An Amazing Story: Part 2

[deanwilson]

Boy that's still painful to watch all these years later. I was on the losing end of the crash. I had no idea it was posted anywhere. The tunnel boat was from Austria and he spun-out on every bouy testing during the week. I actually beat him to the turn but when I dropped the pipe he pulled next to me and spun over the front of my boat. What a shame as I was 2nd to the turn and the leader went wide so I had clean water ahead. A side note, 1st heat 28 boats...last heat maybe 8 boats.

Dean

[Jeff Lytle]

Got this pic from Eric Pugh

[Steveracer]

That same weekend, Dean and I were in the 1100 runabout race. Dean and I blew that thing over backwards, and from what I was told it went pretty high. I believe to this day that this was the fastest runabout I've ever been in. I used to ride with Rex Hall and we were probably the fastest rig around so I know fast. We won the nationals in 86. (I have more then one 1100 runabout story about riding with Rex). I guess that they are always fastest before they go. I told Dean that as soon as it got quiet, I jumped. When I landed, I pulled all of the muscles in my right shoulder and my groin. I was limping for a couple of weeks and couldn't move my right arm. Dean wasn't that lucky. He fractured his back when he wit the water a$$ first.

Adding insult to injury, the boat landed right side up without a scratch.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Well...back to the Amazing Story. With DePue and the wedding behind us I need to try to finish this.

The year 1978. The Dallas Boat Show was up, and just like we used to do in Houston, this year we used the Dallas Boat Show to help promote PRO racing and to attract new drivers and other support people. Debbie and I drove to South Texas to pick up SHADOWFAX and Marshall's old D for the show. After we got home that evening it started snowing. Here are some pics from our rent house in Denton, Texas the morning after the snowfall.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

These are from the Dallas Boat Show January 27 1978.

Joe Cohen being his usual self in pic one, while Craig Lawrence is waiting around for some chick to wander by so he can explain the ins & outs of boat racing.

Quite a few people stopped by to check out the boat racing exhibits. There were a number of young people that expressed an interest and the North Texas Boat Club picked up half a dozen new members that started in RB. One was Troy Dunn who stayed with Pro racing for a number of years and I forget the name of the guy looking over Troy's T 47 hydro. He started out racing, but dropped out for some reason.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The boat is polished more than normal. Here is also a pic of Marshall Grant's old D motor. TORC (Texas Outboard Racing Club) also had an exhibit. I can't remember whose boat this is. Maybe Doug McCune's? TORC was mostly North Texas OPC while Houston Gulf Coast Marathon Association ran OPC races toward the coastal areas.

Troy Dunn was North Texas Boat Club member and like all others in Jim McKean territory ran Yamatos. Troy worked for Motorola and I believe the plant was at Arlington between Dallas and Fort Worth. Many Motorola products have sounds that have key functions in their operations. A lot of you will remember the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Richard Dreyfuss used a sound and light device to communicate with the space creatures. The main sound that people may remember was a 5 note sequence that was repeated over and over. Troy put this sequence together at the Motorola factory right after the movie came out. At random times he would broadcast it all over the factory on the PA. The very first time he did it, it brought the house down. After a half dozen or so times, the bosses were getting very aggravated and sent spies around to find the culprit responsible. I don't believe Troy ever got caught. Denny or Craig may remember more details.

[MN1]

Is the Sport E boat a Bunky Boat?
Mark

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I looked for pics with a different angle, but couldn't pick up anything that would identify it. I myself can't tell by looking.

Winter 1977-78

We were scheduled to compete in the 1978 UIM OD World Championships to be held in Berlin in June. No Butts Aerowing had ever been overseas at that point and Tim wanted to give it as try as did my Dad and myself. We knew going in that the water would be rough so Tim built a boat with deeper sponsons and some steps in them. I don't remember what other changes there were. After rigging up the boat we did some testing. Even down here the water is fairly cold in the winter so it's better to test with a wetsuit on.

The real test would be when the water got rough. Normally we had to hold out for calm water, but in this case we had to wait for a big norther to blow in and give us some waves.

[Dave_E71]

Hey wait a minute, I think I've seen the bottom picture hung up at the Post Office

Is that the scary Wayne face that you used on your kids?

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Maybe that's why I don't get my mail at the post office anymore Dave.

Our D41994 was now 8 years old and still pumping out enough horsepower to remain competitive. The care Marshall Grant took to make sure everything was square was still paying off. We had very little trouble with the internals. Our only problems had been blowing lower units, which we mostly solved by running Master Oil in it, and fuel problems. The motor ran through so much fuel and put so much pressure in the fuel tank, we experimented with several systems to make it more reliable. But, with that many years of racing we were afraid someday the stresses might result in a break that could be castastrophic to the block.

We had a F Konig, VF7331 that was built the same year as D41994 and coincidentally as the 4 carb, dual rotary valve F, VF7023, that we also bought from Marshall Grant. We resleeved it down to a 700cc motor with cast iron sleeves made by Larry Haufler. Since we got Marshall Grant's F, we had not run the old one in a while. One of Steve Jones's pit men, Larry Haufler, was an excellent machinist and said he could make sleeves for the motors. We decided this would be a good way to put his claims to a test. Although Konig's products were fast, sometimes the parts had little defects. Such as porous holes in the sleeves that may not be detected at first. Larry said he could cast sleeves without the porosity.

So we resleeved the motor and changed the Serial No. to VD7331. Then we used this motor to test our European style water Butts Aerowing. We also used it in some local racing to save D41994.

Here are a couple of test sheets from the spring of 1978. We had to get it tested and shipped out in time for the June race. The first test was in calm water after we christened it "TEX" and got it back from the paint shop. Since I was living in Denton at the time, we had to anticipate a strong blow from the north to be able to get in some relavent testing in rough water. Our cove is protected from the prevailing southeast breeze which is why we were located there. We finally saw a strong norther would be blowing in so I flew down to get the testing in. We had only this chance for one test before it was time to ship the boat to Berlin.