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50 Years Ago Today-Stock Outboard Nationals in Hinton, WV.
After making the long trip from Oregon, our family racing team arrived in Hinton. Hurricane Camille was lashing the east coast I saw the worst thunderstorm of my life in Charleston the night before where we stayed for the night. But mother nature came through, the sun came out it started drying out, and the racing got underway. (after evacuating the pits on Wed. overnight, they did not need to open the dam, and everyone went back in).
I got a bye into the JU finals for winning at the Seattle Nationals in 68, and a bye in JSH from a divisional win or something I do not recall. My brother Mark qualified in both classes too.
I had some luck and some good runs and ended up winning all 4 heats in both classes. My JSH set a new 5 mile competition record that was beaten by Janis Lee the next month at Lawrence Lake. She was the defending JSH Champion and should have won at Hinton, but she hit something in the water and lost part of one blade of her prop, I knew something was up when I passed, there was quite a bit of debris in the water. I had won one heat, but she was pulling away and would have had the overall win. She ended up 3rd, my brother was 2nd.
We had if figured that I won the Bluestone Hydrocup for the highest point total at the race, but at the banquet they announced the winner as Don Pontius. After a brief bit of confusion, they realized that yes J drivers count too! And I received the award. The trophies are long gone, but I still have the plaque that was on the big trophy.
The next year my brother Mark got the fastest equipment for the Beloit Nationals, I ran overweight in JU in the old Price Craft, he got the faster, lighter newer Price boat. He ran the same Hedlund ASH that got 2nd in JSH at Hinton, winning this time in Beloit, my Price Hydro took 2nd. We were BOTH disqualified in JU when my dad decided that we needed to switch engines between JU's between heats when he didn't like the 1st heat results (don't remember).
We had one Joe Price built prop that won 4 National events on 4 different boats! We were informed that we were getting out of racing after Beloit, Lawrence Lake and Devils Lake in 1970. I moved into dirt bike racing a bit later. Never raced boats again sadly.
