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The OD World Championships in 1978 were in Berlin Lars. I believe they were on the Havel River. Very rough. Had barges to block the wind, but they could not stop the rollers. Erwin Zimmerman won, but I believe Wilfried did very well. Erwin raced a tunnel. I had a Butts hydro but the rollers were impossible. I was flying up out of the cockpit during testing. I went out for another run for the cameras, but we sat on the bank for the race. That article was published in Powerboat in 1978.
As far as the UIM 1980 OD World Championships, there have been posts about it, and some pictures, but I don't think there is anything extensive. I had been writing about different things back and forth over the years, and I finally decided that to honor my Dad Baldy, without whom I would never have raced boats, I have been doing the Baldy story as it happened. I miss some things and have to back up sometimes, and as I write new things come to light as people call or email me. For instance I just learned something new yesterday from a visitor which I plan to post tonight if I can. The OD World Championships is Laredo is a big story. We had run a trial run in 1979, the year before, to see if the community would support it and they did. It's in a semi desert country and the population flocks to water sports if they know about it, and we had good publicity. I had an article published in a regional magazine that went to all hotels within that region that were in all motels rooms at the time of the race. It turned out bittersweet. We had a great representation of racers for such a remote location. The representative for Federacion de Motonautica from Mexico was there as well as news media from both side of the border. We had two deaths there though...one in the pits and one on the race course that cast a pall over the whole event before the racing even started the next day. I have lots of stuff to post and talk about when I get to that, but it may be awhile. If there's anything in particular you are interested in, please PM me (if it still works) or e mail me.
One thing I have been putting together is the 1978 OE World Championship races in Dayton where UIM and OMC illegally changed the fuel rule from "fuel is free" to where OE had to run gasoline. I have files scattered all throughout my cabinets but I am compiling them so I can post them and make comments from my notes in chronological order. You are going to love this and I am looking forward to your comments because it was in the time frame from when you left OMC to Volvo/Konig, the back to OMC.I got lots of responses from all around the world.
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