Thread: Ron Hill Family: Hill Marine and Signature Propellers

  1. #81
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Havasu 1969

    Found this old picture of my twin engine Hallett...This wa a four point hydro, the bottom was sheeted with aluminum...The next spring, Dewey Berghauer and I almost won the Parker 9 Hour with this boat, we lost by a foot.....in 9 hours...
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    Last edited by Ron Hill; 02-06-2007 at 12:11 PM.

  2. #82
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Olin Griswold Was An Only Child

    Olin Griswold's parents owned the Dr. Pepper, Diet Rite, RC, 7 Up and Nesbitts cola company in Needles, California. Needles, is cold in the in the winter and Very hot in the summers...And there fore, they didn't need employees in the winter, but in the summer they were busy. I worked for them in the summer....Never quite on pay roll, but I never went hungry....

    Grizz and me always just got along....He was a "RICH" kid and I could HUSTLE the women...we worked well together. We'd go into a bar, and order a case of beer... Coors, in bottles, and tell them to open them.....when the bar tender, brought us only one case, we'd bitch and ask were our other case was....

    I managed to keep Grizz out of trouble a lot, though we weighed 500 pounds between us...Grizz was called The NEEDLES PLAYBOY as he wore $200 Boogaloosa shoes when I wore $3.00 a pair Top Siders....

    I hung out in Needles in the Summers for several reasons, one was that Janice Daniel lived there, but there were also other women always around. Grizz and me (I) actually spent many nights in Vegas, as he had connections with 7 Up and Dr. Pepper....

    Well, every other Wednesday, we went to LA to pick up a semi truck load of canned POP...at Artesia and the Five Freeway... Well Tiger boats was right near there...

    We got this plan, kind of like Johnny Cash's plan to get a Cadillac, you know, one piece at a time....Well, first we loaded a trailier on the semi... Two weeks later we got the hull...by the end of the SUMMER we had us a TIGER V-Drive...Preperation H, Powered by Hemi Roids was her name...Green Metal Flake...Nasty, but COOL!

    Problem was, Grizz didn't want his dad to know he owned it, so he called it Ron's boat...And I didn't want my dad to think I'd bought an INBOARD, so I called it Grizz's boat....for about four years, no one owned the boat...

    We had a Nail Head Buick in her and we enjoyed the hell out of TERRORING the river....here's add for TIGER boats...
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    Last edited by Ron Hill; 11-10-2013 at 05:44 PM.

  3. #83
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    Default Mr. Hill

    My son and I are looking in the old scrap books and I found this one. Ron must have been a wild man.
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    THIBODAUX RACING... Timmy Thibodaux

  4. #84
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Bunker is Like A Son, But He's A Neph...

    Hey, Bunker's my nephew....Forgot he was born in 1963, same year as the Boston Nationals....

    What do you mean saying Ron Hill was a WILD MAN??? He still is as far as I know. I was tied at the end of the first day with that boat. and I had a three hour fuel load when the other TOP DOGS had two....Throttle cable broke the next day.....while running near the front...

    I loved MOD VP....


    He is a picture of Bunker taking his ROOKIE CROSS off his helmet....A proud day when you think about it....

    At the 1977 Nationals Bunker was running an old boat, as he hadn't raced much. He came close to qualifying for the finals. Old Man (Harold) Berghauer asked Bunker in the inspection area if his Uncle had made the prop???? Think think just making conversation, as harold knew Bunker hadn't qualified...Bunker replied, "No, my uncle bought this one from Andy Hansen." Harold just looked at Bunker....

    Bunker went from 90 pounds one year, to 275 a few years later....we didn't have a lot of time to fool with A Wheels.....
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  5. #85
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Life Changes When You Have Children....

    I joke about being a "WILD MAN"....When Bunker went to Flagstaff, to Northern Arizona University, he was a Sigma Chi like myself....The difference in their meeting was that they'd read the minutes from our meeting 20 years before and ask themselves, "How could this stuff be true??" Times change...

    Chad wasn't very Social when he was young. He'd go to school....and come home and work in the garage.... When he as about 14 he build this "CAR" from parts laying around. I thought it was quite cool he was building a car, figuring he'd never get it running.....

    One day, I come around the corner,and here are my two boys going about 40 right at me.....Both boys have a smile you'd could see for a mile....After they got the damn thing stopped....and I cooled down to about 500 degrees, I explained the CAR WAS "BEACHED"......No more SPEED RUNS on our street...I told them I'd just seen my life "FLASH" before me.....

    Note the "BRAKE"....And sponsor stickers...
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  6. #86
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Scotti at Parker...

    I frequently ran Parker without a Co-Driver....I'd tell my dad to get me a good driver who had broken down....Once Ted May started working for Nordskog, he would drive one of Bob's KT (Inboard Tunnel), but Ted would be out of the race by about two hours..... I'd come by the pits, and when my dad gave me the OK to stop, for a Co-Driver, I'd stop... This old pictures looks like the time, Ted was still running and I had to go to the BATHROOM......I'm like saying..."HELP ME"....Don't you understand I've got to GO???? About two laps later I come by and Ted is standing on the beach in his jacket and helmet carrying his pillow to put behind him so he could reach the gas pedal....I paid Ted by the hour for driving with me...In all the races I ever drove with Ted, he NEVER failed to return my boat in running condition.....

    Ted use to pull his boats with a '55 T-Bird, one time, he was kind of stuck down, at Tin Can Beach, (As the tide was coming in) so he had me turn the Bird around...I backed into the CLAY bank, and plugged up his exhaust pipes...(Not knowing this of course)... The clay kind of baked in the exhaust tips and when Ted fired up that BIRD he blew his GLASS PACKS out....He was mad at me for about a year...

    Ted was known to have a BAD TEMPER....When he was on "THE WAR PATH" as he called it, we learned to give him space...
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    Last edited by Ron Hill; 10-09-2023 at 12:22 PM.

  7. #87
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Four Blade Prop...

    I've been hyperactive all my life...which has driven many people crazy...but my son, Chad, was hyperactive and I realized he came by it naturally...

    We'd go to Needles and he'd knee ski for 40 miles and then want to do it again...When I ran a three blade, the damn boat would go on plane, then he'd give me the thumbs down, so. I'd slow....Then, the boat would fall off plane and he'd give me the thumb's up....I hated to be a frigging grouch but it was on the throttle , off the throttle..on the throttle...I could never relax.....

    So, I set out to make a prop that would just CRUISE....I made a four blade...Didn't need to screw with the trim, didn'nt need to mess with the throittle...just cruise and let the kid kneeboard ski...40 miles if he wanted to...

    I sell that same four blade and five blade today on E-Bay....We call themPleasure 4's and 5's.
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    Last edited by Ron Hill; 01-02-2024 at 04:59 PM.

  8. #88
    Administrator Ron Hill's Avatar
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    Default Boat Racing Needs One Design...

    A local bank sponored a "Kart Race".... Well with the help of Steve Wilson, Jeff Wilson....maybe Brian Wilson... Ben Ellerman, and myself....we kind of took all the trophies...

    But when your kid wins...He wants to race a gain...Every sport has an ENTRY LEVEL event...Boat Racing needs a ONE DESIGN...

    Here is Chad hill getting ready to win the FINAL in the Irvine Bank's Kart Race....(Grandpa Hill made us a special oil of graphite and karosene)... We were fast...
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    Last edited by Ron Hill; 10-09-2023 at 12:23 PM.

  9. #89
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    Default Valleyfield, 1967

    Found these two pictures....I thought the color picture might have been taken by Jeff Lytle's dad....But I see the spelling is different...

    After I left Valleyfield, I raced DePue, Chicago to Milwaukee to Chicago Marathon, OPC Nationals at Canton, Ohio (Before there was a Pro Football Hall of Fame) and then the Stock Nationals in Essex, Maryland....Drove home from Essex, caught an airplane for New York to run the Hudson River Marathon...
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  10. #90
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    Default D Runabout, Dayton, Ohio 1975

    Inside is Don Brunjies, Ernie Dawe (Who won), Dick Lovelace, Don Hagerl (I think in Don Voisin's DeSilva) and 19-C is Ron Hill.
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    Last edited by Ron Hill; 11-07-2018 at 07:27 PM.

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