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  1. #661
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark75H View Post
    Did Richie Powers assemble some of these motors?
    I'm sure he did. There was some kind of a shake-up in Mercury's offshore group in late 69 or early 70.....budget cuts or just changing the ways things were done at Lake X. Anyway, most of the offshore group at the Lake were offered an opportunity to transfer to a different department within the company. As a result, three guys transferred to Racing in Oshkosh.....Denny Robbins, Ralph Seavy and Richie. Denny went into training to build lower units, Ralph into boat rigging and Richie into powerheads.

    Chuck Mettner, our lower unit specialist, didn't really enjoy these extended race trips, so Denny was taken on the 1970 European tour. Richie and Ralph were part of the group that stayed behind to prepare equipment for Havasu which came up just a few weeks after our return to the states. Richie would have learned the way we built Team powerheads from Dave Beier and Dave was also on the European tour. That means Richie was buiding powerheads on his own by that time, so he would have built a few of the Twisters that we ran in Europe as well. To my knowledge, he had nothing to do with the "U" class builds.

    A guess would be that Richie was with the Racing Team from late 69 to late 71. He became quite good at building these different powerheads, very meticulous and proud of his work. I understand that he became even better building 4 cycle engines for offshore racing after he joined Kiekhaefer Aeromarine.
    Last edited by willabee; 04-14-2008 at 11:07 AM.

  2. #662
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    Daring young men and their flying machines.....con't

    Still have a few more of those blurry flyin' shots from the Paris race. Although several boats got up in the air, the highest flyer had to be Renato.....in flight almost every lap. As sweet as that Renato/Wilson entry ran all day, it's had to believe that the Sanders/Posey rig was running better.....boy, those guys must have been getting a great ride!

    Speaking of Jackie, wonder where the ol' curmudgeon has gone.....been pleasantly quiet from that side of the pond .

    Here are a few more of Renato during the first two hour stint.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails paris70 Renato 073.jpg   paris70 Renato 074.jpg   paris70 Renato 072.jpg  

  3. #663
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    Daring young men and their flying machines.....con't

    You know that as you do certain things in life often enough, you get a feel for how something is going to end before it actually happens. You can anticipate, with a fair degree of accuracy, how someone or something is going to react. Well, those are the thoughts that go through my mind when I see these next photos.

    When you are far from home, at a very prestigious boat race that your employer has spent a ton of money to win, you tend to spend every waking moment trying to make sure that you are as prepared as possible. You leave no stones unturned.....you check things and then check them all again.....no time for games. Then, as you are racking your brain about everything and nothing at the same time, you look through the pits and spot Jimbo.

    You watch for a few minutes and then say to whomever is next to you "Oh-Oh, we're in trouble." They ask why and you reply "look around, everyone in the pits is working on their boat except him. He is preparing his headdress for a photo session! That can only mean one thing.....he is really ready and he is going to be fast!"

    Tuned out be be exactly like that.....he was really ready and really fast, just didn't have enough boat to maintain those speeds as it got rougher. Sure was exciting to watch as he ran with the leaders, OMC definately got their moneys worth out of that performance .
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails paris70 Jimbo 059.jpg   paris70 Jimbo 060.jpg   paris70 Jimbo 061.jpg  
    Last edited by willabee; 04-11-2008 at 03:10 PM.

  4. #664
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    Daring young men and their flying machines.....con't

    Here's the last of the fuzzy shots from the Paris 70 film. It's our favorite guy again, Billy Don Pruett and he's probably thinking that his triple Jones never behaved like this .

    The 1st shot shows he's high, but still in pretty good shape. In the 2nd, as he is coming down, he is at that angle that usually means something bad is about to happen. However, he must have said all the right things, because you can see he is still right side up and is off and running again.....he drove a great race .
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails paris70 Pruett 070.jpg   paris70 Pruett 071.jpg   paris70 Pruett 080.jpg  
    Last edited by willabee; 04-12-2008 at 01:21 PM.

  5. #665
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    Quote Originally Posted by willabee View Post
    Still have a few more of those blurry flyin' shots from the Paris race. Although several boats got up in the air, the highest flyer had to be Renato.....in flight almost every lap. As sweet as that Renato/Wilson entry ran all day, it's had to believe that the Sanders/Posey rig was running better.....boy, those guys must have been getting a great ride!

    Speaking of Jackie, wonder where the ol' curmudgeon has gone.....been pleasantly quiet from that side of the pond .

    Here are a few more of Renato during the first two hour stint.
    Never ceases to amaze me just how many shots of the "Chosen One" the Merc publicity machine managed. Did hear tell it was the Paris 6 hr Race, but nobody ever saw any piccies of the 2nd hr or god forbid the 3rd hr, but doubtless the wonderful camera work of the Merc pro's was such that they could tell the first 2 hrs from the rest of the race. Pity the hierarchy did not apply the same diligence to the timekeeping. Of course the higher you fly, the faster you go, or do you ???? Ask any old racer and he'll tell you, straight and level is the way to win races , but nobody ever told Merc that. Anyway ,we closed this subject 2 months ago, but the last shots of the chosen one drove whacko over the edge. MEEEEEE !!! i'm tranquil and retired but get well pissed at misinformation Did you know Renato never wore Blue Overalls !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nice to know i was missed but the old puter was feeling a bit under the weather having had 450 volts shot up it's bum, so am having to improvise.

  6. #666
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    Quote Originally Posted by willabee View Post
    Here's the last of the fuzzy shots from the Paris 70 film. It's our favorite guy again, Billy Don Pruett and he's probably thinking that his triple Jones never behaved like this .

    The 1st shot shows he's high, but still in pretty good shape. In the 2nd, as he is coming down, he is at that angle that usually means something bad is about to happen. However, he must have said all the right things, because you can see he is still right side up and is off and running again.....he drove a great race .
    Here we go again, allow the wackoed one to point out the truth. The Moly/Wilo entry did not have the "pick of the field". -----Pruett did,!!!!!! Let me elucidate. Pruett was driving my boat, it had already beaten the rest of the world in the 500 miler at Chase and Amsterdam, etc, etc, etc,. Was the genuine pick of the field ,but the chosen one was having none of it. So------seeing as i couldn't run it,--- i lent it to Pruett for the race. He ran 3rd for a couple of hrs before he threw a blade off my best Rolla prop, and told me it was one of the best rigs he ever ran. Of course he ran a great race, he had a great boat--------MINE.!!!!!!

  7. #667
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    Quote Originally Posted by SonOfLegend84 View Post
    Ok, just called dad. 1983 Mercury built some new T4's with real EFI and not the bendix fuel injection like on the old T4's. Three of them were built for dad, Billy and Buck to run with the V8's but never got to race because when they showed up at Chattanooga they got escorted out of the pits by the police. All the testing and development was done at a private test lake in Jim Merten's back yard for these engines. The crankshafts couldn't take the rpm and didn't hold up very well.

    Mercury also built and tested a 2 speed shifting gearcase for the new T4 but never raced it due to an fatal accident that I was just told NOT to post any info about.
    http://forums.screamandfly.com/Galle.../size/big/cat/

    S.O.L.:

    It seems you were correct about the EFI project and the cloud which covers my brain lifted momentarily.

    A picture is worth a thousand words...........for jogging my memory. The link above is Randy Rabe's photo of our 1981 Key West Boat. We had run the boat in Chicago and Fort Lauderdale prior to this and the motors (T-4's)had Bendix mechanical Fuel Injection. At Key West we got new powerheads and they had these cute little stickers on the back.............. The following year these engines and my spare were on the Sirois Copeland triple Engine Outboard Maelstrom (Shown below with OMC V-8 power two years later) that held the OPen class Kilo record briefly.

    As pictured this was the first time T-4's had been run offshore and the following year was the last. After that they reappeared on an Unlimited Hydro project, the Texmo Moth.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails my pictures 100.jpg   Boatracing Magazine (2).jpg  
    Last edited by T2x; 04-14-2008 at 04:22 PM.
    20 Foot Switzer Wing 2 X S3000 (Dust'n the Wind II)
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    (Single engine boats are lacking something)
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  8. #668
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    Rick Keller Racing

    Here is a shot of my Father’s (Rick Keller) Scotti at the 72 havasu Classic with Billy Schumacher driving. They made a great team back in the day. We ran third that year.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails sc0106b5car4.jpg  
    Scot Keller
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  9. #669
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    Most everyone believed that Mercury always had the superior race engines. But the OMC V-4 race engine/Scotti Craft combination proved be a more than worth opponent for the Black Angels at some of the biggest races. I remember the anticipation of the '73 race and then it never happened because of corporate race team politics.

    Billy also won the Race of Champions several years later.
    1970 15' Allison/135 Chrysler stacker
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  10. #670
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    Rick Keller Racing

    Here is the Rick Keller Racing crew at Parker in 73. That year Rick paired Billy with Geoff Briggs. He was very focused and committed to fielding a professional team. Billy barrel rolled it about 5 hours in. That was the third straight year we ended up in the drink at Parker.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails sc01069d66r5.jpg   sc0106d2f6r5.jpg   sc0106e1a6r8.jpg  
    Scot Keller
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  11. #671
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Poole ModVP View Post
    Most everyone believed that Mercury always had the superior race engines. But the OMC V-4 race engine/Scotti Craft combination proved be a more than worth opponent for the Black Angels at some of the biggest races.
    I think this is where a devoted Merc Team guy would say....."won 7 of 9 Outboard World Championships, something must have been superior" .

    Seriously, the combination you refer to was really good and that made for some great racing. However, at Havasu in 72, Merc did have the best engines but made a bunch of mistakes (read posts 141/144/145/146 & 149 on this thread) and pretty much gave that race away .

  12. #672
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scot Keller View Post
    Here is the Rick Keller Racing crew at Parker in 73..... He was very focused and committed to fielding a professional team.
    Rick, his crew and his equipment were always very professional.....they looked good, ran good and always seemed to be smiling (which wasn't always easy to do) . As I recall, he was always promoting the sport and maybe got involved with some of the rules committees trying to make things better.
    Last edited by willabee; 04-16-2008 at 11:34 AM.

  13. #673
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    Heeeeee's back.....

    Quote Originally Posted by jackie wilson View Post
    .....shots of the "Chosen One" the Merc publicity machine managed..... the wonderful camera work of the Merc pro's was such that they could tell the first 2 hrs from the rest of the race..... Anyway ,we closed this subject 2 months ago,.... MEEEEEE !!! i'm tranquil and retired but get well pissed at misinformation Did you know Renato never wore Blue Overalls !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nice to know i was missed but was feeling a bit under the weather having had 450 volts shot up it's bum,
    .....and sounds just a tad cranky .

    Hey Jackie me boy, let's see if I can help you out (again). If you see the start, followed by several minutes of action and then see a frame that says "2 hour pit stop", I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that any photos that were taken of those boats before the pit stop were of racing during the 1st two hours.

    I didn't open the neverending story, just commented on the ride the winners must have been getting. You probably missed post #666.....that closed the story for good.

    MEEEEE!!!!!.....misinformation.....never wore blue coveralls..... .....Too bad the 450 volts didn't stimulate some activity in the ol' memory banks.

    I tried to find a shot of Renato in the pits wearing the blue coveralls, but to no avail. So, I did the next best thing.....I took a shot of that boat running on the first lap. We agree that he started the race and you drove hours three and four, so the first lap colors have to be him. I also took a couple of shots of the start from the pits. There I found a man in the Team Merc area, dressed in black and looking a lot like your friend Collie Coulson. Next to Collie is a shorter guy who is wearing the Merc Racing Team yellow coveralls, has his Gentex on and has a helmet in hand. He appears to have a dutchboy hairdo and the beginning of what will become a gigantic beer belly.....sound familiar?

    Here is the evidence.....the defendant rests .
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails paris70 Renato 1st lap 101.jpg   paris70 104.jpg   paris70 107.jpg  
    Last edited by willabee; 04-16-2008 at 09:09 PM.

  14. #674
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    First, apologies to T2X, Scot Keller, Mark75H, and old fibreglass, for interrupting their special website with my odd mutterings and comments. At 76 years old i figure that gives me a small license to bitch just once in a while. I do bow to the soliloquies of my pompous intellectual Webster orientated acquaintance and his undisputed knowledge of all things painted black with "Oshberg" origins, But just occasionally i find myself feeling a tad miffed when "Willa" issues forth factotems from his rectum. In the last of the fuzzy pics, i do not deny that the 27" waisted, 150lb weighted, adonis!!!!!! is none other than myself, and even today,i still have a 34" middle and top the scales at 179 lbs. So William ,dear boy, the beer gut never came---------------SORRY 'BOUT YOUR BAD LUCK.!!!!!!!!! Have a new all singing and dancing IMAC now, after frying the old one. I will never be illiterate again, the damn thing even corrects spelling, betcha Willabee had one of these all the time. Will try and curb the old enthusiasm in the future, but keep looking to see if Jimbo and Johnny Sanders or any of the other old farts are alive and well and may one day drop by and say HI. Anybody know what happened to the old engine tuners? I still see Ron Anderson once a year down in Naples . Where's Doc Morgan.? Seebolds guy Alex ? Ritchie Powers, Dave Biers.

  15. #675
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    No apologies needed on my end.....someone has to keep Willabee in check

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