JIMBO McCONNELL.....

[Ron Hill]

I'm starting this thread. Cathy McConnell and I spent about an hour trying to make Cathy's pictures smaller... SAM CULLIS???? WE NEED YOU.

Cathy has promised to post a ton of pictures of JIMBO....

[Mark75H]

I'll temporarily up the image size and resize them after you post them.

(You can always email them to me)

I did it ... monster size pictures should be uploadable right now

[Ron Hill]

This is a picture from Lake Los Angeles. Johnny Puestow, from Wisconsin, went with me to this lake. I convinced them to give us about $2,000 to put on arace there....(They were selling lots like Golden Shores....perfect size for kneeldown races)..

This is Jimbo chine turning a CU or DU...It is 1968, as I'm running my yellow DeSilva with the 30 inch bottom....

This was BEFORE JOHN PUESTOW RUINED RUNABOUT RACING!!!!! The fin on a runabout should be on the bottom where it is supposed to be!

[mercguy]

This is a picture from Lake Los Angeles. Johnny Puestow, from Wisconsin, went with me to this lake. I convinced them to give us about $2,000 to put on arace there....(They were selling lots like Golden Shores....perfect size for kneeldown races)..

This is Jimbo chine turning a CU or DU...It is 1968, as I'm running my yellow DeSilva with the 30 inch bottom....

This was BEFORE JOHN PUESTOW RUINED RUNABOUT RACING!!!!! The fin on a runabout should be on the bottom where it is supposed to be!

looks like he is leaning out to get a drink of water!

[Ron Hill]

When Jimbo was first learning to drive...we'd tell him to watch the water...Hell, he'd look out the side to see if there was any water under him...Looks like he was "Watching the water here." Truth is, Jimbo was a GREAT hydro driver....it was always hard for him to "LAY UP" a runabout with his weight!!!

Jack Leek always liked Jimbo's weight..Jack always said I was too heavy...I'd tell Jack, weight doesn't matter as long as it is on the gas pedal!!!!

[Ted March]

Is not someone I would bet on. Paul Kalb, as well.

Ask Ernie.

[Ron Hill]

If Jimbo and Cathy don't start posting, I'm going to start post some of my JIMBO pictures...See what he wrote on the back...And you all know JIMBO as HUMBLE JIMBO McCONNELL...I know the REAL JIMBO!!!

[Ron Hill]

I'm pretty sure I've posted this picture somewhere else, but I want it posted under Jimbo...

Note Jimbo's knees on his pants, as he had also raced Kneelers that day. This was the weekend that Jimbo tried to kill me in C Stock Hydro... The hydro, that Jimbo is pictures with was Ted May's...The Hydro was basically, a scaled up Sid Craft...I'd talked Jack Leek into sending a motor out for Jimbo to race, in front of his home town crowd...

ADD: We had a four boat wreck in turn two of CSH...Dick Davidson, Edgar Peters, Me and Jimbo...in that order is how the wreck happened....It was all Rod Zapf's (Capnzee) fault, as he was faster than usual, so, we all thought we should be beating him...

Rod jumped out at the start, and took me clear to the shore before he turned, which allowed Edgar Peters and Dick Davidson to get inside us both. So, Davidson in leading into the down river, turn two....Peters on his ***. I can't see crap, as Zapf is trying to run me on the beach.

We get to about where I figure the corner should be, and I decide to go inside Zapf, something I USUALLY NEVER DO....AS I come through the spray, Davidson has spun and Peters has hit him and I dive for the outside, but the river's current takes them right into my path...I T-Bone Edgar's motor, and barrel roll.

Jimbo, without me knowing it, decided to follow me...Hell, he figures, if Ronnie can go there so can I...By the time he realizes I've wrecked, he runs over me...Tears the hell out of my Sid Craft and hit me in the shoulder and rips my life jacket to pieces...

Jimbo and I are floating in the water he said, "He's hurt bad, because his jack it ripped....". Hell, I help him in the patrol boat, his jacket is fine, mine is ripped off where he hit me. My shoulder has a grapefruit on it where he hit...I'm the one hurt and I'm helping him!!!!

Zapf wins the heat and runs out of gas...He floats backward down the river and hooks his prop and lower unit on the starting bouy's rope, and his boat sinks in the river....See I told Rod, then, as I do now...GOD GOT EVEN WITH YOU for pushing me out in the first turn...

So, we lived to race another day....and we weren't much more careful as Zapf and I proved at Wiest Lake the next month...

Last ADD; Jimbo, like me always ran open faced helmets, as we liked to see where we had been and where we were going. Jimbo wore a bubble and wore a shield....

[Ron Hill]

Monty Gibson and I headed for Needles, Christmas, 1960...My COOL 53 Chevy, did like Jake Placek's car did (You know why Jake didn't go to DePue?? Don't you??...His car took a Sh&t!!!).... Same thing happened to my '53...Right there in the desert...took a sh&t...

We didn't let a little car trouble spoil our fun, though...Here Ernie Dawe, Ruben Dawe, Jimbo and me are "TESTING" in Needles...We were working on JIMBO'S BU boat bottom, so he put his motor on my CU, and we turned his boat, 999-C over..He called it JIMBO, but I think the boat's real name was the Pearly Gates....as Ivan Brower had built the Pearly Gates (BU for Elgin Gates) the the "CRUTCH" (DU) for Ronnie Rima. Ivan Brower had been hurt on the job, and was "HURT" while he built the boats...and was on crutches... Both boats had unique bottoms, both had formica glued to the plywood...like a kitchen counter..

Rima won the Needles Marathon in "The Crutch"...Jimbo later won the marathon, 1963, in BU with the "Pearly Gates"...
Jimbo always had "JIMBO" in big letters....

TRhis was the same trip that I painted Jimbo's Indian Motorcycle white...The whole motorcycle white...No real reason, just thought it would look better!!!!

[Ron Hill]

This is Jimbo driving Miss Carrot Top. If you ever read Playboy, and happened to look at the JOKE PAGE, you might have notice a young lady wearing nothing but hose and high heels....Pay May, in her younger days, (Ted's wife) was know as Miss Carrot Top. She also modeled hose....She was the original model for Playboy. If someone has access to 1960 Playboy magazines, I'd love to see the original article about MISS CARROT TOP....

I saw the article once, it didn't mention Miss Carrot Top, but she was pictured in her...her 1960 Lincoln Continental...That was the car that Ted had to give his wife a $250 deposit, before she's loan it to him to go to the races...

Well, I might be wrong here...Maybe, Pat was with her 1959 Buick...all tuck and rolled... It could have been in a 1959 Palyboy article....

Anyway, bottom line was...Ted's wife was a SERIOUS LOOKER......And Ted hand painted her picture on many of his boats....she posed as a live model....

Cathy McConnell e-mailed me this picture, I took all day trying to post it...Finally, I took a picture of it from the e-mail...