Louis was the toughest driver I ever ran against and one of the world's finest V-bottom drivers. Louis, in turn, told me that Johnnie Sanders was in his opinion the best driver he'd run against. He started life modestly, while attending UT in Austin he kept a 1950s era Johnson 25 in his trunk for ready use. I met him when (advised by John Long) I drove to Waco in 1976 to buy a pristine blue-white 14' Allison (that would win me three national championships) with a Merc 850. At that time Louis traded rare coins for a living, he's probably nearly the best psychologist I've had the pleasure to know. Reading people was his specialty. He drove JP a lot in those days, got into Mod VP at Havasu in 1978 and would have won the 1980 Havasu race but was disqualified for an infraction that he may not have committed (cutting the right turn buoy-the video didn't show the infraction). I don't have many pictures of Louis, I hope someone else will post many. Driving back through Mo. at night from Kaukana in 1979 (where the time trials were blown out, and we'd spent several days oscillating between Marc's Budgetel and Marc's Big Boy with the Allisons and Jay Cox) he told me that he figured I, like him, 'liked to jack around with boats'. Louis and I are still jacking around, to out-do my 1980 Allison WP-15 fishing boat with tiller handle 1983 Johnson 35 (42 mph) he recently bought a ca. 1979 14' Allison bass boat with 1977 Merc 700. And, he jacks around with a Glastron-Carlson with various models of Mercury (Louis doesn't like Johnsons, but he once hung a 1875 Stinger 75 on the blue-white Allison to beat Sue-Ann Callahan at Lk. Charles). Sue-Ann dominated EP Class for a good while! The fifth photo shows Louis purposely blocking the view of my Johnson. Photos three and four were taken at Meatball Murray's outboard shop in Kingsland during the 2009 Texas AOMC wet meet (the fifth photo is also from Kingsland). The last two pictures show Louis' Allison, Louis, Brad and Brad's son with Paul at Paul's 81st birthday celebration in Louisville, where there was a boat parade and the mayor spoke.
Bookmarks