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Thread: "Racing with Kansas City Speedboat & St.Louis ODA, 1969 - 1977"----Part 1

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    Team Member tomberry's Avatar
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    Default "Racing with Kansas City Speedboat & St.Louis ODA, 1969 - 1977"----Part 1




    A remodeling project at my home in March of 2008 led to cleaning out a little used closet. On the bottom if the pile was an old slide projector that had belonged to my family back in the 1950's. I remember taking it over and using it for the 35mm slides that I took and others with me took at boat races from 1969 through 1976. Inside, lying forgotten, were boxes and magazines containing all of these old pictures. A flood of memories about those "Outboard Days" came back. What should be done with the now, in the digital age, antique slides and projector? I almost thru them away. I contacted Bill VanSteenwyk. I had not talked with him in years but still had a phone number for him. Bill had some good suggestions and put me on to the Boat Racing Facts web site and in contact with Wayne Baldwin. After reading through Wayne's "Amazing Stories" I called him. Wayne remembered me and in particular a race in Ft. Worth where we got tangled up coming down to the start. Not surprisingly Wayne and I have different versions of that story. Wayne's is posted in "Amazing Stories" Wayne put me on to Jeff Lytle a web site administrator at BRF and things began to take off. The solution to the question of what to do with the slides came during a conversation with a friend here in Parkville, MO. He had a sophisticated scanner that would handle the slides. He also supplied me with a program to make a DVD Slide show from them.

    In 1964 a friend, Roy Dreiling, and I joined the U.S Navy. I was a Torpedoman & Diver on a fast attack submarine. When I got out in 1968 Butch was racing and he and I became reacquainted and became close friends. My Dad was remarried to someone and our relationship was not what it should have been. In 1969 I bought a new Lowery Hydro from Bob Lowery, an old DeSilva runabout and a "D" AmPro motor from Walter Courtois. My thinking was that Dad would become interested and we would have something in common. It just never happened.

    Butch and I were both selling machinery and eventually ended up working at the same place. Stan was still working for my Dad and that is where his pistons were cast. In about 1973 I bought a Konig from Stan and Later a C Service. I also bought, with my brother's help, a couple of Konigs from Jim McKean. Butch and I began running together all of the time. By this time I had a new DeSilva and a Butts Aerowing. Butch was running a DeSilva and a Krier copy of an Aerowing. Over the years I ran "C" & "D" AmPro (Super Stock) Hydro and Runabout and "C", "D", "F" & "C" Service Pro Hydro and Runabout.
    In 1977 I sold my rig, two hydros, a runabout, four Konigs and trailer to a guy, whose name I don't remember in State Line, ID. the Coeur D'Alene area and that was about it for me. Jobs and marriage had suffered and gas was too high for me to travel very much.

    Some stuff I won:
    1970 St. Louis ODA "D" Am Pro Hi Point 2nd place
    1973 KCSA "E" SS Hydro Hi Point 1st place
    1973 KCSA "D" SS Hydro Hi Point 1st place
    1974 KCSA "E" SS Runabout Hi Point 1st place
    1976 APBA 850 Hydro Championship at Alexandria
    1976 APBA 1100 Runabout 2nd place at Alexandria

    There were a number of others but those are the only ones that I can document because I still have those trophies. When I quit I gave a couple boxes full of trophies back to the club to reuse.

    Please view and enjoy the slide show clips and the pictures that Jeff Lytle has kindly help me post. Please also jump in here and comment on the pictures. There are some that are not identified and there may be some that are identified in correctly and only your participation here can remedy that.

    Tom Berry Y-32
    tberry2@kc.rr.com

    "Wouldst thou" - so the helmsman answered
    "Learn the secret of the sea?
    Only those who brave it's dangers
    Comprehend it's mystery."
    Tom Berry Y-32

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    Team Member Jeff Lytle's Avatar
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    Default Just a note........

    I had to post Part 1 using Google video. It works OK, but is really pixulated......so much so, it's really hard to see some stuff when you use the full screen.

    I'm working on this, and hopefully with Sam's help, I will be able to upload the 4 parts of the slideshow directly to the BRF server improving the quality 100%.

    Stay tuned!

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    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    I meant to tell you Tom, but I forgot earlier, that there is a photo of Rod Walk that you incorrectly identified as me. It is in a batch that is not posted yet. I am looking forward to the rest of it.

    I am curious about your version of our tangle on the way to the start at Fort Worth. There are always multiple versions of stories depending upon where each person was. I don't think we ever got together to discuss what happened. I just chalked it up to racing, and I just remember I kept thinking you were going to straighten up and/or look over to see me coming. It's been a long time ago though and I don't always remember everything that happened. As my story says, I flipped during that race, and so had an injured leg on my mind when I came in. I was never sore at you, and as far as I know you didn't hold a grudge at me for driving over your deck, but I would like to hear your version of the events. This is one of the great things about BRF...finding out things you never knew.

    I've been waiting for you to get started before posting any of the stuff I have for your tread. So....glad it up now.



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    Team Member Danny Pigott's Avatar
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    Smile portsmouth

    Tom I enjoyed your Pic`s I Was At Portsmouth In 1971 For The Last NOA AM PRO Nat`s I Saw The Wearly Trailer, John Was Great In A-B Hydro. The Tunnel With The D-E Could Be Larry Swirear (SP).

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    Default Nice Job Tom!!!!!!!!!!

    Glad to see you have gotten this to the stage that it can be put on BRF. I know from e-mail and phone conversations with you it has been probably more than you thought it would take at first. Congratulations for sticking with it, and thanks to Jeff for the assistance.

    Since you asked for comments/side stories about some of the pictures, I will give a couple about the race at Unionville, Mo. Butch Leavendusky and I were responsible for securing the site and sponsor for this race. It was the first race to my knowledge that was ever held on that lake which is the water supply for the town of Unionville. We had to jump thru hoops to get all the permissions required, but it all came off well, except for the weather on race weekend. Lots and Lots of high wind, making the race course an Atlantic ocean clone. I don't remember much about the races themselves except for the alky runabout classes. Jim Schook put either an A or B flathead on the biggest runabout he had and won about all the runabout classes with it. It would run just the right speed in the rough water that he didn't have to back off and he really cleaned up. Don't remember anything other than that about the racing but there are two other stories that are somewhat interesting.

    As most of you who know Butch Leavendusky will attest to, he is not at all the "shy and retiring" type. Usually not at a loss for words at all, in fact just the opposite. He and I were, as previously mentioned the prime movers for this race, and were asked by the sponsoring club (JC's if I remember correctly) to participate on the sports part of the evening news from the local TV station who was going to give us some publicity and show some video we had of a promotional nature I had spliced together for showing to potential sponsors.

    The whole time we were waiting just ourside the TV studio in the waiting area to go on the sports section, Butch was worrying and fretting about having never been on TV before and how he was afraid he was going to screw up and not be able to speak and answer any questions or participate in the interview. He was as upset and nervous as I had ever seen him, and I spent most all the waiting time trying to calm him down and reassure him everything would be OK. We were finally called in to be interviewed by the sports anchor, and the first question was to be directed at me by the guy asking some question or other about the race the next day. I started to open my mouth to answer the question, and before I could say anything, Butch started talking about the race, the boats and motors, the drivers, any and everything. He talked non-stop for about 3-4 minutes and the anchor or I never got a word in edgewise. He was the sole participant in that section of the sports news that nite. So much for his stage fright.

    The final story is about a fellow racer who should have known better and will remain anonymous. He came to race and play a little also with someone other than his, at that time, wife. Due to a lack of motels in the area, a lot of the drivers decided to camp out. He brought a small one man tent and sleeping bag. His bride at the time evidently decided to come to the race after all, and showed up in the middle of the nite/early in the morning. Unfortunately there was quite a surprise for her when she found the already crowded sleeping accomodations too crowded for her also. The names are withheld to protect the innocent. Needless to say they haven't been married for a LONG time.

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    Team Member tomberry's Avatar
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    You are right Wayne, there was NEVER any grudge. As a matter of fact I had
    forgotten about it until you reminded me. It was just racing. I never saw you
    until it was too late. I just always thought you had to have seen me. We'll cuss
    and discuss it over a beer sometime.

    Didn't Jeff do a great job? Can't wait to see the rest up on the site.

    Tom
    Tom Berry Y-32

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    Team Member tomberry's Avatar
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    Bill,

    There is lots more to come. Lots of stuff from KCSA and St.Louis ODA. you'll
    like it. didn't Jeff do a great job?

    Tom
    Tom Berry Y-32

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    Team Member Master Oil Racing Team's Avatar
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    Sounds good to me Tom. I am grateful that you didn't throw those photos away. Jeff always does a great job. That kind of stuff baffles me and I have great respect for the work that Jeff and Sam have done.

    That torpedo and diving gig you had on a fast attack submarine intrigues me. I never heard you talk about that before, and I don't know if you would, but since you brought it up, I thought.....maybe. If so, maybe you could tell us a few stories about that on the Sandbar thread.



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    Default Me Too

    I second the motion about the time spent on the submarine. I remember when I first met Tom in the time frame he talks about when he got out of the service and I found out what he had done in the Navy. I asked him about some of the technical aspects of the subs he was on such as underwater speed and depth attainable. I remember he said the information was classified so I didn't ask again. I believe I remember he was on a sister sub to the Thresher which was lost at sea in very deep water. Some way or another they were finally able to determine what happened to it although I often wondered how they were able to come to those conclusions also. I have seen pictures taken from a submersible of some type of the Thresher on the ocean floor, and I don't see how you could determine anything. You can hardly tell what it is.

    Is technology that old (40 years now) still classified? I think it is on the newer subs, as whenever you read about or see information on TV about them, they never speak about speed or depth except vaguely or "approximately". I have heard in excess of 35 kts and 2000 feet depth capability, but have no real knowledge about it. I just know if there is a leak it is a really bad deal.

  10. #10
    Team Member tomberry's Avatar
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    Smile USS Permit SSN 594

    If you guys are really interested I'll be happy to tell you all of the sea stories. You know about sea stories? They always start with "this ain't no sh**". You might want to check this site out. If you do be sure to look through the pictures. http://usspermit.com I may even tell you about almost getting caught in the harbor in Valadovostok wearing nothing but a wet suit.

    Tom
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    Tom Berry Y-32

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