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Thread: Ted May Boat Racer, Mentor to Many!

  1. #61
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default To Know Ted Was To Love Him

    Ted's wife, Pat, could cause a traffic jam just by walking across the street. She was a RED HEAD, and Dolly Parton would have been jealous of Pat's overall figure.

    Pat never seemed to work, but when we first met Ted, neither did Ted. So working wasn't in their schedule.

    Pat threw some great parties, and one huge one about 1960. She rented a HIGH CLASS restaurant and had steaks for everyone.

    Around this time, Pat told me she modeled "Gloves and Hose". Me, being an 18 year old kid, thought this seemed like a good job.

    While reading Playboy one day, I saw Pat May in her 1959, BROWN BUICK. There was an article about Pat. She was the ORIGINAL model for the lady who wore GLOVES and HOSE on the Joke Page of Playboy.

    I remember the article as if it was yesterday. As Pat had this '59 Buick, brown with CUSTOM Tijuana Tuck and Roll seats.

    Pat loved that Buick and charged Ted, $250 to use it to go to the boat races. She "RENTED" her car to her husband. Ted took the Buick to Guntersville, Alabama, 1961, and Pat charge him a $250 cleaning deposit.

    Anyway, over the years, I have looked "High and Low" for this article that would have been about 1960. I've looked on E-bay, no luck. Last week at a swap meet, I saw an August 1960 Playboat with this model on the front. But no mention of who played the part.

    As I recall, the article never mentioned Pat May by name, may be some of you out there have a 1960-62 collection of Playboy's that would help me solve the mystery.

    ADD:

    Pat was a Red Head, but she has this black wig, just like the Playboy model.
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    Last edited by Ron Hill; 06-02-2012 at 07:36 PM.

  2. #62
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Truth IS...

    Californian's are smarter than MID-Worsters. We have close to 12 months a year to play with stuff, so we work "SMART", so we have more time to play.


    In all the years you guys came to Parker and Havasu, Ted never brought Pat. Pat actually divorced Ted about July 4th 1962.

    Ted went to a race in Lodi and torn the transom out of his Swift D Hydro, and actually broke his tail bone in the wreck. Pat had gone somewhere for a "FILM SHOOT" and was out of town.

    Ted had never built a boat yet, but decided to take his Swift apart piece by piece. Well, Ted had this D Hydro starting with where the transom was to the bow handle scattered down the side walk. Ted was copying each old piece making a new one ....Pat came home to her NICE HOME, IN A NICE NEIGHBORHOOD, in her new Lincoln Continental and what does she see??? Boat parts all over the front sidewalk, table saw in the front yard....Boat trailers with boats all over it, motors laying in the driveway...She filed for DIVORCE the next day.
    Last edited by Ron Hill; 11-27-2018 at 05:37 PM.

  3. #63
    Team Member racnbns's Avatar
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    Default Californians

    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Hill View Post
    Californian's are smarter than MID-Worsters. We have close to 12 months a year to play with stuff, so we work "SMART", so we have more time to play.


    In all the years you guys came to Parker and Havasu, Ted never brought Pat. Pat actually divorced Ted about July 4th 1962.

    Ted went to a race in Lodi and torn the transom out of his Swift D Hydro, and actually broke his tail bone in the wreck. Pat had gone somewhere for a "FILM SHOOT" and was out of town.

    Ted had never built a boat yet, but decided to take his Swift apart piece by piece. Well, Ted had this D Hydro starting with where the transom was to the bow handle scattered down the side walk. Ted was copying each old piece making a new one ....Pat came home to her NICE HOME, IN A NICE NEIGHBORHOOD, in her new Lincoln Continental and what does she see??? Boat parts all over the front sidewalk, table saw in the front yard....Boat trailers with boats all over it, motors laying in the driveway...She filed for DIVORCE the next day.
    Ron--

    How come it takes you guys 12 months to do what we get done in 3 months? If it wasn't for us mid-worsters [MOUSE, SUGAR RAY AND BRUCE] you guys would have never got off the beach at Parker and Havasu! Just Kidding and you know it.

    I remember the year we had a free weekend and we came up to Needles to watch a REAL boat race. Ted had a D stock hydro with a picture of a porpoise painted on the bottom. He would come off the beach with the boat pointed to the moon and wave the porpoise at the crowd. What a guy, not only a hell of a boat racer but a real showman.

    Leeky Jack[SLIP] had that Switzer wing we pounded the bottom out of[OMC trailer] and decided it wasn't worth keeping so he gave it to Ted. Ted repaired it and ran at Parker and darn near won, was 2nd I think. Not sure if he ran our stuff or Mercury but it wouldn't matter cause Ted would make it work.

    Bruce

  4. #64
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Pancho Gonzales: Tennis Player

    Amateur

    Gonzales was given a 51-cent racquet by his mother when he was 12 years old. He received tennis analysis from his friend, Chuck Pate, but mostly taught himself to play by watching other players on the public courts at nearby Exposition Park in Los Angeles. Once he discovered tennis, he lost interest in school and began a troubled adolescence in which he was occasionally pursued by truant officers and policemen. He was befriended by Frank Poulain, the owner of the tennis shop at Exposition Park, and sometimes slept there.[3]


    Ted grew up around Exposition Park. Ted took credit for Poncho becoming a tennis player.
    Last edited by Ron Hill; 08-03-2013 at 06:10 PM.

  5. #65
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Back to the Ted May Story

    Well, after Pat filed for divorce, Ted was looking to rent a tent and a six car garage. After the divorce was final, Pat had convinced the judge that Ted had no job, no skills and that she should be appointed his "Guardian".

    So, as Ted's "Guardian" she let Ted live with her.

    About this time they started Lion Country Safari in Irvine. Lion Country hired Pat to walk around with the Lions wearing a lion cloth, and little more. Pat was a great looker and the Lions loved her. And so did the tourist.

    Pat rode on the Lion Country Safari Float in the 1973 Strawberry Festival Parade in Garden Grove, she and about six lions were on the float.

    It was while she was working at Lion Country that the bought the new BIG house in Fountain Valley and this is when Pat brought Orphie home to raise. Orphie grew fast! He ate a 150 baby chickens a day.
    Last edited by Ron Hill; 08-03-2013 at 06:12 PM.

  6. #66
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    Default Teds Navy Picture

    Sorry...the quality sucks...I gotta work on scanning all these pictures in. But I love this picture and it is displayed proudly on a picture of the Port Of Long Beach/Navy Base where we spent most of our time together with Steve Cox and his two daughters Amanda and Laura.
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  7. #67
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Pat May, Ted May's Wife Passed Away Recently

    Quote Originally Posted by Ron Hill View Post
    Well, after Pat filed for divorce, Ted was looking to rent a tent and a six car garage. After the divorce was final, Pat had convinced the judge that Ted had no job, no skills and that she should be appointed his "Guardian".

    So, as Ted's "Guardian" she let Ted live with her.

    About this time they started Lion Country Safari in Irvine. Lion Country hired Pat to walk around with the Lions wearing a lion cloth, and little more. Pat was a great looker and the Lions loved her. And so did the tourist.

    Pat rode on the Lion Country Safari Float in the 1973 Strawberry Festival Parade in Garden Grove, she and about six lions were on the float.

    It was while she was working at Lion Country that the bought the new BIG house in Fountain Valley and this is when Pat brought Orphie home to raise. Orphie grew fast! He ate a 150 baby chickens a day.
    In and around 1955, Ted May built some fiber glass boats that he called "PUMPKIN SEEDS" they were about 8 feet long, no fins on the bottom and the were round bottoms. When were stater racing of KTLA-TV in the winter of 1955, Ted had about four of these "PUMPKIN SEEDS". They would go side ways as fast as they'd go straight. Between heats Ted and "CREW" would race around Lake Los Angeles somewhat like rodeo clowns do at rodeos.

    One of the boats was called "MISS CARROT TOP". Mermaid bottom, orange hair and topless woman was painte of this boat. BPat may "Miss Carrot Top" drove this boat. Ted had played football for the Navy's team after WWII, the last war we won. As a result he had more football helmets, pants and jersies....(I'm sur th Navy never missed them). Pat would drive one of these "PUMPKIN SEEDS" with an orange ponytail sticking out of the helmet.....Sometimes, Bobby (May), Herbie or Cliffy Ham would be wearing the helmet witht he ponytail.

    Dick Lane from KTLA-TV called them the "Mercury Maniacs" as Mercury was one of the sponsors fo the TV series (39 weeks of boat racing). Ted would pour gasoline on the water and then light it. He'd drive through the fire....the croud loved "The Mercury Maniacs".

    In the old days we said a women was "Stacked" if she was well endowed. Well, Pat had been the original model for Playboy Magazine's joke page. She always said she models "Hoses ans gloves". If you ever saw the mannequin of the Joke Page", that was Pat May with the black hose, black gloves and black hair (Wig). Good she was good looking.

    As time passed Ted and Pat lived together though divorced. I have lookeed for the issue of Playboy magazine that featured her, around 1959....but have not found it, though I remember reading it as it had Pat's 1959 Buick in the article. She charged Ted $150 deposit to borrow her car to go to the boat races. He wenet to Guntersville, Alabama in 1961 and 1962 with that Buick. He was on the road for almost three weks, living out of that car. He took Butch May, Bobby May, Herbie and Danny Anderson with him....

    Ted never really had a job.....he just kind of "GOT BY"....

    Hard to hear that Pat is gone.....

  8. #68
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Wayne Baldwin's Picture of Ted May

    This is Ted driving Bob Nordskog KT, a "HIGH RIDER" Molinari, glass boat. I'm not sure the year, maybe 1980.
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  9. #69
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Clear Lake, Texas 1975

    This picture answered the time line I was asking about. This is L-R: Bob Witt, Billy Seebold, Ted May and Johnnie Sanders. Wayne Baldwin photo. Seebold 190, Sanders in 196!
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  10. #70
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Bob Nordskog "FLYING IT" TO Stay Ahead of Ted May

    Clear Lake 1975, Wayne Baldwin photo of Bob Nordskog's IT, before they called them KT's.
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