An Amazing Story: Part 2

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I was referring specificially to our team regarding the beginning of the end Stan, but you are right. We were heading full steam into the end of Pro racing in Texas. The spiral down actually took off in 1979 and I have plans to address that soon. When you hosted a pro race in Del Rio in 1980, we still thought we had a chance to revive Pro racing in Texas. If I remember right there were also OPC classes at that race with Tom Posey and some others coming down.

[carl lewis]

Here is a pic of that Yamato 80. Left to right are Jim McKean, Harry Pasturczak (striped shirt with head behind the powerhead), Dean Wilson, Pete Hellsten and I think that's Chaney Street on the far right.

This was the first of MANY times over the years that the Street brothers had issues with A.P.B.A sanctioned races

If I didnt know better I would say the kid in the background in the white shirt looks just like my son Kyle ( what do you think Ron???) , however he was not born until '89

Happy Birthday Wayne....

Carl
94-R

[deanwilson]

...If I didnt know better I would say the kid in the background in the white shirt looks just like my son Kyle ( what do you think Ron???) , however he was not born until '89

If I had to guess...I'd say Pete Nydahl...but man that's a tough one.
Also a guess but the arm on the motor stand with the blue shirt sleeve is probably Henry Wagner.

Yes Wayne, you were right, there were qualification heats. I took second to Cheney in my qualifier and I think the first 3 or 4 each heat had motors impounded before the final. Kinda similar to C-Service inspection in those days. Henry Wagner asked for one of our spare motors, I have no idea why except that it was one of the few with the 14mm spark plug head. That is NOT our motor they are looking at though. The way I know is that the water outlet tube on that motor is strictly non-stock.

To this day I don't know what the fuss was all about. Neither dad or Larry Latta ever said a word about that commission meeting. Maybe like you they defered because of me and my brother Jeff were in the class.

What I do remember is a big drivers party. Great time and greater food and Lone Star beer (had to sneak that).

BTW, Happy B-Day from a fellow December person.

Dean

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

I remember specifically what the fuss was about, although as previously stated I did not attend the commission meeting about it. The fuss was because the motor the Street youngster was running was protested by two different drivers and as already brought out, the motor inspection was refused and the motor was locked in Hal Tolfords trailer. The Street youngster was poorly served by any number of adults who brought him to the race and were mentoring him, and by refusing to abide by the rules and let the motor be inspected, were in violation of one of the most basic rules in the book. If you are protested, the inspector looks at the motor and decides whether it is legal or not. Although I don't remember the exact sequence of events, they probably went like this: Inspection refused, driver disqualified. Then that decision was probably appealed to the PRO Commission where the decision was made to reinstate him, more than likely for the reasons Wayne put forth in a previous post, i.e not to penalize him for the actions of others, specifically the adults who brought him and were responsible for the equipment he was driving.

Somewhere, and I am not sure if it is still a rule or not, or maybe not an APBA rule, but normally the driver is responsible for seeing that any equipment he participates in is legal. If not he is disqualified. This of course has the effect of eliminating the excuse "I don't own it , I didn't know anything about it being too big, etc., etc.,". I personally think that is a good rule because it teaches a young driver to pay attention and make sure he obeys all the rules.

I would be interested in hearing more about the comment regards "the Street brothers and APBA racing issues" or the similar sentence in a previous post.

As to the legality of the motor all these years after, all I can say when reminded of the situation that occured there is, if it was legal, why lock it up in a trailer overnite and refuse inspection until the next day. Not too much to say after that.


P.S. I think the young man in the white shirt looking on from the back of the photo is Ray Hardy's stepson at the time. He was a participant in Formula 350 at that race.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Bill Van---that is not J C McDonough in the photo, but I can see why you thought that.

The final race of the 1978 season was held at Alexandria, Louisiana on October 14 and 15....a long two months after the Nationals at San Antonio. I don't recall ever having such a gap as that before.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

For the first and only time I didn't drive to Alexandria. Debbie and I drove down to DFW and flew in. Since San Antonio I didn't go back home to do any testing. In fact, there are only a couple of test sheets for D41994 after the 1978 Pro Nationals and they were both in 1980. I was not testing or keeping in shape and it showed in Alexandria.

Billed as the North South Championships, the races drew a number of drivers including Roy Alexander and Greg Hall from Canada. Roy was one of the entries in 725 hydro.

While Debbie was going to school, I was mostly goofing off. Reading, working on some environmental and regulatory matters regarding Alice Specialty Co, and developing negatives and prints. Being that Denton had two colleges, I found a darkroom run by an afro haired rock & roll dude that was into photography. He charged by the hour and provided a multi enlarger darkroom with all chemicals, a drying cabinet for negatives and a couple of different types of print dryers. I had taken my weights along, but for some reason had quit working out.

I don't have much info from the race at Alex. I have qualifying sheets and roster of drivers for the finals, but I don't have results. I didn't record them and I didn't clip any newspaper articles from the Alexandria Town Talk. I checked the Propeller, because Carl Rylee always sent in lengthy articles about his races. The January issue of Propeller was the first one I had seen that was not a true magazine format. It was a tabloid, and a pitiful one at that. Not much room for any info at all and no photos. It was a time period in our nation that Jimmy Carter fostered and fed what he called "malaise". And it hit APBA. No article from Carl.

This is all I wrote down in my notebook about the 725 Hydro race. "Worn to a frazzle & could not drive effectively. Out of shape or possibly would have had 2 wins. One for sure."

I don't remember who won. It might have been Jeff Hutchins, but I think it was Jerry Kirts. They were both running good. Jeff was driving Elmer Grade's stuff at Alex. I can remember though being just on the outside of the lead boat all the way around. I had a lot of power and good acceleration, but my right shoulder was just aching from fighting the torque. I could not blow through the turns as I was really fighting the boat instead of being a part of it. I don't know if I can describe it correctly, but if you are not familiar with a kneeler, you tend to be too tight because you are holding in to the left side of the cockpit to keep from being slung to the right and possibly dipping a sponson. When you are comfortable and know the boat, you can be loose and let the sponsons do their dance while the boat slips through the turn. Even though I knew SHADOWFAX extremely well, my right shoulder was too fatigued to push the wheel to the left in the turn, so I was very rigid in the cockpit. You can't put in a top performance like that, but I managed to finish a close second.

The second heat however, it was my throttle hand giving up. I still had the problem with my shoulder, but it mostly affected driving through the corners. I had also quit squeezing my hand excerciser like I did while driving to a from work every day. Now I was just a lazy bum hanging around the house. The drive to the lab was only three minutes. So beginning the final lap, I couldn't even squeeze the throttle wide open. Coming off a turn I had to push my hand with my left arm until the throttle handle stopped against the front stationary grip, then struggle to reach my fingers around the pipe lever to bring them up, then clamp my hand shut. What a pitiful way to race. I did manage to finish second again, but this time about 20 boat lengths behind.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Wayne:

You are being WAY too hard on yourself. If the average boat racer could have accomplished just 10% as much as you did in your racing career, most would be estatic. And even if there had been absolutely no wins or championships, the folks reading your posts and seeing the pictures from years past would say you had a great career. It is not often that a person can participate in a sport that gave him so much pleasure as boat racing did you and your family, and also has given such a large group as the readers of BRF the good times and memories of times past you have over the last couple of years.

Besides, I remember the first year after Eileen and I got married. It is a natural thing that happens to every newly married male. Most outdoor sports loose their fascination for awhile.

Bill Van

[Master Oil Racing Team]

.....I was going to tell about the rest of our honeymoon adventure (with pics) throughout the rest of Germany, Austria and Switzerland and about when I came home with pnuemonia and no strength when the whole topic was zapped.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

So now we are out of B Hydro as well since the beginning of our racing career. I ran this rig only once after everything from the hull, to the powerhead, to the prop were perfect. Now it belonged to Neil Bauknight. His first race with it at Alex he got in a bind in the first turn and got crossways in front of Dan Kirts. The cockpit got crunched, and he knocked Dan out of the competition as well.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The 75th APBA Annual Meeting was held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on November 13-18, 1978. It was at this meeting that the airfoil "lift" restrictions on hydros was eliminated. We also were in the process of trying to do something about factories influence peddling in our racing. It was also at this time that the Professional Powerboat Association was being put together. Billy Seebold and Lee Sutter were the two main players getting it kicked off, but my notes also list a Pearl and a Greene. No first names and I can't figure out who they were. They were concerned as well as us about OMC's powerful influence regarding UIM and we discussed combining with them to help control our own destinies. Pro would have a say over OA through OD and OPC over classes OI through OZ, and joint control over OE and OF.

I had been talking to Gary Garbrecht for several months and he was supporting our efforts to get the fuel rule changed back. Paul Kalb, and for some reason Stan Fitts were opposed. Stan had a proxy vote from Mike Jones and either abstained or voted against the reinstatement. It did pass 15-4, but it would not be effective until 2 years, which is the way the rule for making changes always was. We argued before the World Championships, that even though the fuel restriction passed it should have been two years before the change was implemented, but it didn't happen. They claimed it was put into immediate effect because of environmental reasons.

There was no support among the Pro division to align ourselves with PPA on international racing, but Seebold, Sutter and others did put the Association together and ran under APBA sanction. I think it was more or less similar to the way the U.S. Title Series group was organized as an association within APBA. Billy Seebold looks around BRF every now an then, but he doesn't comment, but maybe Lee Sutter might explain it if he reads this. I'm not sure how long PPA lasted, but they put on some good races for awhile.