The Pacific Nort West - Oregon & Washinton States - Region 10

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

The Pacific North West or Region 10 as many know it was always a hotbed of various kinds of boat racing. To many when Region 10 is brought up many think of the Kilo straightaway runs and 5 miles of competition runs at D Lake, Oregon or Laurence Lake, Washington in particular. The following pictures are from approximately 1965 to 1976 as taken by Jim Hallum of British Anzani fame. When he was not spinning a wrench at the moment Jim was triggering his favourite movie camera and these were still captured from Jim's efforts for historical posting on this website.

Enjoy these pictures, who knows one of them might be you? :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Enjoy these old photos from the 1960s into the 1970s

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Are some readers identifying themselves or anyone else that comes to mind?

Concerned about the graininess of the pictures? You have to consider how old they are and the quality of the cameras and films of the day and then I am sure you will understand this is the face of today's digital technologies. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Another batch of long distance photos of power boat racing in Region 10. Have any readers seen themselves or recognize anyone else?

Please feel free to add your Region 10 - Oregon & Washington states power boat racing and related pictures to this thread. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Here are a couple of pictures of a real flying Switzer Wing at the kilo trials. This raceboat was seen to be flying right off the water with only each prop and skeg from each of the 2 Merc engines being the only things in the water. Recorded speeds somewhere in the 100 mph ranges?? Anyone?

[Jerry Combs]

Great photos John! Wish I could identify the people.

Jerry

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

One thing about Region 10 was the kinship they spread and shared with racers from Montana and Idaho. Similarly all four north western states had quite a kinship going with Western Canada in particularly Alberta and British Columbia. You would find people at race sites talking about the lower mainland (BC) or that they were from Flathead Lake country, cowtown (Calgary) or Dallas North (Edmonton) or from Seattle and so on. We could not get used to the idea of using liters of fuel up here and they still had the gallon down there. When I asked how far Kalispel, Montana was from Chestermere Lake I got an answer in kilometers instead of the miles away I expected. The camaradery was thick with a blur where it didn't matter if you were a stock outboard, Pro, Inboard or OPC team or driver, you were a racer and you were family with their families and that was all that mattered. You see all that in the various pictures in the Anzani threads and elsewhere. Racers at that period in history were pretty much the same all over and there were a lot more of them on both sides of the border. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Hi Jerry: I am trying hard to get the best resolution frame by frame and maybe some will find their own picture there and maybe some others will see others and identify them. I hope a lot more like yourself see them and start posting better pictures clearifying and identifying who what and where better. There are a lot better pictures in people's picture albums and I am hoping to draw them out and post some with captions or stories in the future.

I am going to be speaking to Jim Hallum somethimes this week to discuss posting the entire CD to the site for common downloading. I have Bit Torrent software to share files over the internet but at this point I don't have a spare computer to leave on line with the CD with its contents open for everyone's downloading. I have some security issues at work. It is a small must see kind of series of small videos on one DVD with Jim Hallum speaking to some of what was going on. Its neat. Stay tuned.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I saw a couple of Ron Anderson and one of Rich Fuschlin, then maybe one of Bob Rhoades. I couldn't the see any numbers on a couple of runabout pics, but the driver's position looked like Lee Sutter. Sure would be fine to watch the movies of those runs. A couple of hydros looked like they were just about beyond the pale.

You mentioned the quality of film then compared to now John. What I thought about was how films in the northwest in that era always looked about like that....such as pictures of Bigfoot.;):D.

We only went up there only a few times, but those trips I will always remember. Great people, unmatched scenery, and a long and proud boat racing history.

[CSR4C]

I can ID a few of them:
Mark Demary in a M Hydro (125ccH) Motor was by Jim Hallum. Mark went 10 mph per cu. in.

Dennis Lee in runabout 45-R with a 20H

Selvidge's floater

74-H Dick Lovelace

I remember the Switzer wing at Devil's lake. That was when there was a R, S, & T class in OPC S was for single engine, T was for twin engine. The R class was for 66 cu. in motors on any kind of boat, most ran big hydros. When it went away, PRO increased F from 1000 to 1100 cc so they had a place to run.

Darrell Sorensen
2-R , now 4-C

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Well, I haven't seen a racer in a Saskwatch suit yet but there is a first time! LOL

I was hoping that putting all these pictures up would spark some historical interest comment and maybe some more picture postings too from the Region 10 (WA & ORE) & Montana and Idaho as well the Western Canadian group who might have some to post??? :)

I just spent a good hour talking to Jim Hallum (he lives in WA state) about the movies, the pictures, Anzani, OMC and Merc engine stuff and the "DVD"!

I have been asked by several readers if they could get a copy or get a download of the DVD to have their own copy of Jim Hallum's short clips movies that gave me all these pictures to post here on BRF. I indicated that I would ask Jim Hallum for his permission to distribute the video file he put together with racing stuff from 1965 to 1976? Jim said is would be okay to distribute it freely to anyone who wants to copy to DVD so they can have their own copy. I need to copy the whole DVD to a server somewhere for distribution to those historical enthusiasts who want it. Any suggestions where I can upload it to for these free distributions? :)

[Jerry Combs]

John,

I don't know where you could do it online as that has to be one huge file. I know that I would never be able to download it, I am on a 20K dialup connection. I don't know about anyone else but I would be willing to pay for a copy if it were not too expensive. I wish that the movies that my parents had taken had not been stolen when mom moved from California to Oklahoma. We had many hours of racing in both region 10 and 12. Had some fantastic footage of Hu Entrop (sp) barrel rolling his cabover at Lake Sammamish sometime in the 1960 timeframe.

Jerry

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Jerry C:

Send me your personal email address please to catwerx@hotmail.com We can discuss a DVD sooner than later.

Right now I have 3 DVD burners at my disposal but the only time I burn any is to archive worked files for publication or I watch the odd movie on the computer when I drank too much coffee and can't sleep and do so quitely on the notebook's DVD with out waking anyone that way as opposed to bring screen TV.

I will find out what a spindle of DVDs, CD mailers cost and I can do a few in my spare time at bare cost this way for those that would like the DVD. If I find that I am going to be inundated then its DVD cost, mail cost and time and I don't want to get into that with what is being done here now so that is where I would prefer it become a free download through a server or on a Bit Torrent file share system for open access.

[carl lewis]

You mentioned the quality of film then compared to now John. What I thought about was how films in the northwest in that era always looked about like that....such as pictures of Bigfoot.;):D.

NOW that got my attention............................!!!!!!!!

Carl

[Mark75H]

The individual files could be uploaded to a file sharing service such as sendspace.com or swapper.net with no duplication or distribution cost. I haven't used either of these, but I have used others in the past and it worked well.

Bit Torrent is for direct real time peer to peer file transfer and requires software download and installation. The others do not require software download and installation nor coordinated file transfer.

[geodavid]

There's even some of us way down south from Regions 11 and 12. I can I.D. a couple of photos. The red no number runabout is from Devil's Lake maybe 1973? Jim's 4 pipe Yamato 500 with a littlefoot driving.
Did I meet you there John Taylor???
I agree with Wayne, Sam and Carl. These are GREAT photos. Count me in on a DVD too!

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Send me your address information via my email address to get a at cost DVD of Jim Hallums racing videos. Send that address info to catwerx@hotmail.com asap.

I hope I don't get swamped but if I do at some point the whole DVD has to go on a server.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Geodavid:

I don't know if we met then but I was sure getting around to long distance events in the later 70s out west and met so many drivers from the 4 North Western states as well as racers west and north west of here. 1,000 miles plus trips or more one way there were a few with some local racers from here also accompanying me as well then. Most (all) of it was stock outboard though I frequently carried a Quincy piped 44 for Runabout of which there were not any out west basically. Maybe somewhere in there we did, then I was driving C and D stock hydro and runabout and I saw a lot of Gene Strian in Calgary back then whose son, Billy drove OPC, Stock and B Alky as well. Saw a bit of Don MacBeath and Ron Smith and some other northern racers from Edmonton too. Many drivers at their events were from the 4 north western states too. Having over 20 D Stock hydros in one location with some other stock classes of newerestuff and classics is a lot of racers come in on place well represented. You meet a lot of people to try to remember is impossible at the end of the day.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Between the 2 of you, you kinda jolted some thoughts loose.

I kinda assume that everyone is on high speed DSL or cablemodem but in reality lots of readers are on anything from 20K to 56K dialup as well.

So, for the cablemodem and DSLs I will take Mark 75Hs suggestion and put the entire CD on a site for free anytime downloading. For those on 20k to 56K dialup the contents on a DVD would be days of downloading so for those I can do the DVD thing at minimum cost of production and mailing.

Thanks for the suggestions and the realities out there. I got something I can do for everyone it seems with thanks to Jim Hallum who produced the DVD files from his filming stock.

I will get DVD site availability for downloads as soon as possible.