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

  1. #731
    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    I've been doing some thinking about that piston Steve, especially with the highly eroded top part. We seldom ever had that happen to a piston, and I had been puzzled by it earlier. Didn't the FA Konig's have the same size piston? If so, I'm thinking this might have come from the summer of 1969 in which we were experimenting with nitro prior to the NOA North South Championships. We had such piston erosion after we had increased the head volume, but before we got the timing down right. The A motor is the only one we played around with adding nitro to the fuel.



  2. #732
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    I mentioned earlier the piston was not all I found when the lake got low. When the lake goes down, I find lots of flint chips in my lakefront yard, and both broken and complete arrowheads and spear points. On the other side of the lake from me a peninsula forms and is covered with arrowheads and spear points, but most are under the sand.

    I had gone over one day to look for points and as I was walking through mud flats to the place where there were lots of flint sign, I saw what I thought was a softshell turtle shell sticking up halfway out of the mud. I thought it was kind of unusual because the are usually laying flat, and they disintegrate before they would settle in something like that. I walked over to this moss covered shell and was surprised when it did not pull apart. I pulled harder and it came up out of the mud. Was I surprised to see blue plastic, then I instantly recognized that it was a blue bubble shield. At first I thought to myself, "Man...they haven't made one of these in a long time. I haven't seen on since........" and just as 1968 popped into my mind the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I slowly turned around and got my bearings from where the old race course would have been and where the turn bouys were in relation to that. I stood there in awe. This was the blue bubble shield I was wearing when I flipped. Clayton Elmer had told me not to wear the blue because you cannot read the water. He was right. An amber bubble shield would have been the best and I never wore a blue again.

    Here is the blue shield I found and an amber one that Alan Ishii gave me to put in my museum. The lake was much lower when I found the bubble shield than when I took the aerials.
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  3. #733
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    Quote Originally Posted by Master Oil Racing Team View Post
    You're right Steve. Got me again. That piston was so old, it didn't look like the ones I remember in my later years. You think that might be one from our 4 carb C?.

    Tim, I sent you a PM yesterday. Maybe it's not working. Joe Rome has Ralph's number. I'll give them both a call.

    ADD: That's not all I found in the bottom of the lake Steve. Another item coming up.
    Hi Wayne, the piston in question could be a A or a C as they would look the same in a picture. The A piston was however about 1/8 inch longer as the Fa motor was a piston port design and the longer skirt controlled the intake timing, where as the four cylinder Rotary motors were a little bit shorter. A A piston could be used in a C after a trim job, but a C piston in the A would not start as it would have too much intake timing. Great finds on the spray shield and such. I still have new of these pistons. Steve

  4. #734
    Team Member Smokin' Joe's Avatar
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    That's a good one, Wayne! By the way. Darrell bought a Powercat with twin Merc 700s from Meatball at Kingsland last Oct. He's
    restored the boat. I bought two 13x19 props on ebay and reworked them. The rig will be in the AOMCI booth at the boat show.
    alas, I was beaten again for Tech VP, lost by 215 to 209 to a guy from NJ who's never written a tech article for the mag
    so far as I can see. So there will probably never be tech leaders and groups for König,
    McCulloch, Crescent, Anzani and West Bend/Chrysler, unfortunately. However, we Texas AOMC guys and girls have a lot of fun
    at Kingsland every Oct. and April, you and Joe should join us once and see all the old rigs running there. Meatball lives in Kingsland
    and has a new 'collection' for us to look at every time, Carlton and Darrell came last Oct. Carlton brought a 19' Lone Star cruiser
    he'd restored.

    Quote Originally Posted by Master Oil Racing Team View Post
    I mentioned earlier the piston was not all I found when the lake got low. When the lake goes down, I find lots of flint chips in my lakefront yard, and both broken and complete arrowheads and spear points. On the other side of the lake from me a peninsula forms and is covered with arrowheads and spear points, but most are under the sand.

    I had gone over one day to look for points and as I was walking through mud flats to the place where there were lots of flint sign, I saw what I thought was a softshell turtle shell sticking up halfway out of the mud. I thought it was kind of unusual because the are usually laying flat, and they disintegrate before they would settle in something like that. I walked over to this moss covered shell and was surprised when it did not pull apart. I pulled harder and it came up out of the mud. Was I surprised to see blue plastic, then I instantly recognized that it was a blue bubble shield. At first I thought to myself, "Man...they haven't made one of these in a long time. I haven't seen on since........" and just as 1968 popped into my mind the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I slowly turned around and got my bearings from where the old race course would have been and where the turn bouys were in relation to that. I stood there in awe. This was the blue bubble shield I was wearing when I flipped. Clayton Elmer had told me not to wear the blue because you cannot read the water. He was right. An amber bubble shield would have been the best and I never wore a blue again.

    Here is the blue shield I found and an amber one that Alan Ishii gave me to put in my museum. The lake was much lower when I found the bubble shield than when I took the aerials.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  5. #735
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    Looks like Darrell's laying down on the job Joe. When the time gets closer remind me Joe. Joe Rome and I like road trips and there happens to be some good places to eat up that way.

    I'm pretty sure that's from one of our A's Steve, and to me it looked different than the ones I remember from our Rotary valve VC's. For one, seems the later pistons had oblong slots rather than holes drilled in them, and one side of the piston skirt was trimmed at an angle. I remember a notice Scott had sent about how to trim the skirt for the C, and I posted it somewhere, but I can't find my original right now. The 4 carb C I referred to was a non rotary valve VC that came between the FC and the rotary valve VC. It too was piston ported and had short megaphone stacks. Clayton won the 1967 C Hydro NOA World Championships with one and Dieter looked at it and said "Impossible".



  6. #736
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    I added the photo I was unable to do when I first posted #736. The photo was in a different format and I had to start all over after the fact.

    ADD: I just now added to post #734 regarding more BBQ story.



  7. #737
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    In spite of all the rain squalls passing through, and having gotten a couple of the World Championship races completed, we found a bright new sunny day greeting us Sunday morning although with a whole new set of problems. Unlike a prevailing southeast breeze which can whip up to a 30 or forty mile per hour steady stream for twenty hours or more, or the same for a norther which is a colder version coming from the opposite direction, a squall is a confused line of wind and rain that doesn't know which way it wants to go. It can start up suddenly, then just as quickly stop and change direction either with wind, rain or both. It is unusual to have squalls this time of year, but more importantly, they are almost always in the bay or gulf. They are also the exact opposite of the calm we normally experience after several days of incessant wind from the southeast and just before the blow from the north suddenly pounces upon us with a vast wall of wind and a swift drop in temperature.

    The Squally days of Saturday had moved the water hyacinths from all the nooks, cranny's and coves around the race course they had settled in out onto the race course where they drifted aimlessly in patches, but many set anchor in our pits. As pit crews, drivers, and family members drove into Baldy's race course Sunday morning, they found the pits were ten to twenty feet deep in water hyacinths. As more and more teams arrived, they sipped their coffee and finally joined the fray of the others wading into the water and tossing handful after handful onto the shoreline. The tops were light with an aeriated like bulb from which numerous leaved stuck up several inches. They acted like sails for these "water lilies" to move with the wind. The part under water was a mass of roots averaging 6 or 8 inches in length, designed to soak up water and nutrients from the water. The top part you grab to toss weighed nothing. The roots just under the surface were heavy. The best way to get the most distance was to pick up two handfuls and let them drain before trying to toss them way upon the beach. There were too many though and many drivers and pit crew were soaked from both side by other teams slinging the water lilies to shore and in so doing also slinging water all over their neighbors. As I mentioned earlier, Ted May was a hard slinging champion.



  8. #738
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    Ron Hill had told me some years back that Ted told him all about that adventure and fighting the water hyacinths, but Ted had a different name for them. He couldn't quite recall the proper name, although he made sure to tell Ron all about what happened. Ron had planned to come, but he had to be somewhere else at the time Of the people I had called to tell me what they remembered, to a man, they all remembered the water hyacinths foremost and Baldy as well. I had posted two previous posts foretelling the problems with the water hyacinths. Of course we knew that they were going to be a big problem for us on the lower end of the lake where they had been scarce before, but I wrote these paragraphs in advance having the full knowledge of what was going to happen. Maybe sometime I will learn how to pull up previous posts to highlight my forthcoming comment, and if I do I will come back and replace this comment. In the meantime, all I can do is refer anyone interested in what happened the previous year of 1967 to refer back to page no. 42 post # 411 next to last paragraph and post # 469 on page # 48.

    There are a few water hyacinths in the foreground dying, and they wither in the hot sun after losing their water, but you can see how a ten, twenty, fifty foot mass can cause a lot of problems. The ones in this picture were nothing compared to what was in the pits at Baldy's.
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  9. #739
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    With the sun coming out and a lot of humidity in the air, it became oppressive to some. Not to the Seebold's though because I've been in Granite City in the summer with an overcast sky. Nothing is a pressure cooker like that when there's no wind.

    Armand Hebert though was having a tough time with the humidity. Floyd Hopkins had parked his light yellow car (Buick, Ford?) down near our pits and cranked up the air conditioner. Armand sat in Floyd's car until he was needed, then afterwards he was back inside.

    One heat of D hydro I can only remember the start, but it was how the racing was. The NOA D World Championship was decided in Forest Lake. This race was a fill in. The five minute gun fired, and between then and the next two minutes the full field made it onto the race course. While we were milling a huge clump of water hyacinths was slowing moving toward the southeast end of the pits which is where the first turn was. In the final seconds before the start we were all milling at the far end and separating away to pick our lane for the start. We were all looking at the clock. It was a good start, but right after crossing the line we saw a large chunk of water hyacinths hitting the shore and the outlying group swinging around. They were in the process of closing off the path to the first turn. I liked starting on the outside, and what I saw was a hole on the inside closing fast and nowhere for the rest of the field to go. We all backed off except for two or three on the inside.

    They ran through the hole and the rest of us had to back off and go through the last small opening single file. Since I started on the outside, I was the last one to get to the first bouy. We all got points, but there was no championship of any type involved and although I can't remember the outcome of this race, I will never forget the start.



  10. #740
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    Around the middle of the day the wind had complelety died except for a very small breeze. The lake had a small ripple, and the water hyacinths were off the course and everything was clear. Kay Harrison got a good start and was gone. He was chased hard by Jack Marshall and Armand Hebert though. They pushed Kay the whole way. Kay never made a mistake though and finished first. His pace was fast enough for a new one mile course record. Armand Hebert finished a close second followed by Jack Marshall. Jack won the second heat though not as fast as the first. Kay finished third with enough points to win the NOA 1968 C Hydro World Champion trophy. Jack Marshall was second with a 3-1, and Armand Hebert third with a 2-0. Armand forgot about the heat when he was racing, but when it was done, he was back in Floyd Hopkins' car.

    Richard Austin, Ken McMullen, Charlie Redmond and some of the other F hydro top dogs did not come. There was still a good F hydro race though with James Corbett from Lake Charles being the NOA F Hydro Champion and brothers Alex Wetherbee and Tommy Wetherbee from Corpus Christi finishing second and third. Alex had a McDonald cabover with a Merc Quincy deflector, and I'm not sure what Tommy ran.



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