Random shots from the pits

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Frank's son Curtis worked out of Angleton near Houston in the 80's. The company he worked for then now owns the manufacturing company we are franchise agents for. Does anyone know if Curtis still races, and is he still in Texas?

[Miss BK]

Curtis lives about 30 miles south of me, in Warsaw IN. Wanda saw that we had moved to Indiana on our Christmas card, and quickly contacted Curtis. We had dinner with Curt and his family a couple of years ago. He's married and has a couple of kids.

Tragically, Curtis was bow hunting for deer about 10 years ago and had a horrible accident. The deer stand was icy, and he unhooked his safety device to get a better shot at a deer that had walked under his tree stand.

His foot slipped and he fell -- broke his neck. He layed on the snow for hours and hours before rangers found him. He is now paralyzed from the waist down. The last time we talked, he was excited about going back to school to work with computers. I gave him a few message board addresses, and invited him to come chat with us. He posted a few times, but that was at least two years ago.

My son got very sick about that time, and I lost touch with Curt. I need to contact him again and see how things are going...

[rbengines]

Random Pic's

[rbengines]

Hope I didn't jump from state to state too much

[Miss BK]

These pictures are of Curtis Zorkan, about 1977 Bakersfield, CA. He was only about 14 years old, and was nearly 6 feet tall, yet he still was a Champion J driver! How he could fold all those legs up in his Z-Craft runabout and hydro is a mystery to me.

In one picture, he is walking the Davidson's dog, a Malamute named "Moonshadow". She was a cool dog.

[FurnalFlyer]

Now guess who.

That is me (Leigh Furnal) in the boat it is a borrowed boat but not from Hansen, It was before he moved back to wisconsin. That is also Jon Stone to the right holding the boat.

[rbengines]

Leigh I was looking for the one where you drop your pants and was holding the canopy off one of your tunnel boats. I always laughed at that one and so did Jo Ann.

[Doug Hall Y51]

That boat was built by Bob Sovie in NY. I dont remember for sure if James or his dad ran the boat. They must have bought it from the Sovies because they had two of them that they ran at the Title Series races. Also Bill Rucker had one of them that he raced but it did not have the wing on it. If I remember correctly the boat was very heavy even for a capsule boat.

[Jeff Lytle]

That boat used to belong to Wayne Izzo, known as dagiz1942--A member here. He, Ed Deserre, Bob Sovie, and Bob's Son Joe used to call their Team "The Good ol' Boys".

Bob's boats were built tough and beefy, no doubt about it. They were the 1st capsule type PRO hydros I ever saw.

This pic is of Bob:

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The accompanying article is from Powerboat Magazine-November 1975.