An Amazing Story: Part 2

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I received an offer to race in the 1979 UIM OD World Championships to be held on the Danube River in Linz, Austria. Debbie was still working on her master's degree at TWU so she couldn't go. I talked to Deiter on August 13 and he said he would build us a new "D" Konig with 48mm carbs. We would use my Butts Aerowing "TEX" we had shipped over the previous year along with the Leavendusky tower, our Konig lower unit, pipes, etc. that we had left. I replied to Motor Yacht Club Nibelungen Linz that we accepted their offer and would be coming from Berlin with some of those guys. My notes state that I was coming along with the South Africans, but we would find transportation. Dieter was going to let Hans Krage know. Apparently, Tom Jones and Rheinhardt Schultz also had made previous arrangements with Hans.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Arrived in Berlin on September third. It was only the second time I had ever gone to a race without my Master Oil Team or Debbie. The first time was in 1976 when Debbie and I were still engaged.

That same day I went with Hans Krage to his shop to prepare things for the race. Hans had a custom car shop specializing in all things to do with Porche's, which he himself drove. While we were working there Tom Jones and a man named Bryan whose last name I never wrote down arrived. They were working with Berliner racer Jurgen Kuhne. I underlined the name of a person named Arnow Schinelewski in my notes, but don't remember why. We must have met Tom at the airport, because after that we went back to Hans' to finish working. I Wish I would have taken pics. Hans had a 25' or so two masted sailboat he was restoring to sail on the North Sea. His family had property around Berlin and also in the north that was taken when the communists took over Eastern Europe. At Lakeland, Florida in 1993 Hans was pleased to tell me that his family had gotten back the property in Northern Germany, which I am guessing must be on the Baltic.

That evening we had a meeting in Gatow (in West Berlin) about a strategy to deal with problems we may encounter during the world championship races. At the meeting were Hans, Kuhne, Siegfried Lubnow, Sigfried Sneph, Harry Splettstosser, Tom Jones, Bryan ? Rheinhard Schultz (last three from South Africa). I stayed with my friend Jenny at her mansion on Gustav Freytag Strasse in the Grunewald. We left for Linz. Austria on September 6 and spent that night at Regensburg.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The race in Linz was to be held on the beautiful blue Danube River (Danau in Austrian). So this time we would get to run the Butts Aerowing we had shipped over last year. I mean.......how rough could the beautiful blue Danube be....right? You've all seen Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd and heard the Waltz of the Blue Danube haven't you? Da..Da..Da..Dah......Dahhhhh! Tweet,tweet.........tweet,tweet. There would not be any barge traffic during the races. Besides the OD World Championships, there would be European Championships for OB and OC. Drivers came from all over, including the Eastern Bloc countries of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Hungary.

There were 19 entries, including myself for OD. I never had a roster, but this is some I remember. Tom Jones and Rheinhard Schultz-South Africa. Jerry Drake was there, but not racing and I believe he had emigrated to the US by then. Pierre Diesertienne-France, Hans Krage, Peter Komol, Wilhelm Dickoff, Jorge Lipinski, Jurgen Kuhne, Werner Zappe-West Germany, Erwin Zimmerman, Wilfried Weiland-Austria, Perko Drago-Yugoslavia, Douglas "Pip" Willy, Chris Applebee-England, and I can't remember others.

The host club was Motor Yacht Club Nibelungen from Linz. They had a place to keep boats and a clubhouse for meetings and banquets up the hill overlooking the Danube. According to the drawing there was a little right hand curve in the race course, but I don't recall really having to drive to the right. I guess we drove it more or less like it was straight.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We stayed at the Wirtschaftfurderunginstitut ("Wifi" for short) in Linz. Yeah, thats one long name and it took some practice to say it right. It is kind of a combined classroom/dormitory building for training people. It was all stainless steel, chrome and tile. Easy to keep clean. It wasn't fancy, but it was a nice and modern place to stay. And it was free.

We went down the next day for testing , or "training", as they say. I learned that even though the Danube was not rough like the 1978 OD World Championships in Berlin, there were still rollers. It wasn't so bad on the front straight, but the back straight where I'm thinking the current was strongest had some tricky spots. I could drive "TEX" in this water, but it was nothing like the rough water I tested it in back in Texas. The rollers here were spaced further apart and I think my Butts must have gotten into a harmonic rythym with the waves to cause it to rebound hard at certain times.

Of all the props we tested, only one was three bladed, and it was a Record cleaver prop. It fit very loose on the prop shaft, but we decided to go ahead and test it anyway. It was by far the superior prop. The reason we decided to go with it was because it made the boat handle so much better. That tail lift caused the boat to run much more stable in the water. The attitude kept it from slapping the water in the way that would launch the boat more violently. It was a little tough to hang on in a kneeler with the two bladed props. So we put the Record 3 blade back on and tightened the prop nut as hard as we thought we could without starting the pin to shear. Then it was out for an easy night to be ready for the next day.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The pit area along the Danube was green and luxurious with tall shade trees and the steep enbankment behind us. In front was the wide flowing river with a teeming city on both sides. Deiter and I were walking above the pits and did a little exploring in some abandoned houses near the top. They were one room stone affairs all connected together but at different levels according to the fall of the land. The floors were earthen. We expected them to be trashed with drug leftovers...but no. There was not much there. We figured they were old enough to have been inhabited when the several black plagues ravaged Europe.

Not far above the pits was a castle that was now a museum. What a find. I wish I could have taken pictures to remember what I saw, but a couple of things that stand out are these. I had posted earlier about Dieter with his hands about to crank a three inch thick piece of glass about 5 feet in diameter connected to some Frankenstein brass receptors. That was at this museum in Linz. Then I remember suits of armour that dated back to the crusades, before and after. What struck me was that I would have been able to fit in them. Most of them were my size or smaller. I always figured the knights to be much bigger.

Here are the pit pictures.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Sorry...I had 8 pics & maybe it was too much for the satellite today. I wrote the story 4 different times, then managed the attachments and after a wait it said there was a satellite outage. The last time, the narrative came through. Have to go to bed now to head out for Big Wells in the morning. Tomorrow I will resize the pics.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

So here they are. One thing I noticed was that they seemed a little out of focus. I used the sharpener on the scanner and now they are like they ought to since they were taken with a 24mm lens. All this time I thought it was my eyes, but it must be the scanner.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I got an average start and was just running with the pack until lap three when the shear pin came out. At first I thought I blew a lower unit, but when we got back to the pits we found the loose 3 blade record just spinning on the prop shaft. So much for that Idea. Now it was back to the standard two blade cupped wheel. Pip Willey blew his engine in the first heat and Tom Jones crashed into a rescue boat on lap two. I didn't see it and I forgot what Tom said about it. He wasn't hurt, but the Butts Aerowing was out of action. These were the first two Butts Aerowings to race overseas. The previous year I only got on the water for some test runs, so it was here at Linz where Aerowings answered the starting flag for the first time. I don't think Tom's boat had the same sponson design as mine. It would have probably been worse handling, and maybe that caused him to lose control and run into the boat.

First pic is Pip Willey working on his motor. Second is Tom Jones' damaged Aerowing. That is Tom with the banded hat standing behind Dieter.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The second heat I finished either 6th or 7th. My notes from the pits say 6th, but wrote in my journal on the way home 7th. I didn't do a story for Powerboat so I didn't pick up any official results. West German Werner Zappe won both heats easily.

I finally made a good start in the third heat. I got to turn 1 in second place and was third after the first lap. I just couldn't keep up that pace though. It was a handful trying to stay in that boat we named TEX. It just wasn't built properly for European water. Lap after lap I fell back and finally finished 7th.

I was doing fairly well in the final heat when I hit a swell on lap two just before coming into turn 1. My body flew in the air and my left leg knocked all the slack out of the lanyard for the kill switch and pulled it. Before I landed back in the cockpit the engine was dead. I didn't even bother to try and restart the motor.

Here is some OB and OC action. The first color pic is Gerhard Pahl in a Konig powered Danisch Proprider, No 16, and Willi Absenger is driving the Weiland kneeler. Both are Austrian. Perko Drago from Yugoslavia is in the No 104 boat.

In the first B & W is Manfred Loth in a Danisch Proprider and Ekkehard Knappe in the Rukna cat powered by a Yamato. I think every motor in every class at this race was a Konig except for Ekkehard's Yamato and Heike Grunewaldt ran an Archimedes in the OD World. I don't know who No. 91 is in the last pic.

[F-12]

For some reason that last black and white looks like someone is going to get very wet. The prop is out of the water and the outside sponson is starting to dig in a bit. Did you happen to get a sequence shot of this? Let me know if you remember what happened.