After I made a trip in 1968 to pick up some brand new boats Nick Marchetti had built for us, I told my Dad "We know a lot of guys racing in APBA" So when the $30,000 prize for the Golden Shores Winternationals at Phoenix was announced in early 1969, we raced in our first APBA race. Two guys were knew from NOA also showed up. Bob Hering and Kay Harrison. I had been reading about Ron Hill ever since I started reading the racing publications, and just before I started racing. I was extremly proud to be in a picture with Ron and Kay Harrison receiving trophies, and a second picture with me and Bob Hering at the trophy photo session. I told my Dad "We need to go to the APBA Nationals. We know a lot of people that will be there." And sure enough there were.
I'm not sure of the route that my sister Brenda, Bud Turcotte and I took to get down to the village o DePue in 1968 when we picked up the boats, but I can clearly remember 1969 when we left the Interstate and very shortly dropped down on a winding two lane highway into the Fox River Valley. It was a stark contrast from the roads we had been traveling.
I can't remember talking to Ron Hill or Ted May in the pits, whom we had raced with at Needles California at the beginning of the year, but we did see the two guys who we pitted in between on an island. There was Bob Viera and Jay Root. We had a good visit with both those guys. I had a good C Hydro battle with Dick Davidson at the Golden Shores Winternationals, but I never really met him. He was there and finished 6th in A hydro.
One think I do remember clearly is that Baldy and Lee St. Clair hit it off immediately. He was one of those guys like Johnny Dortch that we took on an immediate friendship. I don't know exactly what it was, because I was doing my own thing, but my Dad, Lee and his wife (I can't remember her name) were like long lost friends. I thought Lee was about 70 when I first met him and wondered how he could still be racing (70 in 1969 is not like 70 today Bruce
). He might have been in his sixties, but he still raced and went to all the big events. It was at the 1969 nationals though that we were blessed to first meet them.
The other guy we first met in 1969 was Pauli Bogosian and his family. I think we were pitted next to him, and Bill and Billy Seebold next to Pauli. We knew the Seebolds from previous racing and they came to our house in South Texas to finish the second half of the blown out races from the NOA World Championships at Forest Lake, Minnesota. Paul was there with his family, and just like the St Clair's my Dad took up an instant friendship with them. Paul's Dad was a little older than Baldy, but he was in the pits too, and after a weekend of racing, we became lifetime friends of Pauli Bogosian and his family.
That was where we also met Homer Kincaid for the first time, but it was the next year or two before my Dad and Homer became friends.
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