An Amazing Story: Part 2

[Mark75H]

All I can see on the 2 cylinder motor is that the top carb might be a little closer to us then the bottom; but then maybe not, maybe it is just the float bowl position. I agree there doesn't look like enough space behind the carbs for a regular disk feeding 2 holes ... suppose it only feeds one hole and is only cutting off some piston port timing on the wrong side of center?

I think I know what that plate with the 4 holes is ... a dual rotor plate to allow 4 carbs like the piston port VC. Maybe it was the prototype before the single rotor 2 carb design was decided on.

Looks like there may be a rotor for it hanging on the nail behind it.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

This was a current piece of work Sam and you got me to thinking so I went back to a contact sheet I had from pics I took several days before my Dad and Jack arrived. Found some other interesting things, but this is the motor that the interlocking rotary valve housing belongs to.

Sorry about the lighting. I never took my flash units with me because they were too bulky and we had enough to lug around anyway. The small flashes of today work great, but back then you had to calculate everything and the buildings were all too big to bounce light, so that's all I got. I was just taking these for curiosity anyway and never forsaw anything like BRF. The good side though is these computers and photo programs are great at enhancing poorly lit subjects.

[Jeff Lytle]

yeah...that was kind of a trick I played for "Eagle Eye".

Now that's just NASTY!! I saw the pics early in the day, and knew there was something up with the valve. By the time I got to thinking about it again, and got back to the board, Dan and Sam had already nailed it.

NA NA-NA NA NA!!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

.....errr.....Eagle Eye. I just blindly walked around snapping pics of stuff that we didn't see in the pits or on a transom. Believe me.....there's much more there that we'll ever see. It's guys like you, Sam, Dan M, Eric, Steve Litzell, Paul Christner, and others that bring attention to the details that call us back for another look.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I'll put more stuff up on the Konig thread because if others are like me I want to go back and look later and forget where I saw it. The Konig thread would be the first place I would look.

After we got the boat unpacked Jack Chance set out to rig it back up with the hardware we had to take off and make sure we had all the pieces and that they fit before going to the pits. As usual Jack has his famous half smoked cigar. It helps him concentrate.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

My Dad gives an A..OK to Jenny for preparing a delicious meal. It never matters if we eat at Jenny's or at a restuarant, all food in Germany tastes great.

The last pic is a view from our window at Jenny's in the Grunewald section of Berlin. It was very quiet in the neighborhood itself, but every morning we woke up to a jackhammer at the end of the street.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The two previous years we had raced on the Strandbad Oberhavel in Spandau. This race was at Tegler See in a different part of Berlin. The body of water was larger and there was much more traffic outside the race course. The pits were handier here though. We didn't have to move the boats so far to get to the water.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

This race course was on Tegelersee not too far from the airport. The first turn consisted of two bouys and the bottom turn was a single pin.

Training, or testing as WE call it, began the day before the race. The water was already rough. Due to the heavy traffic on the lake a series of 9 barges were tied together on the backside of the course to help stop the waves from the passing boats. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and there was a heavy wind. Some passing rain showers settled the water a little, but it wasn't long until the wind was back up. Coats, windbreakers and rainsuits were the order of the day in the middle of the summer. Berliner Jurgen Hopner stuffed his proprider and cut his nose on the plexiglass windshield. It wasn't looking good.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The UIM Technical meeting was going on the same day that Debbie and I left for Berlin. Dieter had called me about the potential problem just before we left. While we were at Jennie's house in Berlin Dieter called me and said that I needed to get a telegram sent to an American representative on the Committee. According to its own rules, UIM has to give a two year time period between a rule change of this sort prior to implementation. In this case, banning methanol from the open class outboards was to be effective immediately. We still had a chance to fight this or at least get it put off for a couple of years and be able to run the upcoming OE World Championships at Dayton without this disasterous rule (for the alkys).

I called APBA PRO Chairman Mel Kirts and asked him to send a telegram to Gary Garbrecht. Mel asked me what we needed to say so I quickly composed a telegram and he fired it off to Belgium basically saying that Gary did not have the authority to represent us. It was the PRO division who was behind the sanctioning of the event, so even though PRO and OPC both held OE events, this one was under our wing.

[epugh66]

Tegal looked the same in 1986, just the boats and cars were a little newer, the Americans still had the "funny" looking boats...and oh yeah, the hair was higher. I suppose the "shark" tour boat made it's round too.

Ober Havel is probably the single most worst place I've ever raced. In OSY, the race course was probably three lanes wide...with a dogleg on one side and river traffic on the other. I could only imagine that in a real racing class, it was narrower.

In "training", I saw a boat disappear under water in front of me. As a concerned racer, I pulled into the infield to turn around to see if I could help. There was no infield. I got through on coming traffic in order to yank the driver up by his collar.