Originally Posted by
Master Oil Racing Team
These are pictures of Alex Wetherbee that his son Steve got autographed for me a couple of weeks ago. Soon I should have some of his brother Tommy. I first met Alex, Tommy and Steve in the mid sixties. They were tearing up the courses with their Quincy Loopers.
Alex was a youngster when he first started racing boats and became factory driver for Morphew boats when he lived in Paris, Texas.
The first photo is a Morphew hydro taken at a race in Arkansas or maybe Paris.
The second one was taken in New York after the 1949 Albany-New York Marathon. Alex would have won the B class and would have finished ahead of some D's and F's had he not run out of gas just before the finish line. His was the only Morphew with an afterplane they had added before the race. Most of the other boats were bucking a lot in the rough water, but Alex's ran more smoothly, and thus faster. There are two filmstrips of that race on U Tube. One is 10 minutes long, another is 20 minutes long, but is the same one as the first that repeats. A different version of that same race is 25 minutes long and was sponsored by Mercury and narrated by Paul Harvey. In that particular film there is about a 5 second clip of Alex around halfway through the race. The building in the background of Alex standing next to his Mercury can be seen in the shorter version of the race.
The last photo was taken at White Rock Lake near Dallas and was site of the 1950 APBA Nationals. When Steve was asking his Dad who the other gentleman was, Alex couldn't remember. After reading off some names of drivers who competed in the race Alex said he was sure it was "Tex" Flagg. The name of the winner of a four cylinder runabout class was H.L. "Tex" Flagg. Steve and I both think this is probably BRF member William "Tex" Flagg's Dad, and the 1950 National Championship boat and motor. I hope Bill sees this post and lets us know if it is indeed his Dad. The Wetherbee's lived in Denison, Texas at one time, and it's possible that they were friends back in those days.
After Steve gets me more information, either he or I will start a Wetherbee Family boat racing thread. Steve is a packrat too, so he has a lot of stuff to dig out and post.
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