I bought 3 photos from this guy. He does the photography for the Unlimiteds......and he is GOOD!!
Printable View
March 2,1968, the day before the Parker 9 Hour Enduro. Mr. Kiekhaefer had just checked into his room. The wing was a test boat from Lake X, rigged with his new 1250 BP's, towed to Parker for the 9 Hour--How would you like to be these guys? Uh---Mr. Kiekhaefer, we have a problem----
Attachment 215395
The good news is we got the boat back on the trailer, the bad news is we got the boat back on the trailer
Great shot Gene,,,,,,,,, Will we see you @ OFF this year? Ams sure Mr. K ate a cigar that day,,,,,,,,,,,
[QUOTE=gofish7070;2029683]Great shot Gene,,,,,,,,, Will we see you @ OFF this year? QUOTE]
Jim, hope to see you and lots of other Old F---s----
Gene
Bill Sirois introduced me to Mr. Kiekhaefer in that parking lot. Mr. K. was not having a good day: He was traveling on the Brunswick Falcon. Because of the headwinds, they had to make a fuel stop. They had to land at Needles because the runway at Parker was too short; Ernie was running the single pipe OMC's on his wing; Jan insisted on running the 1100 stackers on his new Dutchman. The two piece driveshaft in the new BP's were shearing the rubber coupling; The 125 driveshaft housings were breaking, and were all being changed------
Kitson refused to let us strap a pair of new BP's on his Wing and you forgot to mention the starter motors weren't starting! One of the drivers actually replaced one during a looooooooong pit stop and, in frustration, tossed it towards the feet of Mr. K. On top of all the bad that was taking place during this race, Elmer Carl didn't like that particular jesture at all! :mad:
Soooo, Kenny did the right thing and came out a winner. PLEASE! Who threw the starter at Mr K's feet (please tell me he was from the same gene pool as me) and what happened next. The explosion must have been magnificent. I wish I had heard this story 3 days ago, before I sat and talked with Jim Emerson for 2 hours. He must have seen it. - Steve
I don't think Emery was there that year, may have been, but my memory banks just can't place him doing something. Petty was the starter toser. He was co-driving a Dutchman Wings and it wasn't performing very well. I don't recall how much, if at all, he was involved with Jan during the design/build stage of those boats. But I'm sure it was very frustrating to get a new hull that gave you great expectations of success, rig it and haul it all the way to Parker just to be disappointed. I never drove one of them, but I watched and listened to the drivers who did. Simpliest way to tell you what they thought about the Dutchman Wing is this:
The offshore drivers were at this race and signed as co-drivers on a number of different boats including the Dutchman. One thing they worked out before the race was hand singles to the pits to let everyone know when they were comimg in and why.....fuel, mechanical problem, prop or relief driver. The signal for relief driver was one arm straight up into the air. I saw that signal a whole bunch of times during that race. I swear that one time it came in for a relief driver and Roy Ridgell climbed back in. About fifteen minutes (one lap) later he came bouncing down the backstretch with his arm held as high as possible.....he wanted out of that rig, and wanted out now! :D Roy looked like a whipped pup and said something like "J.C., that thing just beats the living sh-t right out of a man!"
So my guess is that Petty decided he would rather change a starter motor than go back out and get pounded again. On the other hand, it's kind of difficult to rope start one of those things on a Wing boat with a speedmaster and still be able to swim back to shore safely after it ignites. :eek: My recollection after the toss was that Mr. K's face took on an expression very similar to this.....:mad:...... I believe he waited a few moments and gathered his composure, then stepped towards Petty and said "We'll get them fixed!", nodded and walked away.
Ridgell (on the right) and "the body beater".....
May ?, 1968, Key West, Florida: Two months after the 9 Hour Enduro, I was experiencing my own--- 'not a good day'. Thanks to 'Olegator' (Just kidding, Jim).
Why is a wng so hard to get back on the trailer, after it flips?-----
Attachment 215882
http://www.screamandfly.com/images/misc/pencil.png
Look what I found. Parker 1968
Attachment 215883