The race course was nice, and set up well. We drove up over some sort of levee or hill and down to the pits. There was no shade and the pit area was rocky or gravelly, but not so big as to make it hard to walk on. The pits had a good slope to the water and the bottom was firm and not mushy or full of weeds. There was only one problem. No boats to speak of. Only a handful of us showed up. I think there were only seven..

Besides us, there was James "Fitz" and James (see the ADD) Fitzgibbon from Lubbock, Texas, Phil Crown from Fort Worth, Jim Wilkins, and Craig Lawrence from Dallas and Bobby Wilson from Graham, Texas.

The starting clock was either on a floating deck or pontoon boat and we pitted just a little to the left of it. I think it was Phil Crown and maybe Fitz Fitzgibbon pitted on the other side of the clock. It could have been either Jim Wilkins or Craig Lawrence pitted just to our left, but I remember Bobby Wilson pitted on the far left, because the driver's meeting was held at his trailer. It was more or less a grim driver's meeting.

We went through all the standard stuff of a driver's meeting and I think Ben Posey was the referee. He did much of the official duties in the North Texas races such as inspector or referee. After going over the race course, safety buoy, starting, flags, etc. Bobby had a heart to heart with us. He was very disappointed as were all of us at the turnout, but he stressed we needed to put on the best show possible for the crowd and the sponsor. I don't remember who the sponsor was, but I'm sure it was one of the local civic organizations.

Bobby said everyone would be allowed to run in every heat as long as the motor wasn't larger than the official class that was up. In other words, you could not run a C in the B class, but an A would be allowed to run against the D's. He wanted as many boats on the water as possible. We all agreed, and everyone was prepared to run however many events as possible. Bobby gave as much of an inspirational talk as he could, and we were ready to race despite the low turnout.

It was the first time we really got to know Craig Lawrence and Alan Registar. Craig had not been racing long, but there were usually many more racers at the events, and we had not had much time to hang out together. Here, we had plenty of time to get to know one another.

ADD: Joe Rome cleared up a mystery for me. I was looking at the results and it listed both James and N.E. Fitzgibbon. Over the years Fitz came and went in racing, and it was at Clarendon that Baldy and I both got to know Fitz a little better. James was his son, but since he and Fitz dropped out of racing a little later, and after a few years passed N.E. "Fitz" returned to racing but James did not. Hence the confusion. And to add to it, I found in some pictures, a trailer load of new boats with "X" for the number. Apparently the Fitzgibbons just got some new boats. That would make it seven to attend the races, and one of them most likely the unaccounted driver that won the first heat of C hydro. I always remember Fitz racing runabouts, so it was probably James. The Fitzgibbons did not race the smaller classes. They raced C,D and F.