The Elsinore 500

[Ron Hill]

The first Elsinore 50 was October 8, 1968. My dad and mom owned 22 acres on Rome Hill in Elsinore and all my life, 0-16 the lake had been dry. After graduating college, I started teaching in 1966. In the fall of 1966 I drove for Outboard Marine Corp at Havasu and in 1967 I won Havasu in the "T" Class.

But OMC didn't want to race The Elsinore 500....YET! Here is a picture from the first "500"...Kind of sets the pace of the Inboards Vs. the Outboards in those days!

[Ron Hill]

More pictures....

[fredbear624]

great photo's Ron who is driving the 170 and are there 3 or 4 omc on it what is the history of this boat thanks

[Skoontz]

Looks like 2 Golden Meteors, or GT115 Johnsons. Kind of hard to see if you didn't know the curves of the cover, that one kind of formed the V-4 powerhead with the cover lines. The prettiest one was the Evinrude X-115

[Mark Poole]

I would say two also. Three V-4's from that era with the width of the cowls would require a WIDE boat. Those are Johnsons.

[Ron Hill]

Boat 170 kind of looks like four engines, but it is two GT-115 AKA "FAT FOURS" as I called them until I raced Evinrudes...

Boat 170 is Style Craft Cat..


Here is Speed Marine's Elsinore 500 boat...Maybe Todd Fitschen can tell us will tell us who is driving.

[Ron Hill]

Here is one, I have four..

[Mark Poole]

Ron, did you have to cut out half of "Miss Lake Elsinore" in that scan? Lol!
The half that I can see sure looks good.

[Ron Hill]

My scanner and me aren't getting along worth a dam....

Check this out, the Elsinore 500 queen...

NO wonder I wanted to win this race!!!

[Ron Hill]

Once the Outboards became more than runner ups, the ENDURO CURCUIT changed, forever. The inboard owners were not going to compete with "FACTORY" boats, so the Vic Edlebroc's, Peter Rothchild's and such went Ski Racing, never to really return to Enduro Boat Racing.

As a young man, driving Factory Boats and wrecking their engines, was WAY COOL but 20:20 hindsight, I see that Factory racers KILLED the individual racer.

Billy Don Pruitt was called a "MULLET" by his friends, but his friends liked him. He was a man of men...Pruitt understood the concept of winning!!!