Ron Hill Family: Hill Marine and Signature Propellers

[Ron Hill]

I seem to have lost the original picture, I won this set of tools for being the most popular driver on the TV series...That is Dick Lane with me. He was Speed Boat Redeo's announcer, he also announced wrestling...but he liked boat racing better...

[Ron Hill]

Ted March used to work for Playboy and he traveled a lot..Seems he always was traveling to Havasu, Parker, St. Louis....Here is Ted next to my 235 Evinrude, MOD VP, 21 Eliminator......The boat's name "CRAZY HORSE" named for "Crazy Horse" Campground at Lake Havasu City, AZ.

Talked to Benny Robertson, today, he tells me he will be driving a Fountain Powerboat, before the 2007 Miami Boat Show, and the expected speed is 200 MPH....V-Hull...

He also told me, that Jerry Gilbreath, who was Brad Miller's son-in-law (Brad owned Crazy Horse Campgrounds, Crazy Horse Steak House, Del Taco, among other stuff, before he died)....Jerry will be Brandon Miller's Crew Chief on Brandon's Busch Car in 2007....

Don't know what Benny REALLY knows, but he usually,doesn't lie to me..

He tells, me Bobby Thompson, "JUST ADD WATER" Bobby Thompson, has a new Marina in Kentucky and will sponsor a Champboat Race at his Marina in Kentucky....

Bobby sponsored Kenny Stevenson and Benny to name a couple that I know he sponsored...Anyone have some pictures of "Just Add Water" Racing????

Bobby Thompson is a SERIOUS ASSET TO BOAT RACING.....WELCOME BACK, BOB!!!!

Here's the picture of Ted I started to post......

A Side note here: Jerry Gilbreath co-drove with me in this Eliminator. After the Enduro, Gil, Jerry's dad, started making the Gil Brackets.....I thought they were heavy and dumb...He copied my set back and sold 2 million dollars worth of Gil Brackets...Who was dumb???

Bob Leach, President and owner of Eliminator, gave me this boat for building a bracket like this...As I was the first one to put and outboard on an Eliminator. John Daley, President of the San Diego Unlimited Race, drove the first Elimnator ever to have an Outboard on it with an OUTBOARD bracket...(MOD VP, Havasu 1981)...

[Ron Hill]

Mickey wasn't liked by some, but he was a PROMOTER and he saw the future...

This is my Morehouse runabout and my dad's Evinrude Six Stud, 6042 Engine....I am looking for this motor with the serial number of 0041.

[Ron Hill]

The LASA (Los Angeles Speedboat Association) had a newspaper called THE FINISHLINE..JUly 1949. My brother had just won the Hearst Regatta...Hearse as in Hearst Castle and William Randolph Hearst Newspaper...

Elgin Gates was third in M Hydro, he lived in Seattle at the time, on the Seattle Outboard Logo is Elgin in his conventional M Hydro. Elgin later, bought the Mercury Outboard distributorship for the Western United States...He was a BIG GAME HUNTER, when he retired and moved to NEEDLES, he sold his house to JOHN WAYNE...

[Ron Hill]

My OLD MAN always added oil to my motors. OMC MAY HAVE OWNED THEM, BUT MY dad ADDED OIL WHEN THEY WEREN'T LOOKING...He didn't care what "THOSE ENGINEERS SAID, he wasn't going to run any two stroke at 50:1......later, OMC decided that 20:1 was a good idea...

My dad was 59 here, younger than I am now....and I always thought of my dad as OLD.....

[Ron Hill]

John Castelli's old CSR was broken pretty badly at Bakersfield, once, and I kind of stomped on it and finished it off....So, I bought John a new boat for three props...

[Ron Hill]

John Schubert and I co-drove in PARIS, 1970, but he returned to the USA to work the next week, and Jimbo and I drove the same boat to win the six hours of Berlin....Interesting, Schubert was fired from his jiob two weeks later....or so..he would have loved winning Berlin....

Jim Briggs, was President of LAWNBOY LAWNMOWERS AT THE TIME, GAVE ME A NEW LAWN MOWER FOR WINNING BERLIN...About all I got as it seems they considered this a "SPORT"... in 1970...

Not sure what it said, maybe, Ron Hill won!!!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I saw where it said he was the best driver. but, it also answers a question I have long wondered. The race was on the Havel River.

[Ron Hill]

My dad always said he was very even tempered, he was mad all the time....(Which wasn't at all true....he was mellow, but had learned to box as a young man...didn't take much BULL to set him off)... I on the other hand, feel I'm seldom angery, but sometimes I go off...I don't ever stay mad and anyone....And If you know me, you know that several people have taken advantage of me several times....and I give them another "CHANCE" (To screw me).... But generally, life has been very good to me. I went into teaching to be off in the summers, but never worked a day in my teaching life that I didn't feel over paid.

One day, I came home and Chad had taken my new Weed Eater apart and told me he and grandpa WERE GOING TO MAKE AN OUTBOARD.....(Kind of like the song: "Now you can say there is no such thing as Santa, but as for me and grandpa we believe"...I thought, Christ, new Weed Eater torn to hell...).

Well, Chad and his Grandpa made patterns, ordered gears from Boston Gear, made castings, machined parts and built a motor....Later they used the Zinowa and had their been an E-Bay, Chad and my dad would have made a million dollars on these OUTBOARDS.

This is the ONLY WEED EATER they ever made, so it is the "ORIGINAl" ... I did help make a four blade prop for it..

I was mad about my Weed Eater, but twenty-two years later, I'm so glad Chad wanted to build an Outboard and I feel how lucky he and I both were to have a grandpa/dad who would build a motor with his grand son!!!!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Ron....that is a great tribute to not only your son Chad, but your Dad and yourself for their thought patterns. Outboard....Two cycle.... Experimentation. The younger and the older working to put something like that together is priceless. I have seen you post these pics together earlier, and it just put a thought into my head of another person you spent a lot of time with and loved as part of your own family. Ted May. I just had a thought, and Joe remembers more than me, about Ted grabbing and slinging water hayacyiths from the pits and those that were floating around the race course at the final round of the 1968 NOA World Championships. That was before Weedeater was invented I think, but if they would have had a loonng prop shaft and a heavy duty surfacing plastic rope, they could have cleared that pit area and race course in no time.