1970 PRO Nationals

[racingfan1]

Here are some pages from the 1970 PRO Nationals on Lake DePue. I would like to thank Jerry Peterson , X-12 , for suppling me with the 1970 program and completing my collecting of programs from the 39 nationals and 2 USTS races held at DePue. Thanks to all !!!!!!!

[racingfan1]

Here are the race results from the 1970 Nationals , the race recap from Propeller magazine and another race recap that if from Tim Chances' magazine Hydroplane Quarterly. I would like to thank RC Hawie for providing me the Propeller magazine and Tim for allowing me use his article.

[racingfan1]

The following story was sent to me by Wayne Baldwin. It is story about the 1970 Nationals that appeared in a book titles This Sporting Life , This Sporting Death written by John Kiely. I would like to thank Wayne for sending it to me to add to the 1970 race history. Maybe Wayne can add a little more on the history of the book.

[racingfan1]

Here the rest of the story.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We did not have good luck at that race Dale, but an abundance of stories come out of it. One of them was meeting Author John Kiely. He traveled all across the U.S. to get stories and pictures for his book, I'm guessing from 1970 through 1972. He covered 9 sports. Motocross, Rodeo, Aerobatics, Parachuting, Karting, Polo, Powerboat, Wild Water and Grand Prix (Watkins Glen).

I'm not sure how we ended up hanging out with John except the fact that there were not many racers at DePue in his own age group or with longish hair and mustache. Malcolm Harden had just started racing, but he did not have long hair. Denny Henderson and Craig and Ashley Lawrence had not started doing the national circuit, and I had not met Alan Ishii yet, and I'm not sure if he was there. And Joe Rome wasn't there nor pitting with us yet. In any case, my brother Mark, pit man Bud Turcotte and I hit it off with John Kiely on Wednesday night in the pits after we were settled in. He was wandering by, found out we were from Texas. and we spent the weekend with him when he wasn't taking pictures and questioning boat racers. I had wondered every now and then what happened to him and his book, then sometime in the mid seventies Charlotte Queen wrote to me and said that John had published his book in 1973 and could get her hands on some. She asked if I was interested and I jumped on the chance and bought six.

If somebody doesn't identify the boats and drivers, I will do it later.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The small picture on the cover as well as the first photo in the chapter on page 107 is Dan Kirts on the outside and Fred Hauenstein on the inside in DOH. It could be the second heat, as written in Tim Chance's story, Fred led down the backstraight followed by Dan who shortly got around Fred to go on and win the heat and championship.