Cat morph to Tunnel

**Ron Hill** · 12-31-2004

The pictures says Claude Rasini and his brother Enrico win with a 125 HP Merc...

What year did the 125 come out? 1966???

I never met either of these two Rasinis...I knew Carlo, the older Rasini......and his BEAUTIFUL daughter....not sure their body guards ever allowed me to find out her name...

**Ron Hill** · 12-31-2004

This maybe 1967, as the early tunnels looked like "SLEDS"...

**Mark75H** · 12-31-2004

The 125 came out in 1968

**Ron Hill** · 12-31-2004

In '68 Renato won...with a red Molinari..."high rider" with the full cowling behind the driver...

OMC ran Schultz Boats...Four boats Ted May and I ran one Evinrude and Denny and Dewey Berghauer drove the other Evinrude... Tom and Mac McCune drove one Johnson and Dieter Schultz and another guy drove Dieter...The famous Charlie Strang phot of Paris....with Ted May standing on end....right behind him, Dieter's Co_driver nosed dove...

Denny hit the bouy by the pit turn...didn't realize there was a current...and then sank...Ted and I ran second all day, but late in the raced I went inside a river barge and we lost a lps to the McCunes, who ended second and us third...OMC didn't wish to argue with the French...as it was still OMC 2nd and 3rd.

That 67 number on the Rasini photo leaves me to believe it is 1967...

**Mark75H** · 12-31-2004

Still sounds OK. What time of year is the Paris race run?

**Ron Hill** · 12-31-2004

Usually, the first weekend in October, except, 1973, it was on October 8th, my daughter's birthday....I didn't race, I was in California, helping deliver...

See, if Dieter raced the 1966 Paris Six Hour, air freighted his boat parts to Sid Craft's shop....after Paris....Havasu was always Thanksgiving...Dieter's 1966 Havasu boat was "SLED" shaped...His 1967 boat was a twin engine, which he never made the start with...126 boats with a paceboat start....Dieter was next to me, and got run over from the rear, before the start... The boat was repaired and ran Parker, 1968...same race the Berghauers had a new twin Schultz...which Dewey nose dived...but it was blue, like Ted's and mine...all the OMC's in the 1968 Six Hours de Paris...

Did you note RSINI'S "blinding" SPEED AVERAGE??? 54.4 mph.....WHY WAS RACING FUN THEN??? Because we RACED 6 hours......and if you crashed you got wet....

**Mark75H** · 12-31-2004

Thanks, Ron, that's what I thought. Like cars next year's models are usually available for racing in the fall like at Havasu & Berlin. 1968 model Mercs could easily been raced at Paris in October of 67.

**Powercat** · 01-07-2005

This photo is a good example of the transition period in US racing.
It was labeled as Havasu 1968 but I am not sure of its origin.
The multi engined cats were on the way out and the tunnel boat
was here to stay.

**OLEGATORXX** · 06-27-2005

Boat #100ON was indeed the winner in the 1967 race. I attended that race which was the first race Mercury ran the BP engines. Rasini's engine was a MERC1250. As was mentioned in an earlier post, the race was the first weekend in October. One other tidbit about that race; I got to visit with Marcel Raveau at that race.

**lilabner** · 08-05-2005

First really good tunnel boat I saw was in 1963(?)..Bill Sirois ran it in the Gold Coast Marathon with an Osca engine/Merc outdrive in the Volvo Class..I think he finished 2nd or 3rd overall, but was disqualified for "not being within the spirit of the rules"...EC was livid..next Volvo was something like 53 places back..Bill was smiling anyway..