An Amazing Story: Part 2

[David Weaver]

>

I . I had to start wearing elbow pads and a jock strap though. Didn't like that.

Wayne,

You just needed to cut a hole in the floor board in order to prevent a sudden, unpleasant shock!!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

But David....you have to consider all possibilities. What if you pancaked and stuffed at the same time.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We spent the next week on a myriad of details including making room reservations, writing letters, sending out press releases, etc. Mary Guarnieri at APBA was going to order the UIM plaques at $150 each.

April 8 Hans Krage and Petra Castens arrived at my Dad's house on Lake Corpus Christi. Dieter would arrive at Corpus Christi International later on in the evening where we picked him up.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I kept trying to reach Manfred Richter from Dusseldorf who had committed to coming and was a star racer and good with PR. He was one of the BOOTE MAGAZIN drivers and was soon OC World Champion. I never heard back from him or Werner Zappe the reighning OD World Champ.

Wielfried Weiland from Austria and his pit crew would be arriving in the next day or two. His compatriot from Linz, Erwin Zimmerman, wouldn't be coming. We were sorry about that. Erwin was not only one of the best on the race course, but his English was very good and he was at home with the press and press conferences. He was OD World Champ in 1978 and lost to Werner Zappe in his home town of Linz Austria. Erwin was one of the few drivers in western Europe still driving a kneeler rather than a laydown proprider. Zappe won convincingly in a proprider. Erwin had joined the Formula 1 works team of Long John/Team Mercury and had a scheduling problem. As a new driver for Long John, he had to forego the OD World Championships to run class OZ at the Milan Classic in Italy on April 20.

Joachim DuCoffre, Hans Koehler and his wife arrived in Laredo. Elks Lodge members Larry Lipowicz and Bruce Adams had a leather goods factory. They gave them souvenirs and took them to see a ranch in Texas.

Elmer Buckley had the cards from the Mayor's office to pass out to the visitors that wanted to cross the border.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Here is a pic Petra Castens took at my Dad's house.

My Dad Baldy is standing behind Dieter Konig and Hans Krage is to the right. They have a 700cc Konig rigged on Hans' No. 12 Konig proprider.

[F-12]

That is a great picture of the famous Baldy grin...........As serious as he was most of the time, I know he had a great time around those two guys.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

My Dad was dedicated, but not serious Charley. When he had goals he met them, and that grin followed him all the way.

He loved to entertain. He was very happy to show some Texas hospitality to our German friends. Like most Germans I knew that came to Texas, they had envisioned it quite differently. But, of course, it takes only two to twelve hours go get you into many different climates. There must be at least 10. Mountains, deserts, swamps, coastal plains, scrub pines & hills, rolling prairies, lush meadows, flat gumbo mud, old growth forest, urban sprawl, etc. And as Bill Van can tell you, he is not one to shy from telling a tall Texas tale.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The pace of the story has not only been setback by current work, but by work back in those days. The Jimmy Carter Presidency resulted in a sky high price for oil in those days and has only very recently topped the price from those days inflation wise. I was so busy with my oilfield work in 1980 that I didn't have the time I used to have to catalogue and file my slides and negatives. I put them up in good order, but never did any cross references or card files. Remember...no computer back then. Everything from 1980 on is a pain for me to look back to find. So to continue....I will tell the story and maybe tommorrow I will find the pics.

April 9....Deliver the boats to the pits and take VIBORA DE CASBABEL to the Del Norte Mall in Laredo. I was "fit to be tied" to unload and rig set the boat up and head back to the pits where all the action was. This time I didn't have to stay with the boat so much as it was shortly before the race and a lot of PR had yet to be done.

After I got back to the pits at Lake Casablanca we met with Wilfried Weiland and his pit crew. A part of my pit crew had arrived also. Chris Pastuch and his wife Carol were there and I think Jim Roerig was there also. I didn't write Joe's name in my book because if it was a big race and Louis Williams wasn't racing..........Joe was MY MAIN PIT MAN. Sadly..Jack Chance was a no show.

I think I need to explain something at this point. When I first saw Joe Rome he was Louis Williams' No.1 pit man. When I first met Joe in person I didn't even know his name. It was at a college orientation meeting that the guy sitting next to me told me Joe's name and got my address. The next thing I know is Joe is knocking on my door and I open it up to see this tall skinny dude that is my arch runabout enemy's no. ! pit man.

So we get to the pits and have some publicity shots for the TV of our boat. Jim Stone and his pit crew were there along with sponsor Elmer Grade. We had the news and TV people cruising the pits and taking pics. John Yale and Franny Petrillo from New Jersey were there talking to the press. My notes show that Elmer Buckley had talked to Texas Governor Bill Clements, but that would have meant his people and they would be there. You had to talk to those people every day because things could happen to change their schedule. Boat racing was nothing to them if 10,000 people weren't their so unless a political opportunity came up, they would be there.

Elmer Buckley also confirmed that the mayors or Nuevo Laredo and Monterey Mexico would be there.

I had some press releases I delivered to Dave with the Laredo Times and a guy by the name of Scott Carlton.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Found the pics of loading out the boats and getting ready to head out to Laredo. I don't remember whose hydro we had on the top of the trailer. And a pic of our boat in the Del Norte Mall in Laredo.

[David_L6]

I don't remember the laydown boat (maybe I was racing too by then and was at the Mod races racing instead of at the PRO races watching???), but I do remember the kneeler boat (on the bottom rack of the trailer).

All good looking equipment.