January 1991

[Ron Hill]

In January 1991 I wrote an article called the 25 All Time Greatest Powerboat Drivers.

They were:
1. Bill Sirois
2. Dean Chenonwith
3. Chip Hanauer
4. Billy Seebold
5. Jerry Waldman
6. Renato Molinari
7. Bob Nordskog
8. Bill Cooper
9. Johnny Sanders
10. Chris Bush
11. Bill Muncey
12. Jimbo McConnell
13. Dick O'Dea
14. Bob Wartinger
15. Ted Jones
16. Skeeter Johnson
17. Gordone Jennings, Jr.
18. Julian Pettengill
19. Bobby Switzer
20. Dick Jones
21. Hugh Entrop
22. Al Stoker
23. Rusty Campbell
24. Orlando Torganti
25. Homer Kincaid

[Ron Hill]

If you can read it without me reprinting it...

[Ron Hill]

more!

[Ron Hill]

MORE

[helmetguru]

geeze hard to tell you're from the left coast, you know there are OTHER boat racers from the eastern half of the country besides seebold and bush ron?? nice article but bush should be a little higher than 10th IMO..

[Ron Hill]

The Left Coast is changing....just not fast enough... I wrote this article in 1991.......Bush had run like two tunnel races....he was still MOD VP...anyway, let's see your top 50!!!! I'm working on mine..

[Raceman]

Ron, I'm sure interested in seeing your top 50. Seems like Benny Roberson is conspicuously missing from the other one, along with you. There's at least one toward the bottom that I'd have to put y'all in place of. Some of the rest I don't recognize.

Will you be listed in the top 50?

[Ron Hill]

Not sure but seems to me, Benny was still running SST 120 and blowing over with Reggie at places like Havasu...on the first lap.... This is a 13 year old article...

who don't you recognize....??

[Ron Hill]

more!!

[helmetguru]

i like the article, most of it right on target for the times, what did you scratch out about bushwacker?

[Ron Hill]

Well, I said he had a bad personality..but since then, I've chaged my mind.... He had pissed of my firend/sponsor Brad Miller at Parker and I didn't think Brad Miller neede d Chris Bush to make him agnry...He'd just bought him a new Seebold and had his Del Taco sponsorship...Chris is great, sometimes we all would like to take some words back!!!!

[helmetguru]

i see it now, and yes we all have our less than stellar moments...chris was a brash young driver back then that kind of had the world by the tail, racing in europe, dominating mod-vp, being the best driver of your era will do that to you i guess.

[Ron Hill]

Yes, and when he crashed "Big Time" in Roark's Formula One at Puddingstone, he was the one that took the engine apart, even though he was hurting, he knew his engine needed taking care of. Chad was 13, he's 25 now, but it was a good less for Chad to see. Bush could have had a second, by taking it easy, or crashing in an attempt to win....

That was the day, Jimmy Hauenstein promised to sponsor Chad. He gave Chad his Formula One Burgess right after Buck Thornton caught on fire,,, I gave the boat back and told Jimmy , Chad was on 13 and HE wasn't ready for Formula One....Five years later Chad called Jimmy and said he was ready!!!!

Chad built all his own Formual one engines but one. Dean Pink and rRandy Pierson where on the phonelines most of the time he was doing the engine building...but like Chris Bush, Chad wanted to know the engines were his.

If you build them yourself, you don't try to blame anyone...


Chris and I have talked several times over the last few years....He tells some funny storues, wish we could get him here...


Anyone have Howard Pipkorn's phone number...? I'll get Howard here, too...

[Ron Hill]

more top 25

[Ron Hill]

more

[T2x]

Ron:

Boy these things are frustrating..........

Biggest omission I see........... Larry Lauterbach....certainly one of the top 5 Inboard hydro drivers of all time.

Probably the best way to do this is to post a top 100......in no particular order........ Except for Billy S. at the top (Both of 'em;) )

T2x

[Jeff_G]

Funny in our sport each time we try to do a top anything we remember another driver. IF we were to have lists, you would have to break it into divisions like tunnels, offshore, inboard hydros, inboard flatbottoms, V bottom, stock/ mod/ PRO, etc.
We have been blessed with some great drivers, many great drivers.
One other drawback is when some of these drivers competed. Almost unfair to some more modern drivers that didn't get to compete in the heyday of some of these divisions.
It is all fun though, keep posting!

[Mark75H]

Right down the road from Lauterbach you have Wheeler Baker. If you are going to even consider inboard drivers you have to place Baker up near the top of the inboard list.

Maybe I'm just prejudiced because Lauterbach and Baker live about 20 minutes from my house:)

[T2x]

Hey Sam:

Is it possible you and I are twins, separated at birth?

T2x;)

[Ron Hill]

Bottomline guys, I haven't seen everyone in the world race. When Tommy D'Eath was elected to the APBA Honor Squadron, the same year a I, I was really blown away with what he'd done. AND I'd had seen Tommy only drive once at the Parker Nine Hour in a V-8, which, becasue the way WE FUELED HIM, filled the bottom two cyclinders with water and he made less than a lap...

I don't even know the name Baker... Lauderbach I know built some cool boats and even some cool outboards...

Bring me up to speed with these famous names.

The West Coast has always been heavy into FLAT BOTTOMS in the inboard ranks. Seattle had hydros, but SoCal was Flat Bottom Heaven...

Guys like Duff Daily should be in my top 50 without a doubt, but again Flat Bottoms, not hydros.........also, keep in mind, as an outboarder, we never figured inboard guys could drive anyway.

Nothing used to please me more than to just blow the doors off some BIG MOTHER INBOARD at Parker. Outboards killed Parker you realize. The guys with inboards had the most money, the prettiest equipment and when they couldn't win they either went ski racing or offshore or both. Only Mike Wallace went outboard racing. (They have 500 horse power what do they need to know about set ups??)

[Ted March]

You are a tough man Mister Hill.

[Ron Hill]

So are you Mister March and Playboy Magazine has never been the same since you left. Wish you'd come out and stay a month of two...

FYI: To Screamandfly Readers

Ted March and I have been friends, I think since 1967. I wish he'd come on and share some of his stories with us and pictures...Ted and his late son, Bruce used to come to Havasu and Parker and crew on our MOD VP's. Ted loved to come and we loved Ted and Bruce. Ted would always be so depressed at the end of Seven Hours, even if we finished in the top three....he could never believe all the great racing equipment that would get TOTALLY DESTROYED IN ONE DAY. Year after year people used to come to tear hell out of stuff.

The last time we ran Parker, we ran an Eliminator 21' Daytona with a Johnson V-8. AME 4000 hull, Second Effort Rev Pacs and Second Effort bottom water pick up gearcase..

It would run about 118...I think that is what John Castelli turned at the Bud David Kilos right after Parker... Rod Zapf and John Castelli are driving this "MONSTER" and are in the top ten... We get a call that boat #9 needs a gearcase... We (Ted March and Me) go down river with a gearcase, that Garbarcht loaned me...

We put the gearcase on and damn, can't find a cotter pin for the prop nut....I finally just stick a nail in... (I don't tell Castelli) about three hours later, we get a call over the PA, to bring a prop for boat #9. This time I take a cotter pin... we, Ted and I, get down river and here's John Castelli with a spun hub and pissing and moaning that the hub went out because the prop nut got loose... I said, "Well I put a nail in the shaft and that should have held it." Castelli says, "A NAIL?" Well, "I said, it was a NEW NAIL." I think right there and then, John Castelli decided I was CRAZY!!!

[Ron Hill]

ADD:

After John ran the kilos, I sold the engine and dismanteled the boat.. I vowed, I would not sponsor anyone again that was not in a capsule. I feared for John's life and Rod's... 118 MPH is too fast to go, without a BIG capsule...

We did have Second Effort heads, too...

Opinion, where OMC went wrong, the production V-8 sounded like a V-4. he race V-8 was an even fire crank...those SOB's sounded NASTY!!!! 20:20 hindsight, who know!!!!