Super Swede ... Lars Strom

[Mark75H]

Its something like this:

Hey Lasse,

I met Wayne and his father in 1973, I quickly took liking for "over there". I also immediately gained great respect for Dad Baldwin. He led me quickly to understand, that he and Texas were the "biggest in the World". The son of course also the best driver. He had his own Master Oil as a sponsor, so the conditions fans. "Master Oil" he had got from Dad.

Greetings Leif Ahlborg

[Lars Strom]

Hi Sam,

I have to give you a grade A, and my wife is impressed to.

Close to perfect, and thanks for your effort.


I guess we have to eat Johnsonville Brats now!!

[Lars Strom]

One more thing Sam,

Maybe I can use the same help, or was that a.........

I don't want to be nosy, but I have so many good stories to tell, but I want them to look professional and grammatical correct.

[Jeff Lytle]

Pretty easy really, Sam has used a translator such as this:

http://www.google.com/translate_t?langpair=en%7Ces

Just copy / paste the Swedish and translate it into English.

But..............Brats just might do the trick as well!

[Mark75H]

Actually I used this page because it let me quickly switch from one to another and compare the results to get a more accurate translation

http://www.stars21.com/translator/sw...o_english.html

Google is one of the translators on that page

[Jeff Lytle]

Du är en smart kille Sam!

[Lars Strom]

Thanks for trying to help me, but did not work.

No good for my story, and I tell you why later.

I am posting my own translation, and the google after, and you see.

Coming next....

[Lars Strom]

I had my new race agreement with OMC, for the 1975 racing season.
Rouen 24 hours was the first race, but I did not want to run that race but was forced to.

Rouen was usually the first race of the season, but I
had been in South Africa earlier in the year and raced the BP 200

I flew to OMC in Belgium a week before the race to be there when they rigged the boat.
I wanted my power trim buttons and some other things in my own way.
The rules said three drivers per boat and OMC recommended me to use two of there test drivers that was about my size.

Two Clerici boats was prepared for the race, one for me and one for Roger Jenkins.

They put on lights and a bunch of junk, and I had not really taken it seriously
that we are running at night and the commercial barges ran around the clock
on one side of the island in Rouen.

When we arrived in Rouen, it was a lot of boats and most
of them thick fiber glass cats run by local French drivers.
Next surprise was that it was right hand turns around the island !!!
I had only turned right once before in the 2 hours of Duvnäsviken.

As usual in France they speak French only and I did not understand anything that was said at the drivers meeting which lasted for over an hour.

Paul Kalb, the OMC racing boss did not understand anything either, but told me that I was responsible for the whole approach, but he wanted me to
start and hopefully ran the last pass of the race.
The plan was to race two hour pass with not to much fuel
because the boat turned poorly in the ruff water when heavy.
We were out testing a number of times but waves from the commercial traffic
was so large that there was not a chance to run wide open on the backside of the island where the barges run.

Remember that Leif "Honken" Holmquist a Swedish NHL Hockey goalie, drove a V bottom boat in a smaller class, and he
came and asked me lots of things about his V-bottom boat witch behaved strangely in the ruff water.

The start was around 1 PM and around 75 boats took off, I made a perfect start but on the other side of the island, I was hit by the really ruff water and all the ugly fiber glass cats where flying by me.

I said to myself, I am an idiot who starts in this stupid race and put it on Cruise control and just drove for a few hours
before it became dark, cold and rainy.

A few of my two hour pass went well
but the next one like 4 AM began with a big take off at a large wave that I did not see, at the backside of the island.
I landed on top of another boat, which was itself a good thing.
The driver was OK, but his boat sank and that was another good thing for me, because I was able to take my boat back to the pit where we got the boat up on the trailer, repaired the damage and replaced gear case and prop.

When daylight came, we found out that most drivers had problems during the night.
Jenkins was now leading the race, but ran in to problems and ended up on the trailer for a long time.

Now, there was a chance for me to win the race, so the last hour I was driving like a mad man and victory in my first and only 24 hour race was a fact.

I do not know how this race is run today but I would never
do it for all the money in the world again.....

After the party and my first win as a factory driver we headed back to
OMC Bruges to rig a
New boat for Sprint World Formula 3/OE Championship, which would take place a few weeks later,
also in France.

That's my next story....

[Lars Strom]

After the success in the Rouen 24 hour Race, we began to rig a new Burgess boat at OMC in Bruges.

This was one of the first boats David Burgess built.
The "Boss" Paul Kalb had got the idea that I would run this boat because my driving style could fit this very special sprint boat he ordered.

The boat was only 4" back in the tunnel and that seemed not right, I thought. (Far too low)
Paul was not easy to deal with and he said that you can race with this boat or go home to Sweden.
Okay, I thought and we rigged the boat with a new Evinrude OE engine that
would run on methanol for the first time.
In addition, Paul refused to mount the power trim buttons the way I wanted and the way we did it for the Rouen boat.

He said that when he raced in the United States long time ago he held the speed gauge in one hand and steered with the other !!!!!
and he would not rig all the boats my way,
"in button for my left foot and out in all three buttons on the steering wheel"

So now it was "in and out in the steering wheel" and I was completely confused when you turned the steering wheel, which one was in / out,!

The boat was now ready for the first test on the river behind the Boat house at the factory.
The water is always smooth there and the boat ran pretty good, but I told Paul when I back off the throttle before the turn, the engine continues to run wide open for a few seconds.
Turned out that it is necessary to have different butterflies in the carburetors, without holes when running on methanol and Paul did not have any for the moment.

The boat was very fast, close to 100 miles, but very hard to handle.

Paul wanted to do more prop testing , I thought we should wait for
the new carburetors, but he did not listened to me.

Paul put a different prop on and told me to make a really high speed test and check the RPM.
Lunch break at the factory now and around 1000
workers where watching me testing.

I went as far as a could away from the factory and turned back.
The boat was really flying and I remember the RPM was in the red and just before the turn in front of the factory I by mistake pushed the wrong power trim button on the steering wheel and backed of the foot throttle but the engine was still wide open,
I was heading for the moon... and was told later that I was higher than the building
before the crash.
I ended up at the hospital.
The boat was in pretty bad shape and the engine needed new connecting rods etc.

After this , Paul installed the power trim buttons the way I asked him to do, but I still hated
that boat.

Unfortunately, Burgess repaired the boat and I had to continue with it for a while, before we finally realized that the boat was only for flat water and maybe kilo records, and not good for racing

Next story: DISQUILIFIED???

[mintominto]

Great behind the scenes stories Lars, to be so uncomfortable in a boat and still push it to the limit is very brave.