Blankenstein, Jerry Simison and many others we knew. I didn't know Ron Hill or Fred Hauenstein back then, but I knew who they were from boat racing magazines. I was totally amazed.

We watched some boats on the course, but we did not stay to watch the races. We had to get on back home, and I suspect the Holiday Inn would have been booked solid anyway. We got started home that same day.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The way back was pretty much of the reverse of going up. Music, landscape and occasional stops for gasoline and for meals. The one main difference is we were in different places during the daytime this time. When we came up, we passed through the scenic Turner Falls area south of Oklahoma during the nighttime. This trip back was during the daylight and we got to see some very fine scenery. It was also the first time I ever noticed solid white lines at the edge of the road. I don't remember seeing them in those days except at Turner Falls, and we really appreciated them then. There was no shoulder and the very edge of the road is where it meets the verge had an upward curled lip and white stripe. It wouldn't do to run off the road here in the daytime let alone at night.

We got home during the night and Bud spent the night at our house in Alice. The next day I took him to Grandma (his) Mynier's house on the lake in the Pernitas Point subdivision.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

This maps shows location of lake homes of Baldy and our various pit crew families. We traveled many miles on these roads in cars, jeeps, motorcycles and horses.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We got the boats unloaded and set up so we could work on them. The Keller steering wheels and combing pulleys were installed as well as the stops, but we installed our own quarter inch stainless steel
cables now with stainless steel pulleys with bearings at the steering bar and clevis's with the hole on top of the screw tied with wire that passed through the hole in the pin and the clevis.

After Clayton went on his head at Alex, we were not taking any chances. Speeds were rapidly rising, and boat design was not keeping pace with engine horsepower. It was evident with both Quincy and Konig. Anzani and Crescent were also increasing horsepower although without the number of drivers using their motors to put them to the test.

We were big on safety, and one of the things that Jack Chance had built, and Clayton Elmer attested to was the outrigger we installed on transoms of both hydros and runabouts to set the engines back about 2 inches. Nick Marchetti only had the Konig cast aluminum clamps with a bolt through the transom, and one to fasten the engine to plus the completely adjustable transom mount to bolt through the transom with two 8mm bolts. Baldy told Nick that we would take care of the transom mounts, the steering system and throttle parts ourselves. Nick was happy to comply and so we got our Marchetti's almost rigged up, but we had to finish them out with our own hardware and our own designed electric kill switch.

All that stuff we had to start working on. I don't remember who we sold a couple of the hydros we were running to, but we took off the transom gear to transfer to the new boats. Jack always had any extra transom setbacks we needed if we had to do one quickly.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The trouble with taking off time between the story is that sometimes I lose my place. I skipped a week between Alex and DePue and had us traveling north a week earlier when I resumed the tale. I found a picture I had been looking for, and discovered my error when I went back to reread what I posted since Alex. I made the correction tonight, so if anyone wants to go back, go to post #653 for the add to the story. Anyone reading this after October 4, 2013 has read the story with the fill in.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

CB Racing Team was preparing to head north to Forest Lake, Minnesota for the 1968 National Outboard Association World Championships. Sometime around Thursday or Friday after Brenda, Bud and I got back from DePue a couple of mothers and a grandmother decided to take most of the pit crew to Mexico before we headed off to Minnesota.

Mark and I drove to Kingsville to meet up with the rest of the crew. We drove to the Sandford's house in Kingsville to meet up with the rest of them coming up from the country outside of Riviera and Sarita, Texas. Matriarch Velma Myrnier met with her daughter Joyce Turcotte, Ann Sanford, and "Dot" Huff. to take us to the Cadillac Bar in Nuevo Laredo for lunch and drinks. For us drinks were Coca Cola, Dr. Pepper, etc. but a little wine was also passed around. The ladies went there for the Ramos Gin Fizzes. I think they were first introduced at a place on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but the Cadillac Bar in Nuevo Laredo made such a name for them that a bar opened in New York City also under the name "Cadillac Bar" (no relation) and specialized in Ramos Gin Fizzes. I had heard that a Ramos Gin Fizz was invented in New Orleans, and also that it was invented by the Cadillac Bar. Turns out both are true. The Cadillac Bar opened in 1926 after the Bressan family left New Orleans because of prohibition. It was only a few blocks into Mexico after crossing the Rio Grande, then go one and a half blocks east. Turn right into the parking lot behind the bar and for a few dollars a kid would watch over your car.

This is most of my pit crew and some supporters in the fall of 1968. The only crew members not present in this photo were Baldy Baldwin, Jack Chance and Bob Burnham.

Far left. Sitting at another table. Ann Sanford (back to camera) Joyce Turcotte. Not pictured Velma Mrynier and Dot Huff. Prime table. Hand carved face bought earlier at the Mercado (market). Left to right around the table Wayne Baldwin, Betsy Turcotte, Susan Turcotte, Mark Baldwin, Mary Jean Sanford, Jaime Sanford, Andy Turcotte, Jean Marie Huff, and Bud Turcotte.

I added a second photo, and it came out on top of the one from 1968. I believe it was taken in 1962 about a year before our Mom died. I am pretty sure that this was the same table in the same corner of the later picture. You can tell the chairs are the same style also. I think the room was remodeled before the 1968 photo, but the dimensions seem the same as well as the entry into the other room on the left. I don't know who put the ink on the pictures, but from left to right it is Mark Baldwin, Wayne Baldwin Brenda Baldwin, Jan Baldwin, Frances "Dodo" Baldwin and Eual "Baldy" Baldwin.