An Amazing Story

[Master Oil Racing Team]

What a great place to race Ray. Just the right size body of water. Plenty of room to mill. Complete control of all watercraft. Fantastic pits. Hope it works out.

Speaking of Stan Leavendusky, he just wasn't having a good weekend in C Service. Could one of these be Craig? I couldn't find his number to try to get an I.D.

[ferv888ipba]

Wayne,
Could not tell if one of them Craig. The runabout class is the one that they orginally through him out in, but got back in.

Seems to me I remember that the JayCee's were the sponsor for the National's up there and they had some trouble with the community. I seem to remember that the President of the group was on the radio apologizing for all the noise that we were making.

It wonderful to think we can get back in. Thanks for all you are doing keeping the pictures and stories coming. Hope that you and Joe are coming up to Depue for the reunion for the national's next year. I would love to do an interview on the PA with all of you guys. The fans will be going crazy as they are the most knowledgeable fans in the country with boatracing and would love to hear stories of the "old" guys. This years program had a number of years of Championship winners and it was fun to see your name along with Todd Brinkman, Howard Andersen, Ralph Donald and the rest.

I was thinking about your Dad the other day and remember him meeting me at a motel in San Antonio to deliver you guys a runabout. I was living in California at the time and was racing with Dick Davidson's family and driving a Terrell "C" hydro. Wade had built a runabout for you and one for Jim Schoch at Quincy, I believe trading one for a Koinig from you and one from Quincy. Here I am in the dead of winter pulling two runabouts on a trailer and the hydro on roof of the Ponitac Calatlina. I got into El Paso about 11am and got to San Antonio about midnight. Met your Dad about 11am and took off and went out through Texarkana at midnight. Man I thought I would never get out of the State of Texas. By the time I got to Quincy, Illinois here we were unloading that runabout at 9:30pm in January with about a foot of snow on the ground and people going by wondering what are those guys doing.

I don't know if you heard the story on Wade, but he was had a pacemaker and one time the electrical system affected the timing on the pacemaker to the beat of his engine and it dang near killed him, shut it off and just laid in the bottom of the boat. We all had a big laugh after we knew he was alright.

Well take care again thanks for all the stories.

Ray

[Master Oil Racing Team]

After I posted that pic, I realized it was a runabout instead, but I let the post stay.

That would have been around 1969 Ray. I was in college at San Marcos, Texas. A small college back in those days. That Terrell was my last runabout. It weighed practically nothing. I had the nose at about 45 degrees several times and that's when my Dad and I decided I wasn't cut out to be a runabout driver. The cockpits in runabouts were always too wide and too low and I was always bouncing all around. Most of my trips to check out how hard water can be was in a runabout.

I was glad to hear the story about how that runabout got to us. I didn't remember. BTW, as bad a runabout driver as I was I won my first race in 1967 in A runabout with a DeSilva and a cast iron Konig. I beat Bobby Wilson and I can still see the smile on my Dad's face.

I never heard that about Wade. His valves must have been floatin' at that RPM. Good thing he wasn't wired into the kill switch. Thanks for YOUR stories Ray. Joe and I WILL see you at DePue.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Well we finally got the name painted on Texas Tornado by the final race of the year, and I did drive it a few more laps before we sold it to Jim McKean. Tim seemed to remember the bottom had twisted a little and he had to take his big sanding block to get everything back in line. Other than that, it had little damage. Jim, Denny Henderson and Benny Aylor came down to my Dad's to test and to pick up Texas Tornado on December 22.

The following week Tim and Ruth Butts came down to finish out the year with us. He brought two boats with him. An A/B hydro and a C/D hydro. That one we named Quein Sabe ("who knows" in Spanish). This is the boat we ran the D on in Phoenix.

We tested on New Year's day. A beautiful, calm cool day for testing. This boat came out of Tim's driving the C/D/F rigs a few months earlier. I had thought he brought Shadowfax down then, but now that I think back, we must have taken delivery of Shadowfax at Kaukauna a few months later. Check the afterplane.

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

I was trying to figure out where Marshall's D figured in to the story when I was trying to find the results. I came across a pic of you and a deckrider approaching the start of 1100 runabout somewhere during the process.

Speaking of the reunion, I was talking to Joe today and we figured we had better start funneling names, phone numbers, addresses, etc. to John. I have noticed many BRF members show locations different than in the past.

Yup, been wondering where the contact information was. Need to get individual committee members e-mail addresses to remind them.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I remember we brought HOOKIN' BULL out of retirement for the UIM World Championships in Phoenix, but this pic I didn't remember. I keep finding these little goodies while looking for photos to go with this story.

This is Denny Henderson in HOOKIN' BULL at the final LSBRA race of 1975 at my Dad's house. What do you remember about this Denny?

[Master Oil Racing Team]

After I got where I could move my neck again, I started excercising, riding a bike in the hills, excercising my grip while driving and what else I could do to be in shape for the 1976 season.

Tim Butts was down over the holidays and we went testing New Year's day as I previously mentioned. I forgot to say that QUIEN SABE was our first boat from Tim that had a tail shroud. Here are a couple of other looks of that boat. Tim did a little tweaking up at the house.

[denny henderson]

I remember we brought HOOKIN' BULL out of retirement for the UIM World Championships in Phoenix, but this pic I didn't remember. I keep finding these little goodies while looking for photos to go with this story.

This is Denny Henderson in HOOKIN' BULL at the final LSBRA race of 1975 at my Dad's house. What do you remember about this Denny?

Wayne,

The picture above Tim and Baldy is Benny Aylor and I launching Jim McKean in the Texas Tornado in December. I remember that, but have no memory of me driving the Hookin Bull, ever. I'll ask Craig and Al, at the Raleigh race, if they remember anything about it.
What I do remember about that race is when Benny went too far up the lake while testing his new Yamato "B". Baldy had been very clear about staying away from that end of the lake while testing. We had been working on Benny's engine all afternoon, trying to get the surge out of it. Late in the day, starting to get dark, he made one more run and the engine finally ran good. He couldn't help himself. It felt so good, he just kept going down the lake and into the forebidden zone. When he came back in, we all witnessed the Mother of all *** chewings. I have never seen anything like it, and will never forget it. None of us got over it until the next day.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Yeah, Denny, there was some things in the water that could cause some serious problems. When the wind was blowing too hard I could go deep back in there and get a good test run lined up against our shoreline, but I knew where to go. The last thing my Dad wanted was for one of his friends to get hurt so he figured he hadn't made it plain enough before. One thing about him though is that once he spoke his mind, he would be back laughing and joking in ten minutes.

I was asking Joe about you driving HOOKIN' BULL and he doesn't remember it either. You didn't race it, but you did drive Benny's BT22 in 500 hydro. Don't know if you had planned on running it and changed your mind or maybe Jim McKean had some 500cc Yamato's on the way and you wanted to check out a 500 hydro ride. Just don't know. But that pic is not a computer trick.

BTW, Benny won the 350 hydro race.

[denny henderson]

I can't remember who's idea it was for me to drive that Four Pipe "C" Yamato on an 11'6" hydro, but I have no one to blame but me. There was no shortage of stupidity back then. Man what a ride! I can't remember if you or Charlie Baily won the two heats. I duked it out with Artie Lund until the little boat whipped me down.