1958 Pro Nationals

[Master Oil Racing Team]

McAlester, Oklahoma. This is the start of A runabout at the 1958 Pro Nationals. Denny Henderson sent me this picture that Bobby Wilson has had for 50 years. Wow. Denny has more of the story of this start. He wrote the names of those who have been identified. All motors were Konig except for two Mercs and the lone Anzani on the inside. Anyone have a roster of the finalists?

[Tim Chance]

Some possibilities on the lone Anzani is that it could be driven by John Dortch and owned by Charlie Whitelaw. Or, Dave Berg, Dick Hoppenrath, Dale Kaus, or Dick Pond driving for Bill Tenney. Or it could be Bill Tenney himself. I personally drove in a heat of B-Hydro that was won by Bill Tenney at the Minneapolis Aquatennial in 1958.

[denny henderson]

No matter how many times I see this picture, I still get goose bumps when I look at it closely. I was 9 years old in 1958 and although my dad had been racing since '51, we went to McAlister to only watch. Most of my hero's were at this race, and several of them were in this heat of "A" runabout.
Bob keeps this picture in his office at the lumber yard in Graham. I was looking at it a few weeks ago and decided to try to post it on the BRF web-site. Since I don't have a scanner or any idea how to use one, I thought I would ask Wayne to post it, and he agreed to.
I think it is a very special moment frozen in time, and I hope we can identify all of the drivers. All I know about this heat is what Bob has told me. I am hopefull that some of you can identify the other drivers.
The race coarse was 1 2/3 miles long, so they only ran two laps. Bob said it took a long time to get down the straightaway and he had to move around a lot to avoid cramping. He nailed the start on this heat and came out of the turn way ahead. Half way down the back straight he saw the black flag waving. It was ruled that all boats had jumped the gun, so they stopped the heat and re-ran it. Deanie Montgomery won the overall and Bob was third. I don't know how the other drivers finished.
Bob thinks that Billy Seebold (about 16 yrs. old) was driving the only DeSilva in the field. For some reason, Deanie Montgomery and Ben Turpin had switched rigs, 2T and 14T, and Deanie ended up winning.
As I remember it, there was another race in McAlister the following year that Dieter Konig and Dieter Shultz came to. They were both very impressive in "B" hydro in their laydown cab-overs. Someone from Oklahoma bought Shultz's entire rig and ran it for many years after that.
If anyone can identify any of the other drivers in the picture, or if you know anything about this race, please share it with us. Thank's Wayne

[racingfan1]

Here is the race recap from that race.