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Thread: Ted May Boat Racer, Mentor to Many!

  1. #31
    Team Member russhill's Avatar
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    Default Ted's First Real Race

    My memory is imperfect, but hopefully anyone who knows the difference is dead. Ron had mentioned above about the "Mercury Maniacs" and how they sort of acted like rodeo clowns between events, when we raced in the "Speedboat Rodeo" on live (not taped) television for 39 consecutive Sundays between 1 and 3 in late 1955 and early 56.

    By June the TV was over so Ted decided to race. He had legitimate A and/or B engines but only his own little fiberglass Mercury Maniac "Pumpkinseed" boats--without fins.

    At the Drivers' Meeting at a Long Beach, Tommy Ingalls (My then boat racing hero) said those boats without fins were unsafe. Tommy wasn't racing in the classes Ted wanted to race, but he said they were unsafe, so I jumped on his bandwagon and told Ted, you can't race those boats with fins.

    Ted said, "You shut up or I'll climb your Frame." Well, Ted's was not very tall, and I was about 6’5’’ then and I crossed my arms and got into his face and said, "Be my guest, then we'll put fins on those boats."

    Let me say right here that of all the stupid thing I've ever said, and I've said a lot. Ted could have killed me right then and there and I'd never know what hit me.

    After that Ted and I became super friends and to the best of my memory never had and argument. I always loved the guy.

  2. #32
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default The Guy's Name was Paul Drake...

    Margarite Woods.....That's, Mrs. Barry Woods, mentioned Ted May and Paul (Drake) being the original Odd Couple....She is so right...I once drove to Miami with these two and came within an inch of my life of going crazy....I did NOT ride back with them even though they were in my car. I rode to Waukegan with Rich McKinley....

    Maragrite, what's funny, you've never met my brother, but my brother owns telescopes on the Seal Beach pier...Paul Drake rides his bike everyday in Seal Beach and has since the 1960's...my brother still sees Paul now and then, in fact, the last time I ate dinner with my brother and his wife, in Seal Beach, Russ parked the car, and when he came into Walt's Wharf...He said, "Was that Paul Drake on his bike when you guys got out of the car?" I guess Paul is still around....

    You got me thinking about Ted May stories....

    Seems I recall the last race Ted took his '55 T-Bird to... I think it was March of 1969. The 9 Hour was always the first week of March, but they usually scheduled a KNEELDOWN race, at Parker about two weeks later...

    I knew there wouldn't be C, D or F Runabout and probably no D or F hydro, and I didn't have a girl friend that liked boat races, and I'd worn out all my other friends at the NINE HOUR two weeks earlier...

    So, it seems, I had Dave Mayer's OLD SID CRAFT A-B hydro that I'd borrowed about a year earlier, so I threw the Sid on top of the car, put my C an D Merc in '68 wagon, and headed for Parker, Friday afternoon...by myself.

    Seems, at the Enduro, OMC paid for a nice motel, but on my budget, I slept in my wagon, Friday and Saturday night. Seems I ran B, C and D Stock hydro...(Dave Mayer had a load of boats in those days, and two good RUSS HIIL 20-H's. So, I borrowed one of Dave's 20-H's. I bet him a case of beer I'd beat him...and race B Hydro...I wrote this before, but I never bought Dave a beer from our bets...)...

    I ran C ALKY hydro with my C Stock and recall beating Ted May running his 20-H with a kit, because I could hear him over the noise of my 30-H...And I drove like a wildman but never looked back, and Ted was afraid to pass me becasue I kept blocking him...

    Anyway, I was driving home, having raced two days, and four classes each day, ,48 laps a of kneeldown racing...Sleeping in my car.....Going home without a trailer, sleeping in my own bed and going to work on Monday seemed like a great idea...I was crusing at about 80, when the traffic slowed to about 30...

    I'm going up Chiroaco Summit just before Indio....There is some much white smoke, everyone is going about 30 miles an hour, it looks like FOG or a WILD FIRE........Just about the summit, I pass this "SMOKE BOMB"....I break through this cloud of white smoke and realize my windshield has an oil film on it....I look again and see this T-Bird with three boats on the trailer blowing smoke out of both exhaust pipes....

    I figure, FLOOR IT, if I make EYE CONTACT with Ted, he'll want me to pull those damn boats home...When I saw Ted later in the week...He said, "He'd broke a rocker or something, and decided that putting about ten gallons of outboard fuel would be good...So, two quarts of oil to five gallons of gas, push pumping oil from the crank case...Ted said he added 10 quarts getting home...but you never know if that was Ted May numbers...

    It just was a funny sight seeing all that smoke, Ted sitting there with both hands on the wheel, as if he was going 80.......I don't think Ted ever ran KNEELDOWNERS again...He bought a Ford Ranchero, but only ran OPC after that....Later, when he worked for Nordskog, he helped Don Johnson and the Nordskog grand kids build some boats....for kneeldown racing...But this was Ted's last kneeldown race......The trip that finished off the T-Bird...

  3. #33
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Ted May Would Cheat If...

    Ted would cheat if he knew he'd get away with it. He's found this Francisco fuel called "Spunk"...He didn't know what it was, but did know that if he put it in his Go-Kart, his kart would go like hell until it threw a rod...

    During this ear of Ted's life, he was very close to Champion Spark Plug Company employees, Dick Jones and Bobby Strallman... Ted call Bobby, Bobby Stallman. They gave Ted thousands of spark plugs...

    About this time, I noticed that Ted would get out front, real fast, and by the fourth or fifth lap, he'd sometimes "FADE" to third or fourth....I also noticed that his plugs that he FREQUENTLY CHANGED BETWEEN heats would be WHITE...and melted...Now, I'd raced stocks for years and never melted a plug...

    At about this time, Ted started always voting for THREE LAP heats...Saying he ran A, B and D Hydro and got "tired" running five laps....After one weekend, where Ted won three firsts, with three lap heats..."WE" decided that the rest of the season would be five lap heats...

    I think Ted took the "HINT" as he didn't BITCH.....and he quit burning up plugs....No real proof that he ran "SPUNK" in his race boat...but I do know that when JIMBO and I were driving his Go-Kart, we "FOUND" some "Spunk" in the garage, and we didn't make a lap before we broke a rod...Ted asked us if we'd put "SKUNK" in his kart...We said, "No"... He said, "Hmm, damn thing never throw a rod unless you put "Spunk" in it...

    As Maragrite said, "The boys loved Ted becasue he was just a boy himself..."
    Last edited by Ron Hill; 11-30-2016 at 02:24 PM.

  4. #34
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    Default

    I remember stories about Orphy...in fact I even met Orphy once in Ted's Fountain Valley house - it was a walled house (wall around the perimeter of the property which hid house - grass inside wall) which made keeping a mountain lion a little more possible in a subdivision. Orphy seemed to have the run of the house when the gate to the living room was open. We were trying to eat in the dining room and Orphy was running around - including under the table. i was wondering if Orphy knew the difference from meat to eat and my leg. Sort of nerve wracking! Ted told a story about one time when Orphy got outside - I guess Ted wasn't much of a gardner and the grass was really high. Ted was wandering through the high grass like someone in a jungle and whispering "Orphy? Orphy?" trying to find him and coax him back inside. LOL....

    I suppose you know all about this but I remember hearing stories about cherry bombs and motel toilets...and the toilets in the next room blowing up. LOL...or was that Charlie Strang??

    People wondered how I could handle him living with us for so long but I actually didn't mind because he was fun...it was always something offbeat and surprising when he was around.
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  5. #35
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default I Met Ted in 1954

    I met Ted in 1954. He usually wore Levi's and both front pockets would be worn out from carrying so much cash. He didn't work. He played with his boats and played the horses...

    He said while he was in the Navy, he worked Shore Patrol and would sell watches and stuff off the ship...like the sinks, toilets, sheets, and whatever else he could find laying around... He bragged that he sent home cigar boxes full of hundred dollar bills when he was in the Navy. He had pictures that he took after major invasions on various islands. He said he helped bury thousands.... It was freuently hard to tell when Ted was telling the truth or not, but no one cared...He went to all the races and he didn't work...So what???

    After that Long Beach race where Ted told my brother "He was going to climb his frame."...Ted bought some Mishey boats and quit making the Pumpkinseed glass boats...but he started making wood copies of Mishey boats...He was quite a craftsman....

    Around 1962....He got into some kind of trouble, late at night, we never really knew what happened but Ted got shot twice, once in the back and once through the top of his shoulder...Nearly killed him...He was shot by a private security guard....There were all kinds of charges against Ted...

    That is when we learned , in court, that he'd played for the Navy. Quarter backed the U.S. Navy's team after the war...Anyway, with him not having a job, his lawyers suggested he get a job. So, my dad hired him. My dad had to go to court and say what a good worker Ted was.....


    Problem was, Ted only worked when I worked and I went to summer school until 11:00 everyday... My old man would get mad at Ted, and Ted would say well Ronnie doesn't get here until 11:30, why do I have to get here....?

    My dad contraced to tear down this five car garage...First thing, Ted starts to pull nails with my dad's hammer...My dad tell him to use the steel handleded hammer...Well, I get to work, and Ted has DUCT tape of the hammer...Ted says he put it on so the hammer won't break...

    After about two days, my dad says, "Hey, I'll give you guys $2,000 to tear that garage down and haul it off..." $2,000 is a ton of money....We end up pulling the garage down with his T-Bird, there a '56 Chevy in the garage. We just tow it around the corner and leave it...In less than four days, we carried that garage off...

    My old man paid us off...and neither Ted nor I worked the rest of the summer...Ted got off probation.....and didn't work again until 1970 (8 years later)..when Bob Nordskog hired him...In 1970, Ted didn't have a social security card....

  6. #36
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    Default Ted Did Have a SS Card

    After he left Nordskog, Ted worked here for a couple of years before going to Guy Laurendeaux's Aircraft seat company. He would design and functional test seats for commercial aircraft there. I am pleased to say that we still have Ted May built garage doors on the shop. Ted was a friend to everyone in boat racing. Also have a 20H conversion that we bought from Paul Drake. Great to hear Paul is in good health and riding his bike. Paul was a certified Aircraft mechanic for many years at Douglas before also working for Nordskog. A very good B Stock Hydro driver and fluent in the French language. There never will be anyone to have more fun in a boat than the "Mercury Maniac," Ted May. Hope we can again see him Ron.

  7. #37
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Provo 250 1971

    This is from Powerboat Magazine, October 1971... Provo 250... Mentions Ted May....Here is a pictures of Barry Woods, Freddy's dad, Fred Hauenstein, Sr., and Freddy Hauenstein.... Margarite, was this about the time Ted was living with you and Barry....???

    Talk about Ted and eating... When the Good Humor Man came by with Ice Cream, Ted always stopped him and basically bought ice cream for any kids that lined up. I don't think Ted grew up having much money , if he had any. His parents moved here from Poland and times were tuff when he was a KID...He stayed a KID forever....at least in his heart...

    He had these STUPID ducks...Someone told him DAY OLD bread was good for ducks....So, he bought day old bread. One day, the Helm Bakery truck didn't have any (Stale) Day Old bread....Ted said, "What the hell, ducks won't know it isn't stale..." (You fed day old bread to ducks to save money, it was cheaper...But Ted never worried about money....He usually had some...

    AD: Can you believe that HAIR DO on Fredddy Hauenstein???
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    Yes, Ted could easily have been living with us in 1971 - all the way up to 1975 when we moved to Portland. He didn't live with us continually, he would come and go but would stay for months at a time. I believe this started in 1969.
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  9. #39
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    Ron,
    I was one of the "neighborhood kids that Ted took to the races. I went to Teds house on Shipway one day after school with Butch and did not leave for three years. That afternon I was in their back yard in a boat on saw horses and Ted was traching me how to drive. The first race I was in was the Colorado river marathon in a A stock Gates runabout. Ted, and Pat were such wonderful people, they treated me and some other "strays" as part of their family. I learded a great deal from Ted that has stayed with me.

    PS: That damn cougar Orphie ate my favorite jacket.

  10. #40
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    Default Ted May Signature Edition Fire Extinguisher

    After hearing the story from Ron, Ted was asked to display the fire extinguisher in the "Hell Cat...What do ya supposed he called his fire extinguisher??

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