An Amazing Story: Part 2

[Master Oil Racing Team]

It didn't happen Charley, but look at his coveralls. It looks like he is already sopping wet. I don't know his name, but he came through the bottom turn like that every time. That's why I started taking pictures of him. This particular shot looked a little wilder than the others so I decided to post it. If it would have been an American designed bottom and sponsons he surely would done just what you were thinking. The Butts I was driving actually handled this stuff in the corners pretty well. It was the timing of the swells that were like whoop de do's.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I had told this story some time back on another post, but this is when and where it happened. We were pitted next to the teams from Czechoslovakia. They had two entries in class OB. After the second heat the older driver started to disassemble his motor. The young driver had blown his motor previously. After he was done, I was very curious about what was going on. I didn't speak Czech and he didn't speak English, but I knew everyone behind the iron curtain was required to know some basic Russian. I had taken two years of Russian in high school and still spoke some to people just as a joke. In later years I spoke it mostly to telemarketers.

And as I figured, he spoke some boat racing German as well. While I never was fluent in German, at the time I picked up enough boat racing German to communicate a little. It's not really hard when you think of words like "flunder" mean a round nosed hydro that is shaped like a flounder. And "unterwasserteil" (under water part) is a lower unit. So when we were by ourselves I asked him if he spoke Russian and he indicated a little. Between our meager Russian and German I found out that the young guy that broke his motor was the son of the leader of the Czech racing group. His son was currently the OB point leader in Czechoslovakia and this older racer was not far behind. The points at Linz would count so therefore he had to quit racing. He quietly told me in a word that everyone around the world understands. "Polotik"!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

My next door neighbor Al was living in Libya at the time of the race. He was in charge of reinjecting natural gas into a field to maintain pressures. Shortly after this Muhammar Ghadafi starting stirring the pot pretty hard so Mobil Oil pulled all their people out and Al came home. He told me he got a big surprise when he was watching a rebroadcast of the Monaco Grand Prix. They cut in to show a live heat of the OD World Championships and he saw me on TV. The races were broadcast throughout Europe, but who would have ever thought my neighbor would have watched from his living room in Tripoli, Libya.

Wilfried Weiland sent me this copy of Yacht Revue which covered the race. I never got a copy of Boote. The large photo spread of one start is L-R Hans Krage-West Germany, Wilfried Weiland-Austria and Manfred Richter-(the article shows him to be racing under the Austrian flag, but I think he's from Dusseldorf.). The top picture on the next page is winner Werner Zappe, a 40 year old from West Germany. BRD means Bundes Republic of Deutschland as opposed the the East German DDR which was Deutsche Democratic Republic. Rheinhard Schulz finished 6th overall and the ZA means South Africa (Zud Afrika).

[David Weaver]

....of the botttom photograph Wayne!! I am guessing that did not just happen by accident. AH, art!!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Hah!. I had no clue what you were talking about David, so I had to check it out. I never noticed that before. I guess the editors either really liked to work with this photographer or they had to keep on their toes with his stuff. Yes, I would say they classified that as art.

BTW I have a side story about another photo that will come up when we get to the next year.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

After the races there was a big banquet at the MYCN club overlooking the Danube river and race course. It was a suit and tie affair. The room was packed and I didn't get anything out of the speeches, but the food was great and had a wonderful time with all my European friends. We were all sitting at the end of the table in the foreground. We were the last ones to leave and just before we left, Hans Krage had everyone sign the tablecloth (it was the heavy paper type) and write down their boat number. Then he ripped the signed portion out and took it with him. I wonder if Han's son Peer has ever seen it. The best I can remember it was Hans, myself, Dieter Konig, Cees Van DerVelden, Jerry Drake, I think Karl Bartel and maybe Leif Ahlborg.

They gave me a beautiful crystal vase and 18,000 Schillings. Actually, it sounds more than it was--about 1200 dollars, but it covered most of the expenses, especially since I stayed with friends in Berlin and the WIFI in Linz cost nothing.

ADD: I forgt to mention Erwin Zimmerman and Wilfried Weiland were also there and to note that this group had won world championships in every outboard category (some classes multiple times) from OA through OZ with the possible exception of OE, but Wilfried may have done that after I quit.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We went back to Berlin, and I left "TEX" there. Motor Rennen Club bought it and was going to use it to help train the youngsters with it. They were importing the Yamato 80's like racers were over here to bring up new drivers. That's what they were going to put on "TEX" for the kids to start getting driving experience.

Our club Hydroplanes International had already been awarded the 1980 UIM OD World Championships and we already were working on the venue. Laredo wanted it, but we were also talking to Billy Seebold and Lee Sutter about running it at St Louis. PPA was having some top flight events, and we thought we might run just the one class with them like we did with the Unlimiteds at Dayton in 1977. I was supposed to go up to St Louis and talk with them at the August 18 and 19 races, but was unable to get away.

Gatorade was interested in the St Louis program if we got it going. The week after I got back Steve Jones talked to Don Summerfield in Chicago. He was with Gatorade's advertising agency. St Louis was in the center of the country and we knew the publicity possibilites were much greater there than at Laredo.

[carl sladek]

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.

OK, I give up! what do you mean by "boat wasn't built properly for European water".

I know from surfing, and water skiing that there is are huge differences in density and viscosity between salt water, bayou water, bayou water after a huge storm, and hot and cold water.

[Dave_E71]

OK, I give up! what do you mean by "boat wasn't built properly for European water".

I know from surfing, and water skiing that there is are huge differences in density and viscosity between salt water, bayou water, bayou water after a huge storm, and hot and cold water.

Maybe Wayne could have said "boat wasn't built properly for European water conditions". From what I've seen, they'll run on stuff that would have me hiding in the trailer.....

Dave

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Yeah Dave, that's the gist of it, not the makeup of the water. It's kind of like dirt comes in sandy loam, black gumbo, yellow ochre clay, red dirt with lots of iron oxide, etc, but there's a big difference in whether it's made into a flat track or a motorcross course. I haven't been to many European race courses, but all of them have been on a river, or a "see" with barge and river traffic during the race. When I was at the Weser River race it was on the rise with swift currents and debris.

I understand that the course at Traben Trabarch on the Mosel has rock seawalls, which contribute a lot to rough water. Check out the photos and stories on the Paris 6 hour race. This type of race course can produce eddies, swells and other tricky water conditions. I've heard of some smooth courses in Italy or England, but I think for the most part the water is rough, and that is why the boat bottoms are different than those that race in the U.S. I've driven propriders more than I drove TEX and they take the rough water very well.

All the European courses I've driven on were single bouy turns. When the Europeans raced here back in our days, they always asked us to at least have one turn a single pin, but we never did. Their boats do not like smooth water and high speed turns. They float too high and they sponson walk in the turns as they pick up and release air. As far as I know now, many of the European drivers 500cc and above now run catamarans as they are even far superior in rough conditions than the proprider.

The European sponson design is much deeper and maybe a little dihedral, and they will absorb the impact of a wave very well. They also cause the boat to scrub off speed very quickly. An American boat would overshoot the one bouy pin if you got off the throttle at the same time as a driver running beside you in a proprider. And the sponsons get you back up on top quicker after you make the turn. Also you give a little left hand jerk on the quick steering and a revving of the engine at the same time to get the prop spinning. This puts the tail in a slight drift and you kind of slide a little bit through the turn. Before I learned to do this, I ran up on the narrow rock embankment on the canal near Dieter's shop.

While I tested TEX one time in extremely rough water in Texas, I did not go out on the main body of the lake where there were rollers. It ran good in a 30 mph wind with heavy chop, but in a series of rollers, it would periodically rebound hard off the waves and send me into the air. This is what happened on the European circuits. If you didn't go too fast, you could cruise around O.K., but if you are there to race, you NEED to go fast. Kind of a long answer but when I said European water, I figured most everyone understood that it was the type of race course they raced on. I seem to remember that they don't have anywhere near the number of man made reservoirs that we do, thus the boats evolved from the type of water conditions they typically encountered. Sorry for the confusion Carl.