Originally Posted by
Ron Hill
You mention Doc Jones, what a "Mover and Shaker" in Outboard Racing.
Elgin Gates owned the Trading Post in Needles, he could gas weld aluminum. My dad would send him gas tanks from the "Alky" races that had cracked.
Around 1949, Elgin owned an "M" Hydro Jacoby and an "C" Service Evinrude...SOA's (Seattle Outboard Association) logo is Elgin gate's "M" Hydro, today.
Elgin came to my dad and said, "He wanted to run for records at Devil's Lake, Oregon would he rebuild his "M" and "Service C"? My dad went through Elgin's two motors and Elgin broke both records.
Doc Jones offered Elgin a job because his boats were fast. Elgin and his wife, Dolly, came home and sold the Needles Trading Post and moved to I think, Spokane, Washington to work for Doc Jones.
Elgin, had not been there long when Doc came to him and said, "Elgin, I'm selling my Mercury Distributorship and buying the OMC Distributorship. I'm moving to Phoenix, But, they are going to have a Mercury Distributorship open up in California, you should buy it."
Well, the distributorship was going to be $35,000, So Elgin called my dad and a 1/7 partnership in the business for $5,000. My dad counter by saying, "I have the $5,000 but I only have one partner and she'd hard to get along with. But,I will buy $5,000 worth of motors." My dad became dealer #1 in CALIFORNIA, AND HE WAS STILL DEALER #1 when he died, 1997. Mercury would not give the dealership to me, my dad never had a retail business.
DOC Jones, and Charlie Strang were the OMC Race Team in the early days. Doc liked me, and offered me a job. I told him, as an Arizona College graduate, I'd love to live and work in Arizona, but as a teacher I got a draft deferment. Later, I won the lottery and didn't go, but the early days. I thought I'd be a ****ty foot soldier.
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