Favorite Photos past & present

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 03-18-2005

He is a good one to talk to. Never ending subjects. Ron...your Mustang Boat Company comment was correct & I was going to look through my old Powerboats for an ad to send a post to Tomtall, but I got one maybe harder to figure out.

Photo: L-R

Pete DeLackner, Jack Chance, Baldy Baldwin & back side of Tommy Weatherbee. This was at my Dad's house directly across from where you have to back off to set up for the first turn.

**John Schubert T*A*R*T** · 03-21-2005

Originally Posted by Master Oil Racing Team

I remember that. He thought they were wrong. Hated to see him quit. Maybe somebody can find him. His brother Paul has some excellent photos. He helped me a lot when I was first starting.

Good god! Where did that come from. I'm surprised you caught me with a smile. Teasing Jerry was probably the reason.

**mercguy** · 03-21-2005

Sam, have you ran that Z-Craft you got from Pete yet????

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 03-21-2005

Ron:

Here is that ad you mentioned.

**Ron Hill** · 03-21-2005

My helmet was painted by Phil Nichols from Iowa...He had just moved out here with his family and brother, Dave. He said he could paint helmets...he did a great job, never charged a dime... My dad did do them many favors, though, too..

Pete DeLackner was always fun to talk to. Like you say, seemed knowledgible on many subjects...always had a smile for everyone...That ad is at Blue Water, where the Parker Racers are run...

That picture of me was in the 1966 Issue of Power Boat Magazine after I'd won CU and DU in the Marathon Nationals...

What would it take to get you back in a boat???

I hear Andy Hansen is back in A Runabout and building motors like crazy...even though, he flipped in Florida...and was sore as hell...he's coming on strong...

When Jim Schock blew over in A Runabout, at DePue, I was the 13th boat or first alternate for D Hydro...My boat was ready...Schock was at the hospital, I called the judges stand and said I wanted to race.....(I broke a propshaft in qualifying...)..They wouldn't let me run...O.F. Christener offered me Jim's D Hydro, the stand said, "No changes after drivers meeting and fired the gun..."

I asked the Commission Saturday Night, as in those days they ran 1/2 Sat and !/2 Sunday...and had a Commission Meeting Staurday night, "Why have an alternate?" They decide I should have been allowed to run... Actually, that was the straw that finished me...I had a nice OPC Boat that I could drive until I was exhausted.....I'd sold my runabout and I had people that wanted my engines....that was my last DePue...

I talked to Jerry Siminson, maybe ten years ago, still had the marina in Minnesota...but I recall his brother taking tons of pictures...

Jerry and Doctor Phil Wagner came to Dayton, Ohio with a new DeSilva 25 SS Runabout and ran the Dayton 25 Marathon...in 1974.....Last time I saw Jerry...

Keep posting, your stuff is amazing!!!!

**Mark75H** · 03-21-2005

Sam, have you ran that Z-Craft you got from Pete yet????

Not yet, Darren. I need to flip it over and make sure Frank put the fin on straight and paint it.

Camden, NC April 23 should be my first race with it

9 feet of boat with 5 more feet of bow

**Master Oil Racing Team** · 03-22-2005

Ron:

I was wondering how you disappeard so fast. I knew you raced tunnels, but here lately I've been wondering how you were there & then gone. Some of the other PRO drivers that went to OPC were crossing over in the beginning.

You know the thing with the referees, most of the time they do a bang up job but sometimes you wonder "what were they thinking?" Yeah--what's the point of an alternate. Maybe they were concerned with that smooth water and all those D's, they would prefer less than a full field.

Ray Hardy won the first heat of BOH in Winona in 1976, and conked out on the way to the pits. He tied on the the patrol boat, but had drifted sideways before they took off. The guys in the boat didn't know what they were doing and gunned the throttle flipping Ray over. Well, it took a while for them to get him back to the pits. Officials were anxious to get the races run and didn't give him enough time to get his engine dried out for the 2nd heat.

I always liked Dr. Phil Wagner. I spent a lot of good times with him and his wife Joanie. I dated her sister Anne Finkl in 1974 & 75.

As far as getting back in a boat--I've got one--A Galaxy with a V-8 Mercruiser. I spent my racing career hating big boats that made a wake, but I bought this boat just to do that. My daughter and I spend a lot of time just behind the transom riding the wake with my surfboard (no rope). A "do gooder" stopped me last weekend and said I was going to get killed doing that. I said I've been doing it since 1968 and haven't been killed yet.

**Miss BK** · 03-22-2005

Originally Posted by Master Oil Racing Team

My daughter and I spend a lot of time just behind the transom riding the wake with my surfboard (no rope). .

Oh wow.

On the Colorado River, they lose at least 3 kids per year doing this same thing. One of those deaths was even caught on video - nobody expected it at all since they had been doing it for years. The dad even did it when he was a kid.

I really hate to be a downer, but the guy was just wanting you to avoid a potentially horrible situation. These parents in the story below are just devastated.

Video: Deadly warning for boaters
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in626829.shtml

**Ron Hill** · 03-22-2005

I frequently feel I see too many things in just ordinary things....but going back to "DISAPPEARING" from the PRO SCENE....

1. I got married in 1969. And had a real job, not really making millions.
2. I always considered myself a "STOCK RACER" and that was why I ran 19-C.
3. After buying the Konigs, my dad did some work to them, which helped their performance....but after seeing ZAK Stacks and all, all I could see was DOLLAR SIGNS...and honestly I didn't have the money to up date my equipment.
4. The speeds of the PRO BOATS SCARED me. I interviewed with AC for Jerry Waldman's job, a job I would have been offered, IF I'D QUIT BOAT RACING.
5. My OPC rides were going under 80 mph...They were free. We raced Paris, Berlin, Miami, New York, Havasu, Parker, Long Beach, Galveston, Chicago. My wife worked for the airlines, I could fly free. Evinrude paid my expenses. She went with me.
6. I started the prop business because my wife left for flights and was gone for a day or two...and going to bars without my wife didn't seem to make a lot of sense...so, I always loved props...it was a natural...Making props has been a profitable, at times, venture and usually enjoyable...
7. I returned to Stock Racing, after my daughter's birth, (1973) because I had a FAMILY and Stock Racing was FAMILY for me. I tried to give back to boat racing, what boat racing had given me. I was a Club Commodore, a Region Chairman, and later OPC Chairman.
8. On October 8, 1973 my daughter was born, the same day I was to be racing in Paris. The next year Scotti was killed there. I really retired from tunnel boat racing in 1973. But ran my Scotti for four or five more years, usually at Parker and Havasu only.
9. The V-8 scared the hell out of me, and the 13 or more deaths in V-8 proved my fears to be correct,

10. In 1978, Brad Milller, who owned Del Taco, 200 Mexican Restaurants wanted to win Parker. I had made him some good GN props. I had Brad buy and Evinrude and Molinari...With LUCK and Fred Hauenstein's motor work and Jim Nerstrom's tuning, we won Parker for Brad. Freddy went to work for Mercury, Brad and I switched to Mercury....but even with Freddy working there, Brad's money could not buy Fuel Injected motors...so, we quit tunnel racing....again, many factors. Brad caught on fire in his GN at Miami. He remarried, she liked horses....
11. Enter MOD VP...I think we gave MOD VP a ten year run. Dick Sherrer and I started it...MISS BK discusses reasons for the death of MOD VP........I discussed in the MOD VP FORUM. I TRUELY LOVE MOD VP, I was Evinrude, Johnson and Mercrury slugging it out...At one time I had five Evinrudes and two boats. We'd have 30 boats at a local race. http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forum...hread.php?t=43
12. My wife ran Mini Boats, basically until we had our baby, BROC, who is now 16.

13. Chad, my oldest, raced BMX until he was 9, then we raced J/A until he was 16, then went 45 racing.

13. In 1996, Chad ran Formula One. In 1997, we teamed with Jim Hauenstein for the Prop Tour. Jim was our REAL SPONSOR and he was killed in North Carolina.

14. We've just kind of cooled our heels, since my OPC Chairmanship and the APBA, I'll call problems...Chad and I had a 30 Cat, then a 27 Vee....Finally, he said, "I want a 45. There are 15 guys at every race." So, we're in to 45....

So, yes, I disappeared....my heart never left Boat Racing. The internet, to me is TV Racing 1955. Ocohee having 300 boat is no accident. I feel, though, we can't keep racing with three laps and clock starts....Times have changed.

The Series Formast is a change. ....Ok!!! At Bakersfield, Chad raced 56 laps, one boat and two days of racing. He hauls ***...70 MPH. Full capsule like FORMULA ONE RUNS....37 second course....(About the time they get out of control, they turn....The D Stock Hydros went around the same course 10 seconds faster....but who really wants to lay down, and run 85 mph on the straights???

I started BOATRACINGFACTS.COM with the goal of making it to the NRA of Power Boat Racing. Boat Racing Needs Leadership and it needs a voice. I learned years ago, in my classroom, that some of the least likely can become a leader.

If my wife has agreed to start racing again, I know there are hundreds out there that will also start and some will start again!!!

**David Weaver** · 03-22-2005

[

[....but who really wants to lay down, and run 85 mph on the straights???

[/QUOTE]

Ron,

In the right boat and with the right competitors, going 85 mph (or even 95) ain't that bad laying down. Of course now that I am getting older, I no longer want to go a 100 mph!! And I am sure in several years, I might prefer 75 mph.

I saw a gentlman critically injured at 65-70mph in a capsule boat. I thought that every boat in that OPC class was impregnable. Turns out, that even a tough boat cannot overcome a poor decision by another driver........

I would like to see more "safety" energy spent on teaching drivers how to drive. Good decision making will lead to reduced injuries.