"Letters from Heaven" Miami 1960's

[joelsob]

So now its 1975...I had bought "big wilsons" magnum marauder the double bubble front deck 16 magnum v-bottom,,
it had a 800 merc 4 banger on it and it sunk because "big" was BIG

a seat lag bolt punched thru the bottom and sent the boat to the bottom

It was red and white with a gold anodized rub rail..2 buckets and a little back seat..
I had a 1973 135 laying around and a 21 sst with vent holes
those old 135's would turn over 6000 ez so 10 years later..I'm burning the bay again..
there was a really strange guy that launched at 79 th..he had some kinda' inboard with a set of headers that looked like they were made from an old swingset..
we hit 79 th most saturdays about noon and so did he..
..he would back up his el camino about 15 mph...hit the brakes and slam that car motor boat into 79th lagoon.
..park the camino and run back on the dock...jump in and swim to his boat.
..he was crazy in the bay and the magnum held him pretty good..out east from the ramp,
,, down past the hospital on the beach..
.past monument island..hard right at the brakewater , and in norris cut short inside to miss the engine block that was exposed at high tide..
tight over by the beach and thru bear cut heading south past the inside mangroves over by key biscayne yacht club..
.cut mashta point sandbar close
chop across stiltsville channel to see whose there,
, and wind on down to elliot cut..
.across the bay to the east and take snapper creek canal into the parrott jungle to get a soda..
then back out, and head north again with a pass thru dinner key...a pitcher at montys. a blowby viscaya...
.back up the intercoastal, and a full goverment cut run to..
head back to pelican harbor and trailer up at 79th

saturday after saturday again and again it never got old....
...
so now

the story could take us all to a place many of us went to...
.an extension of miami in the 60's and 70's and 80's.

.12 gallons of gas down south a place to race...
a bunch of guys that had t-shirts that said
bar racers and brawlers association



whose got some stories from back then about


THE CARRIBEAN CLUB.............the BAR RACES

memorial day, july 4th lots of holidays and sometimes 30 -40 boats...

camping in the parking lot...


sk boats - powercrafts -glastron,- magnum- hewes wildcats- burgess tunnell hulls- with evinrude kr stingers,- al martin tunnells, -10 lap marathon races out behind the carribean club

complete with blow overs, barrell rolls, and guys headed out for the pace lap with a cold one in one hand and the 3 spoke steering wheel with the white dot on the rim to let you know where straight ahead was....


maybe one of you guys from miami have a story about the bar races ..just down the bay from every saturday



got more stories about miami...
so do you ..leterrrripp


goodride...............(every boat ride is a goodride)

gotta sanger alley cat story coming up..but you guys have to fill in from...now its 1975.

burnin' the bay.. to another 10 years later

to when.....barney from action sold me the 1988 alley cat.... that beotch of a boat hurt me!!!!!
but it was a
goodride!!

[AirRide]

So now its 1975...I had bought "big wilsons" magnum marauder the double bubble front deck 16 magnum v-bottom,,
it had a 800 merc 4 banger on it and it sunk because "big" was BIG

a seat lag bolt punched thru the bottom and sent the boat to the bottom

It was red and white with a gold anodized rub rail..2 buckets and a little back seat..
I had a 1973 135 laying around and a 21 sst with vent holes
those old 135's would turn over 6000 ez so 10 years later..I'm burning the bay again..
there was a really strange guy that launched at 79 th..he had some kinda' inboard with a set of headers that looked like they were made from an old swingset..
we hit 79 th most saturdays about noon and so did he..
..he would back up his el camino about 15 mph...hit the brakes and slam that car motor boat into 79th lagoon.
..park the camino and run back on the dock...jump in and swim to his boat.
..he was crazy in the bay and the magnum held him pretty good..out east from the ramp,
,, down past the hospital on the beach..
.past monument island..hard right at the brakewater , and in norris cut short inside to miss the engine block that was exposed at high tide..
tight over by the beach and thru bear cut heading south past the inside mangroves over by key biscayne yacht club..
.cut mashta point sandbar close
chop across stiltsville channel to see whose there,
, and wind on down to elliot cut..
.across the bay to the east and take snapper creek canal into the parrott jungle to get a soda..
then back out, and head north again with a pass thru dinner key...a pitcher at montys. a blowby viscaya...
.back up the intercoastal, and a full goverment cut run to..
head back to pelican harbor and trailer up at 79th

saturday after saturday again and again it never got old....
...
so now

the story could take us all to a place many of us went to...
.an extension of miami in the 60's and 70's and 80's.

.12 gallons of gas down south a place to race...
a bunch of guys that had t-shirts that said
bar racers and brawlers association



whose got some stories from back then about


THE CARRIBEAN CLUB.............the BAR RACES

memorial day, july 4th lots of holidays and sometimes 30 -40 boats...

camping in the parking lot...


sk boats - powercrafts -glastron,- magnum- hewes wildcats- burgess tunnell hulls- with evinrude kr stingers,- al martin tunnells, -10 lap marathon races out behind the carribean club

complete with blow overs, barrell rolls, and guys headed out for the pace lap with a cold one in one hand and the 3 spoke steering wheel with the white dot on the rim to let you know where straight ahead was....


maybe one of you guys from miami have a story about the bar races ..just down the bay from every saturday



got more stories about miami...
so do you ..leterrrripp


goodride...............(every boat ride is a goodride)

gotta sanger alley cat story coming up..but you guys have to fill in from...now its 1975.

burnin' the bay.. to another 10 years later

to when.....barney from action sold me the 1988 alley cat.... that beotch of a boat hurt me!!!!!
but it was a
goodride!!

Those were the days Joel...the keys were soooo different then. They were beautiful. Then again, so was all of south florida. If I'm not mistaken, Barney's first fiberglass venture was a 14' CheckMate/Action, which simply was an MX13 Checkmate stretched a foot. This was before he produced "his" version of the HydroStream Ventura 16. This boat really took off down here, sales-wise, and were also raced by everyone at the Carribean Club. Lots of fun there. "Where the movie Blue-Lagoon was filmed". Remember that, on their sign? Ha.

[AirRide]

I knew that..........

By the way.....do any of you guys remember an OPC racer named Bob Van Epps? He raced out of NJ in the 60's and early 70's and then moved to Fort Lauderdale (Sunrise?). He was a dealer for our Shadow boats for a short while in the early 80's and then sort of disappeared.

T2x

Yep, I knew/know Bob.

[Bob V]

Those were the daze....

[T2x]

Yep, I knew/know Bob.

Do you know where he is...or what he's been up to?

[Jeff_G]

The Caribbean Club, boy were those the days. Gentex jackets and t shirts.
Tommy Chandler was the one to beat in the old JP class. Johnny Beach did real well in Mod U both on the course and in the bar.
Had a kid run one of the "run what ya brung" races in aluminum jon boat. He didn't have a trailer so he would drive it up onto the ramp at the end of a heat. Did this time after time. Only problem was the ramp was coral rock mixed with a little asphalt. He was out in the last heat bouncing around when the bottom finally gave way. Sunk it on the back stretch. Pulled the boat in later, he had rubbed the entire bottom away!

I remember that guy with the flat bottom from 79th st. He used to "cruise" Virginia Key every Saturday. Never got any "pick ups". All noise, wasn't very fast.

The CC was where the film Key Largo was filmed. Humphrey Bogart.

They treated you well, then if you won your class a few free drinks were bestowed.

Towards the end some of the outlaw motorcycle clubs started taking over the place. Race days it wasn't fit for families any more so the crowd dried up. Last year I went in the early 80's guys were getting head leaning against their bikes in the open spectator area.

We went back to racing Taverner and Islamorada for a while.

[Jeff_G]

BobV wasn't there a squabble between you and Gary Kapit over the boat number? He ran JP with a 999 "Momma's Worry" 16 Action. Kind of remember something on year.

[Bob V]

Jeff - Wow...you really do have a good memory. I do remember the squabble over the 999 number. I had just bought the boat from an unknown seller in a deal the was brokered by Ken Olsen. The boat was stuffed in a garage in a house on St. Pete Beach. Ken never would say whom the boat's owner was. It had that number on it when I got it so I thought I would leave it on while I sorted the boat out. The boat had an excessive amount of rocker in the sponsons. Twice, while running a T1, I stood it up on it's tail and fortunately twice it came back down unscathed. I had broken my back three years earlier in a Van Wagoner SJ and this was my wake-up call to get into flatbottoms.

[mark benson]

The # 999 belonged to Jan Whitton & the boat is a Zonkercraft. Jan raced that boat at the 1975 Parker 7 Hour Enduro with a Mercury Twister for power.That boat can be seen right at the end of the video- Parker 7 Hour Enduro Testing if you Google- Tunnel Boat Racing in the '70's.

[joelsob]

bob v and jeff g yeah the caribbean club....I remember , or i think i remember the last time I was there... jewfish creek bridge got stuck up..and some racers knew they would not make the race so they launched out on the ramp on the stretch.

one guy had a molinari tunnell and drove in with his wife sitting on top of the race fairing
. i had spent the night in the field, and drove down from 79 th in the magnum marauder...i only had a merc 700 on it that weekend, so i voluntered to be the pace boat..my wife held the flag and i drove on the inside, with a wind up bell and howell 16 mm camera... i got about 20 seconds of the powercrafts checkmates,streams alongside. i have it on a disk now...

I worked at BOB Hewes boats back then and had many hours in building a ported 135

robbie Lanham led into the 1st turn.. and .hooked in the second turn...and spun a 360 and came out still running in third.
..I had a perfect view since I was on the inside of the course..

.robbie made a lap, came around and hooked and spun again in the same place...i told my wife debbie we gotta' pull the anchor...she said why??

I said you will see.

..as they came around again I was in gear idling toward the turn, and for the 3rd time he spun, it dug in and barrell rolled and it went in backwards...he came out of the hewes wildcat when it was upside down ang got clear about 50 feet from the boat..

..I got to him before the splashing stopped gave a look at him and went and tied a rope to the bow eye of the boat and then pulled him in..

.his eyes were as big as cue balls...and the only thing that got hurt was that powerhead I worked so on for so long...!!!

another

goodride

[Jeff_G]

I think I told this story before maybe not.
They always had a powerpuff race for the wives. My wife ran my Royal Craft, Gary Kapit's wife Beth in a 16 Action, Tommy Chandlers wife Stacy in a 15 Allison and Here was good old Barney from Action Marine in an 18' center console with a V 6 on back. The rest of the boats were running inlines. Barney's girlfriend was afraid to drive so she and Barney "teamed" he drove she, well she was supposed to do something. Anyhoo. All the boats were coming around the 3-4 turn with Tommy's wife barely in the lead but Barney catching on the far outside when he decided to chop her in the turn. She hit that wake from the 18' Action and up and over she went. She broke her arm if I remember. Barney didn't stay around, Tommy was yelling he was going to kill Barney when he got hold of him. Barney turned around and took off never to be seen again!
Never saw anyone so mad, and rightly so. Beth and my wife both hit the same wake Beth spinning harmlessly and Barbara just stopped.
Never say Barney at another race.
I don't remember any power puff races after that.

One interesting thing was one of the turn bouys, you did not want to hit it. It was a metal mooring bouy used for commercial shipping to wait to get into port. About 6 or 8 feet in diameter. Story I heard, it was found after one of the 1960 hurricanes so they brought it there.

After Jan died in the plane crash I know they sold all the stuff in his warehouse. Don't know how Kenny got hold of it??? That boat was much earlier. That's another chapter or two of stories.

[Jeff_G]

Those were the days Joel...the keys were soooo different then. They were beautiful. Then again, so was all of south florida. If I'm not mistaken, Barney's first fiberglass venture was a 14' CheckMate/Action, which simply was an MX13 Checkmate stretched a foot. This was before he produced "his" version of the HydroStream Ventura 16. This boat really took off down here, sales-wise, and were also raced by everyone at the Carribean Club. Lots of fun there. "Where the movie Blue-Lagoon was filmed". Remember that, on their sign? Ha.

Around 1970 or 71 a friend bought a 14 Action, I think he bought it at Skyways Marine there in Little River. I know he got the engine there, we went there every day to check on the progress and make a general pain of ourselves. Ran it with a 850 Merc on the back.
His mom would call the school to let him out to come home and bail out the boat if he didn't put it up on davits and it rained. He drove a Mach 1 Mustang, his sister a 442, yeah, hard life. Our other friend had a 16 Donzi with a Lime Green RoadRunner.
Smooth days we ran the Action, in the bay the Donzi. Favorite spot to run was Indian Creek from 23rd to St. Francis Hospital. Usually wide open.

[LightNBug]

What was it with Kapit and numbers. I remember him creating a stink at Rock's Pond about numbers. Seems that neither him, who was supposed to be a APBA Inspector, nor the referee of the event knew that numbers could not be protested even though it was written very plain in the rule book.

[Jeff_G]

Sam you have a good memory. You're thinking about Joe Billiter who was the inspector.
The next year Benny Robertson and Mark Trotter showed up with the same number at Rocks Pond. I was the referee that year, told them I didn't give a ---- about numbers as neither one's APBA number was what they were running and they could settle it themselves or go home. But if they both showed on the race course neither would be scored. Neither one wanted a X on their boat.
Gary raced out of Miami and the politics down there were enough to turn your hair white at 21. All of Fla it was who you knew and they used every excuse of a rule to benefit their buddy.
Funny how we remember the "good ole days" and forget the crap that really went on. Maybe it's better that way.

[LightNBug]

Yes, I knew that Joe was the inspector. It was Kapit that started the BS. What I was meaning was that if Kapit was a qualified inspector at the time he should have known that you couldn't protest numbers. If the referee had known you couldn't protest numbers it should never have reached the inspector or anyone else. It should have been dead when the referee was handed the protest.