Wayne Baldwin's Amazing Story: Baldy's Eual Eldred Baldwin

[Master Oil Racing Team]

It dawned on me yesterday I had a trophy from the Clarendon race. Most of the time we didn't get trophies, but I went into the racing/music room and confirmed....yes I had one.

Having placed these on the shelves several years before I discovered BRF, I had forgotten the origin of some. Today I called Joe Rome. I told him I had in my collection a propeller from the famed propeller maker Louis Baumann. He wanted to know where I got it, and I told him it was mounted on a "Hell Divers Trophy" I received from my performance at Clarendon. Joe asked if the prop was bent and I said "No....it was exactly like the propellers we got from Curtis Mihalczek when we first started racing." Joe then told me a story about how a racer came to Louie after a race and receiving a hell divers trophy and the prop was all bent up. He told Louie he dropped it and wanted to know if he could fix it. Louie laughed and told Joe "He didn't know how much work I put into bending it up like that."

[David Mason]

I just noticed the throttle was broken off as well. That must have been one hell of crash.

[shenders]

First race I was in was B runabout . 1956 lake Tomas Tx. I was coming up on the start
and was going to go between Ben Terpan and Raymond Ownes but they kinda closed
door on me and that runabout went straight up did a 360 and that was the end of my race.
But they gave me a Hell Divers certificate. I was proud too be a member of the club.
I wonder how many are in that club?

stan

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I don't know Stan, but apparently Louie Baumann supplied props for a lot of them. I got mixed up in my story about the bent prop that Joe told me. I was driving down the road and had a hard time hearing. I asked Joe to repeat what he said, and it was the most important part that I did not hear. Joe said Louie always supplied props for the Hell Divers trophies and that he bent them. The part that I didn't hear was that after a driver "earned" one of the trophies, his wife showed up at his shop in Houston as said someone must have dropped it, and asked if he would be so kind as to fix it. Louie laughed as he told Joe "I didn't want to tell her how much time I had spent making it like that. so I just fixed it". Joe thinks that may be the reason mine wasn't bent. Louie decided not to bother with bending them anymore.

Do you still have your certificate Stan? I know it was common practice when I got mine, but then it kind of dropped off.

ADD: To me it was horrific David. It was my first of two trips to the hospital. Both results of stuffing. But it wasn't so bad that the throttle was taken out. I can understand your confusion because the apparatus that was left might look like it was part of some kind of throttle assembly. What else could it be in a place like that? If you look to the very left hand of the frame you can see what is the front part of a Keller throttle.

I had explained in earlier posts how I came up with a device to kill power to the motor if I was ejected. That picture of the hydro is the clearest photo of what it looks like after I'm gone from the cockpit. It worked every single time without a hitch, and I never had a single problem with the way it worked or no hindrance to racing.

I found this mount I never used a couple of weeks ago.

[shenders]

I don’t have it Wayne. It and a large box of black and white pictures were lost along
life’s highway. I sure wish I had the pictures. It would be great to put on BRF.
They were all of the early 1950's.

Stan

ps’ I would bet that Denny has a lot of old pictures from that time if we get him to
Get on here and put them up.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

It's a great loss to lose pictures like that Stan. They would have been very interesting. Denny hasn't said anything to me about old pictures, but he did send one down that Bobby Wilson had of a bunch of you guys altogether at the starting line in McAlester, Oklahoma from around 1961. I posted it some time back but the only other picture Denny sent me was one of himself, myself and Jane Smith hitting the starting line at Alex. Hopefully I will see him soon and find out if he has some more.

ADD: I talked to Craig Lawrence today and because of that added to post 579 on page 58.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We were short one A hydro. That little Marchetti was the key to being able to accelerate off the corners to compete with drivers like Louis Williams, Jim Wilkins, Bobby Wilson, Deannie Montgomery, Clayton Elmer, Curtis Dumesnil, and others like them in the Lone Star circuit. I was with Craig Lawrence and Denny Henderson learning to compete against these guys.

Baldy had already contacted Nick Marchetti about building us some new hydros. He had on order an 11-4 hydro for the B, a 12-2 for the C and a 13-6 for the D/F. I'm not sure about the motors for a D/F at that time because we did not have an F. I'm speculating here and instead of jumping the gun, then finding out later, I'm going to go back and look at some correspondence between Scott Smith and Baldy. I do know that we did pick up a very long 13-6 Marchetti hydro. More about that later. In the meantime, Baldy had ordered these three hydros to be built, but not knowing at the time we were going to be short one A hydro. I've been trying to figure that one out now, and will see what I can find.