An Amazing Story

[Master Oil Racing Team]

This next section will come in two parts for easier explanation.

Until I started digging into old files I had thought I won the World Championship riding in SHADOWFAX, but now I know it was with QUIEN SABE. It was a great boat, but better for a C. HONCHO was too long and not enough lift. So the next boat Tim built for us was SHADOWFAX, and it turned out to be one of our best all time boats. It had an innovative feature that Tim used on his next boat that was disguised as a support member. It was actually an airfoil to give some lift and lateral stability to the rear of the boat.

The hydros only had a couple of rules. The main rule said there could be no devices creating lift, which basically outlawed all hydros. I don't know when the rule was originally written, or if the commissioners at the time of the writing meant devices other than deck shapes for creating lift. I was one of the commissioners leading the charge to rewrite the rule and we were able to get it done at the 1976 APBA Convention.

First is the rule as it existed at the time SHADOWFAX was built. Second is the rule after changes at the convention.

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

John - I got the boat in the mid to late '60's. I think I got my Marchetti (12' not 12-2) from Armand Hebert in '68 and I had that Sid for at least a year or two before that. We all called it a 10-6 I don't know if anybody ever measured it. It could have been 10-8. One thing for sure it was a totally different boat from the 10-6 B/C Alky Sid. As this boat had a much wider bottom. I think the first time Dale ran the boat it did have lettering on it and still had John's number (Y-100???), But the Kaus' totally refinished the boat and when I got it there was nothing else on it. But my guess is that it was originally your boat. I sold it to a schoolteacher named Kenny Peterson and he had a series of kids drive it with an old 2-cyl Konig deflector.

Tim, I'm sure that it was as that boat am combo C-D did have the wider bottom. When Sid designed the C & D separately, he narrowed the bottom on both the 10'6" C & the 11' D.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The leading edge of a Butt's Aerowing was designed after a wing of an aircraft with a stall speed of around 80 mph. Therefore, it was an illegal lifting device, just as all the decks on conventional hydros of the time were. But in those days Unlimiteds were beginning to utilize wings over the transom to add lift. PRO division hydros could get away with different deck configurations, but a wing on the transom would be declared outright illegal. Most everybody knew the paradox of the rule, but still it was there. Tim wanted to experiment with some tail lift, so until the rule was changed, he built SHADOWFAX with an airfoil that supposedly had a different purpose in order to get away with it. I know of only two boats he built with the larger airfoil--SHADOWFAX and his own M 71. He built another boat with one about half the size of those two, then I think he discontinued the rear wings altogether.

The idea was to not only provide just a little lift on the tail, but also a little lateral stability like a vertical stabilizer on an airplane. The two wings at an angle plus the lower unit in the water would be kind of like the feathers on an arrow keeping it flying straight and true.

The first pic is Tim's boat at the John Ward race in Valleyfield in 1976. Quien Sabe is in the background. We had picked up SHADOWFAX a month earlier and it was in the paint shop.

[Tim Chance]

One time Tim (Butts) and I (Chance) were talking about airfoils or wings at the tail of the boat and decided that for inspection purposes they were "tool trays" a place to put your prop wrench or whatever so you wouldn't mar the finish of the boat.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

....I haven't heard that one. It was one of your boats that I had a different example of a wing on the transom Tim. I'll put up a pic tommrow.

[Jeff Lytle]

I had a friend of mine who had an older 700cc Aerowing with the lower, wider sides and the flush transom. With the older Konig, it handled the power just fine, but when he updated his engine, suddenly he found himself with a handfull of ill handling boat. He built himself a homemade afterplanes he screwed to the transom. He followed dimentions he got off a newer boat, and it made the rig driveable once again.

Tim's practical theories on the way air affects hydroplanes was awsome!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Had to leave yesterday before I finished.

We had never run a kilo before and didn't have any plans to, but Tim had SHADOWFAX built and rather than me going all the way to Romeo or Tim coming to Barbon, we met him at Kaukauna. Seemed like a good idea. Lots of people there. My Dad and I met Tim and Ruth at a hotel, but we turned in early as we had to get up a 4 a.m. to get to the course on time. I drew a very high number so we had lots of time to rig up.

We rigged up Marshall Grant's D first. Tim spent a lot of time on the set up as we had no testing time with the boat. We would just have to guess at the best setup and go with that. My Dad was the prop man and he picked out what he thought would work. We never ran any trick stuff at a kilo. We just ran what would be a good set up for a high speed oval. Thinking back now about what we had done seems pretty amazing in itself, but at the time it seemed like nothing more than getting ready for a test session.

It was taking a long time to get the runs off. I don't mean this in any derogatory manner whatsoever, but it was taking something like 10 minutes for some of the J or A stock guys to complete their runs. On the run into the wind they would go a half a mile or so outside the traps then turn around to make the run. It lasted forever. So after a few hours the wind began kicking up and there were a lot of entries still to go. After the wind picked up quite a bit, as the announcer called the next number, drivers one after another scratched. They kept calling numbers until they came to ours and we took it. There was a small island out close to one of the traps and Tim told me to ease to the right around the island, then hook a hard left and accelerate into the run to get the back up. It was probably only 100 yards or so.

That D really had some power. The first run was into the wind and I was unable to keep it at maximum power. The wind was blowing too hard and it was all I could do to keep it on the water. I was tucked just below the cowling as far forward as I could get, and just had to balance it by working the pipes up and back. Never had I run so long at that speed. I kept thinking the motor was going to lock up because I wasn't backing off to let a little extra fuel bubble through. But that motor just kept stroking. Going downwind was just the opposite. The wind was blowing hard enough that it took all the lift out and we had a conservative tuck on the motor. So then I had the throttle wide open and pipes pulled all the way up and the sponsons seemed like they were plowing through the water. I was stretched as far back as I could get. Going with the wind was so quiet that I began to hear noises I never paid attention to before. It seemed like I could hear the gears in the lower unit meshing and the pistons thrasing around, then I worried about being able to make it all the way through. But I did. So the first two passes I ever made with SHADOWFAX went into the record books. The run into the wind was something around 112 and downwind was 108 for an average of 110mph. Thinking about it now, I realize it was because Tim's boats were so consistently driveable that I never hesitated to run them as hard as I could on the first trip out of the pits. They were always like that.

After that run, all the drivers scrambled to get back in line. No more scratches. We rigged up the dual rotary valve "F" we got from Marshall and then I started to take more pictures. After a little while Bob Hering blew his tunnel over right at 130mph. It looked very bad. No runs while the ambulance was gone and I think we must have rigged down then. We did not go out with the "F" and I think it must have been because we were so bummed out about Bob Hering. We had lost Bob's ex alky partner Jerry Waldman 4 years earlier, and at that time we never would have expected Bob to come away with only some broken ribs.

I didn't take any photos with D41994 on SHADOWFAX, but here are a few shots with the dual rotary valve F. Incidentally, as few years earlier I had read Tolkien's trilogy "Lord of the Rings" and the character Gandalf had a horse named Shadowfax. That horse could run as fast as if it had wings, but it DID NOT have wings. That aerowing ran as fast as if it had wings, but that device on the transom WAS NOT an illegal wing hence the name.

BTW the records show the boat as SHADOWFOX. They must have thought we had a typo on the paperwork.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Tim---Here's that wing on your boat. Springfield, E. Divisionals 1977.

[Tim Chance]

Tim---Here's that wing on your boat. Springfield, E. Divisionals 1977.

It's not a wing it's a "tool tray" - a place to put the prop wrench and prop nut. Anyhow, at Springfield it had no effect whatsoever on the way the boat ran. But it looked neat so I left it on. Then at the Nationals in Hinton West Virginia it was another story. I had a fast B (I got it from Steve Ketzer who got it from Marshal Grant). Danny Kirts and I were running side-by-side going to the first turn. My boat had lifted like normal with the sponsons off the water, then about 3/4 of the way to the corner the wings kicked in, the tail lifted, and the whole boat started to skate around. I got to the corner and dropped the pipes, but they stuck up on the elbows and the motor quit. I was relieved to have a dnf. The "tool trays" found a new home in a trash can in Hinton.

[ProHydroRacer]

It's not a wing it's a "tool tray" - a place to put the prop wrench and prop nut. Anyhow, at Springfield it had no effect whatsoever on the way the boat ran. But it looked neat so I left it on. Then at the Nationals in Hinton West Virginia it was another story. I had a fast B (I got it from Steve Ketzer who got it from Marshal Grant). Danny Kirts and I were running side-by-side going to the first turn. My boat had lifted like normal with the sponsons off the water, then about 3/4 of the way to the corner the wings kicked in, the tail lifted, and the whole boat started to skate around. I got to the corner and dropped the pipes, but they stuck up on the elbows and the motor quit. I was relieved to have a dnf. The "tool trays" found a new home in a trash can in Hinton.

Hey Tim! I got your Konig 500cc engine finished last night. Do you have a boat for her yet?

ProHydroRacer