Testing

[2us70]

I was talking to one of my old racing mates from the 60s about our racing experiences. He reminded me of something I had kind of forgotten. The tedious chore of testing. For those of us who predate power trim, jack plates, computer controlled fuel injection and ignition testing was a real chore. Every variable had to be manually altered then run for effect. Setting up a new boat could take a couple of days to sort out. Usually this was done at some lake, river or canal with no backup if things went wrong. No wonder I sort of shoved that stuff to the back of the memory banks.

[PARKER RABE]

I was just a kid in the late 70's , but lots of testing at lake maggorie, here in st Pete Usually a month before the race the lake will be packed with people testing every weekend everybody from blown flat bottoms to tunnel boats , really fun place to hang out on the weekends , I have lots of videos and pics

[PARKER RABE]

Bike joule 38 , Dave flood 72. homer green , 241 jack with row, 10 ken Olsen,1010 tommy cook 54 dean pink, Dave stoller K 27, Gary king GN 80 randy heagwood GN75 jack staples 304, Ed medley, al Estes , largo marine Goodall racing team...terry frauzz
the list goes on and on

[gary slagle]

Parker, you just triped the memory switch, maggorie was a cool place for sure . got some polaroids of some of your dads rigs there,way cool!too bad they dont race there now .

[PARKER RABE]

I know I passed there the other day and drove out to where the starting dock was .....the boat ramps are still there, there's signs that say 5 mph on the lake. Not much going out there but a few black guys waxing there cars lots of gators cruzing the banks .......there were some huge gators out there back in the day ....

[2us70]

Tested at Lake Maggorie with John McCall a couple of times. Raced there a couple more. I recall it was very shallow and the course was marked with stakes instead of bouys. I hit one of those broken off stakes in a race there and tore up my best prop. Olegator saved the day by repairing it before the next race. Prop was better then ever.

[tagman]

Ahhh yse the wooden stakes to mark the turns. There was quite a hubbub about those "pemanent" markers. I think they were able to keep them because of the world records set there and the fact that they remained fixed each and every yr. But, oh man, they tore up some props and boats, both inboard and outboard.

[2us70]

The day I tore up my prop I set a 5 mile record in the first heat. This was one of several records set that day. However this was also the first year for minimum weights and the organizers used an off site truck scale to weigh the boats. all the records set that day were disallowed.

[GENE LANHAM]

I was talking to one of my old racing mates from the 60s about our racing experiences. He reminded me of something I had kind of forgotten. The tedious chore of testing. For those of us who predate power trim, jack plates, computer controlled fuel injection and ignition testing was a real chore. Every variable had to be manually altered then run for effect. Setting up a new boat could take a couple of days to sort out. Usually this was done at soma lake, river or canal with no backup if things went wrong. No wonder I sort of shoved that stuff to the back of the memory banks.

Hi Jim----Who wanted to test? Or who wanted to hear about testing? Looking for maybe one mph---changing props--changing angle--changing height--changing timing---adding a little Bondo to the bottom---etc?

This is the 13' Allison right after we got it---1962? Up at Maule Lake by SR9

I do have a boring 'testing' story that took place with a bigger boat---on Lake Winnebago---about 15 years later---

[53w]

Kaukauna WI at Marina Bar.

Watch out for Pipkorn's Reef

[2us70]

You forgot changing carb jets. On the later model Mercs it was a pain but in the winter it made a difference. But one mph in a 50-55 mph class was a big deal. the hardest part was seeing the changes on those little Aquameter speedometers we all used to use. The Keller speedos were such an improvement. Today gps gives you 1/10 mph at a glance. In the those small displacement classes one mph was enough. If you had one mph on the competition and you got beat it was your fault.