The Pacific Nort West - Oregon & Washinton States - Region 10

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The Pacific North West or Region 10 as many know it was always a hotbed of various kinds of boat racing. To many when Region 10 is brought up many think of the Kilo straightaway runs and 5 miles of competition runs at D Lake, Oregon or Laurence Lake, Washington in particular. The following pictures are from approximately 1965 to 1976 as taken by Jim Hallum of British Anzani fame. When he was not spinning a wrench at the moment Jim was triggering his favourite movie camera and these were still captured from Jim's efforts for historical posting on this website.

Enjoy these pictures, who knows one of them might be you?

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Enjoy these old photos from the 1960s into the 1970s

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Are some readers identifying themselves or anyone else that comes to mind?

Concerned about the graininess of the pictures? You have to consider how old they are and the quality of the cameras and films of the day and then I am sure you will understand this is the face of today's digital technologies.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Another batch of long distance photos of power boat racing in Region 10. Have any readers seen themselves or recognize anyone else?

Please feel free to add your Region 10 - Oregon & Washington states power boat racing and related pictures to this thread.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Here are a couple of pictures of a real flying Switzer Wing at the kilo trials. This raceboat was seen to be flying right off the water with only each prop and skeg from each of the 2 Merc engines being the only things in the water. Recorded speeds somewhere in the 100 mph ranges?? Anyone?

[Jerry Combs]

Great photos John! Wish I could identify the people.

Jerry

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

One thing about Region 10 was the kinship they spread and shared with racers from Montana and Idaho. Similarly all four north western states had quite a kinship going with Western Canada in particularly Alberta and British Columbia. You would find people at race sites talking about the lower mainland (BC) or that they were from Flathead Lake country, cowtown (Calgary) or Dallas North (Edmonton) or from Seattle and so on. We could not get used to the idea of using liters of fuel up here and they still had the gallon down there. When I asked how far Kalispel, Montana was from Chestermere Lake I got an answer in kilometers instead of the miles away I expected. The camaradery was thick with a blur where it didn't matter if you were a stock outboard, Pro, Inboard or OPC team or driver, you were a racer and you were family with their families and that was all that mattered. You see all that in the various pictures in the Anzani threads and elsewhere. Racers at that period in history were pretty much the same all over and there were a lot more of them on both sides of the border.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Hi Jerry: I am trying hard to get the best resolution frame by frame and maybe some will find their own picture there and maybe some others will see others and identify them. I hope a lot more like yourself see them and start posting better pictures clearifying and identifying who what and where better. There are a lot better pictures in people's picture albums and I am hoping to draw them out and post some with captions or stories in the future.

I am going to be speaking to Jim Hallum somethimes this week to discuss posting the entire CD to the site for common downloading. I have Bit Torrent software to share files over the internet but at this point I don't have a spare computer to leave on line with the CD with its contents open for everyone's downloading. I have some security issues at work. It is a small must see kind of series of small videos on one DVD with Jim Hallum speaking to some of what was going on. Its neat. Stay tuned.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I saw a couple of Ron Anderson and one of Rich Fuschlin, then maybe one of Bob Rhoades. I couldn't the see any numbers on a couple of runabout pics, but the driver's position looked like Lee Sutter. Sure would be fine to watch the movies of those runs. A couple of hydros looked like they were just about beyond the pale.

You mentioned the quality of film then compared to now John. What I thought about was how films in the northwest in that era always looked about like that....such as pictures of Bigfoot..

We only went up there only a few times, but those trips I will always remember. Great people, unmatched scenery, and a long and proud boat racing history.

[CSR4C]

I can ID a few of them:
Mark Demary in a M Hydro (125ccH) Motor was by Jim Hallum. Mark went 10 mph per cu. in.

Dennis Lee in runabout 45-R with a 20H

Selvidge's floater

74-H Dick Lovelace

I remember the Switzer wing at Devil's lake. That was when there was a R, S, & T class in OPC S was for single engine, T was for twin engine. The R class was for 66 cu. in motors on any kind of boat, most ran big hydros. When it went away, PRO increased F from 1000 to 1100 cc so they had a place to run.

Darrell Sorensen
2-R , now 4-C