O.F. Christner Memorial

[Tim Chance]

I attended a Memorial Race for O.F. Christner on July 4, 2003. For that race I did a special tribute to Chris by reprinting an article from a 1970 issue of my old magazine, Hydroplane Quarterly. I also wrote the following editorial.
I want to start by thanking Gene East for asking me to come to this Memorial and Reunion. I have reprinted 5th & State from HQ - 1970. The cover is a collage of the race drivers touched by O.F. Christner. I could write pages, but I will tell three things. First, I was a teenager in awe during the late 1950's the first time I saw O.F. Christner, I was a kid with a KG-7; he was ... O.F. Christner. Next, the mid 1960's in the dyno room, my "B Loop" was down on power. Chris pulled the head off, whittled with his pocket knife, power was back and rpm's were up. Last, the honor when he asked me to drive the prototype "B" at Alexandria.
Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were all before my time. They say they were each a genius. I was a friend of O.F. Christner. He was a genius.