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I posted a little bit about it a long while back David, but many new members since then. As you know, Tim Butts was always an A/B driver. When my Dad asked him to build us an A/B hydro in 1972 he said he didn't want to at that time. He had built one for Johnny Dortch and Dick Scoponich. He wanted to build us a CDF hydro. Then after that he would build us an AB hydro. He ran one of our C or D Marchetti's...I think maybe at Hot Springs. In any case it was at one of the race courses in 1972. He delivered his first CDF hydro to us at Alexandria later that year. His first jab at the larger boats was on the money. We won lots of races with "Hookin' Bull". It was perfect for that time, but with as fast as motor technology was advancing, we knew that the D and F were already at its limits top end wise. Having only a few runs under his belt with the bigger motors, Tim came down for Thanksgiving that year and we put "Hookin' Bull" in the water for him to get some more time. Since he didn't know the upper limits, he built "Honcho". From just aft of the sponson, the outside five or six inches of the deck was flat all the way back to the chines ending at the transom. It was squared off, in a rectangular tubing kind of shape. Looking from the transom toward the front, you get a better idea than in the shot from high. The deck portion from the outside edge to the cockpit sloped down toward the back like a regular Butts. It was also much longer. Hookin' Bull was around 12-2. Honcho was up around 13 or so. Maybe even 13-2. Can't remember now. It was too long to come out of a tight corner even with a D or F, and it had very little lift. About the most the sponsons would come off the water was about 2 inches, and in those days the Butts' would fly high on smooth water. My Dad gave that boat to Marshall Grant because his Byers was not even close to being enough boat for the 8 cylinder Konig. Dan Kirts ended up with it and repainted it. Seems to me way back you had taken a picture of it at Alex and got me confused because I couldn't remember what it looked like. Tim never built another one with a deck like that. I think some of his idea was to channel air further back for a more level ride at speeds over 100, but it was not good for competition except with Marshall and later Dan's 8 cylinder Konig, and then it was really not enough boat if the lower units could have stayed together. In the pictures I have of it, it had three different paint schemes over the years, so maybe that's why you thought it may have been something entirely different.
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Originally Posted by jrome
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