An Amazing Story

[Doug Hall Y51]

Hey Wayne, How many World and National Championships and World Records are held by the three guys on the trailer with your dad? I am going to guess a bunch.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

..........I am the wrong guy to answer that Doug. They all started long before I did, and continued winning long after I was gone. I know Dan had at least one national championship before I met him and he had a very long run. Since you got an inside connection to the guy in the middle, you could fill us in on that part.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Sorry to drag this part out but it's the first race I ever went to where I was able to get photos of almost everyone entered in the heats. I am not sure of what Don Wood or Rick Dertinger look like, and my mind is real fuzzy on Tim Crimmons but I think most everyone is in a pic. For some strange reason I didn't have any closeups or boat photos of Steve Jones. Steve is from Corpus Christi and he and I tramped many miles between TV, radio and Newspapers promoting racing in South Texas.

So coming up is the story of the actual racing. This part of An Amazing Story is dedicated to my good friend and boat racing legend Tim Butts. He had just started racing OD, and will tell you to this day he was terrified of the speed and power of those boats. That makes this part all the more amazing because.........when he was one with his boat........he was ready!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

It's been a long time ago, but it seems to me the first heat was overcast with the water a little bit rough. Not bad, as we could run over 100, but enough for some little holes in the water, especially from the wakes still traveling through the bottom turns 3 and 4 where we were milling. With 15 boats, there's a lot of wakes.

I made a bad start and was running somewhere around 5th or 6th when David Westbrook dropped a sponson starting into turn three and his boat did a violent spin. He was thrown over the right sponson and his thigh was struck by the lower unit. According to the newspaper article it was on the second lap, but in the article I wrote for Powerboat I wrote that it was before completion of the first lap. In the newspaper interview I told the reporter that he had to have hit something in the water that was hard and heavy. That was before David, driving under a Belgian flag, sent word from the hospital what had happened. I didn't see him before they took him off, but I did see his boat. The bottom half of the skeg on his lower unit was broken off and cracked a five inch motor swivel bracket. It was actually his leg that broke that stuff. David was very calm and cool during the time he was in the water and when the rescue team got there. He was holding the pant leg of his uniform with his leg barely hanging on and he told the rescue team what the situation was before they loaded him into the basket.

I was running right behind and to the inside of David when it happened and it was just an explosion of water. Jerry Kirts was in the lead followed by Tim Butts when the black flag came out.

[ronus747]

Wayne,
I have Don Woods circled in one of your previous pictures posted here. If I recall, he moved from Fairmont WVa. to I believe Nashville Tenn.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

.............I need to turn that negative around for a better look.

Mark--I wasn't ignoring your question. I just missed your post earlier. That's kind of tough because a Konig has a little different sound than a Yamato which has a different sound than a Merc Quincy, and I haven't heard a Rossi or some of the newer ones. A Crescent also had a distinctive sound, but I kind of forgot how it was.

I don't particularly remember anything distinct about how nitro sounds because I only knew for sure certain drivers that ran it. Mostly Canadian. But I would say the one thing about the sound of a really good motor is that it is solid. No changes in tone when the throttle is down. I have heard some motors that weren't quite up to snuff that had kind of a rattle. That whap sound you talk about I think must be what I mean by a solid sound. And one of the things I can remember hearing, particularly at DePue, is one of those big six hole Merc Quincy's when it is really running. With all cylinders in sync and pumping out that power they kind of get a drone sound flying down the straights. That is the same type of sound when you watch an old B & W movie of World War II and hear the drone of the motors on a bomber. I used to do the same thing with a dual engine outboard. You back off the throttle of one motor to match the other and you will get a droning sound. I think when a motor is right, and all cylinders are equal it will produce the kind of effect you are talking about.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

To get the required 2 hours between heats per UIM rules and mesh with the Unlimited schedule, this first heat was run on Saturday. There was plenty of time for the butterflys to come back to roost while we waited for the ambulance return and of course we were all concerned about David.

I replaced my dark tint bubble shield with a clear one to read the water better. It would be my last race with a bubble shield.

I made a good start and hit the first turn on the inside. Tim went through in a wider arc and had better acceleration. He came out of the turn first. I hung in right behind his roostertail. Just prior to setting up for the first turn on lap 2, I checked over my right shoulder and my bubble shield blew away. I got water in my face in the turn, and I lost a lot of ground on the back straight trying to figure out how to drive.

I couldn't race in my normal position because the wind in my face was blowing my eyelids away from my eyes. It was not a good feeling. I found that I could get closer to the cowling and a little lower to help deflect some of the wind, but tears would puddle up in my eyes and I couldn't see very well. So I turned my head just a little to the left, and although my eyes continued to tear up, the wind blew the tears away. Then in the turns my eyes would get soaked from Tim's roostertail.

Going into the final turn on the last lap I pulled up alongside Tim on the outside. Unbeknown to me at the time Jerry Kirts was also sneaking up. He was just to the outside of my roostertail. I had not been looking around anymore for other boats. I was just doing what I could to stay in the hunt and I wasn't driving like I normally would. When going through a turn and Tim blasted my face with some water, I would swing wide sharply, then get back into the turn. All of this was causing Jerry some fits because he would then have to quickly correct to keep from being washed down.

In that final turn Tim's sponson tapped hard and shot a ball of water directly in my face and eyes. Man, that hurt. I immediately drifted wide to the right because I was too close and didn't want anymore of that. That's when Jerry Kirts ducked in behind my roostertail and made a run for the finish. Tim turned in the fastest time of the event averaging just over 79 mph. Jerry finished 2nd just two seconds behind Tim and I came in a half second behind Jerry. It was a good race for all of the five laps.

Dan Kirts was 4th, followed by Steve Jones, Erwin Zimmerman, Wilfried Weiland and Mike Dertinger.

[ronus747]

How did I know I'd get that response..........
Come on Wayne, use your imagination.....
When I get some time, I'll see if I can find a pic for ya.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

....I found one. It's at the end with him by at the podium. Later.

Heat number two was one of my most memorable races. I had gone to a motorcycle store the evening before and picked up a couple pair of goggles. No more bubble shields.

I made another good start. I led going through the first turn and we were really hauling down the back straight. I figure we were running over 110 with Tim on my hip. Through turns 3 and 4 Tim pulled up beside me and just a little back. I think this is where the famous "Water Wars" photo was taken. Tim kept up the same lines as he did in the first heat and came out of the turn quicker than me. We dueled side by side down the front straight and he got ahead of me at the turn. He didn't chop me, but he held me to my lane and I couldn't accelerate out of the turn as fast as him.

Once he got out front we flew down the back straight with me a little back. He didn't have any top end on me, but he had me in acceleration and now he could control the turn, taking whichever lane he wanted. Tim had been driving the perfect race. This, a guy who never drove to win any motor bigger than a B only weeks before. With Tim out front, I wasn't backing off any and that old motor of Marshall's was hanging in there with Tim's new square block. I can still feel the sensation of battling with Tim down those straights. We were running as fast as the kilo record I set the previous year and all either one of us could think about was neither one could back off or the other would take the victory.

Jerry Kirts finished third, but on the final turn he clipped a bouy and earned a dsq. Tim turned that heat in exactly the same time as he did the previous heat, and somehow I was 1 second slower than when I ran without the bubble shield. Jerry was 1 1/2 seconds behind me, so I was still an exciting race through the complete five laps. Dan was way off the pace finishing 11th.

It was West German Kurt Mischke who captured third followed by Don Wood, Erwin Zimmerman from Austria, Rex Hall, Wilfried Weiland from Austria, Dennis McClellan, Tim Crimmons racing under the Belgian flag, and Jimmie Nichols. Steve Jones DNS and Canadian Rick Dertinger flipped. He must have torn something up because he didn't compete in the two final heats.

[jrome]

This is the picture of the famous "Water Wars" heat that was on the front page of the Dayton, Ohio newspaper. The Unlimited Hydroplanes were pretty upset because they always made the front page. This race was so good that it made the front page!