Hey Mabry, how do you get to fly those jets?
In the summer of 1968, after 6 years of alternating between working at Lake X and going to college, I finally managed to barely eke out my Bachelor's Degree at the University of South Florida. Instead of attending graduation, I immediately went to Lake X to prepare for the Bahamas 500. Shortly after that race, Mr. Kiekhaefer sent Ralph Seavey and I to Jacksonville to work on a boat at MEMCO, which stood for Mabry Edwards Marine Company. I had met Mabry previously at the Lake. The amazing aspect of this tasking was that we were to work with a legend of Unlimiteds....Ted Jones! The project at hand was to cut a vee bottom (don't remember brand) in half longitudinally and install a tunnel between the two halves.....Rather interesting way to "build" a tunnel boat for outboard offshore. I think John Stenbeck ran the boat at Lake X later. As I remember, it ran fairly well, but I don't know if it ever actually ran in a race. Anyway, Ted had some really neat stories to tell. I will attempt to relay one of them here. It seems that a wealthy industrialist tycoon (might have been Henry Hudson) had invested a great deal in an Unlimited race boat but the darn thing wouldn't even get up on a plane. So he called on Ted for advice. Ted arrived at the guys office but the boat was across town (Chicago?) somewhere. They take the elevator to the basement and climb into the back of a hot rod limo. The tycoon slaps a $100 bill on the seat next to the driver and says, "GO!". Turns out that the driver was a well known Indy 500 driver and they had a standing bet that he couldn't beat his previous time between the office and the boat shop. Driver blasts out of the basement garage, turns 90 degrees in mid air and is off to the races. Meanwhile Ted's hanging on for dear life. I think you all know that feeling when someone else is driving and you're scared s..tless, but when you are driving, everything is hunky dory. Also, when you are on the race course, you know everybody around you is just as crazy as you are, but when you are busting through downtown traffic at 100mph, you don't know anything about the other drivers. Needless to say, the driver collected the $100 and Ted survived. Turns out the Tycoon's boat had an enormous prop shaft that created an extrodinary amount drag.......Back to MEMCO......Mabry's boat shop was located at Imeson airport and the Florida Air National Guard (FANG) was flying F-102's out of there. Mabry was a LtCol and pilot in the FANG. Every day the Fighters would taxi past the shop on their way to the runway and I would watch them blast off with the incredible boom of their hard afterburner light. Finally, I asked, "Hey Mabry, how do you get to fly those jets?". He said, "Well, you need a college degree and have to pass a series of tests." I replied, "What the Hell, I've got a college degree. Where do I take the tests?". I enlisted in the FANG the next weekend. I continued to work and race for Kiekhaefer while attending monthly Drills at FANG until early 1970. At that time I recieved a commission as 2Lt and went to Craig AFB in Selma AL for a year of Undergraduate Pilot Training followed by 6 months of Fighter/Interceptor training in the F-102. Except for a 6 month stint working for Brother Bill and Doug Janisch in Miami, I spent 30 years full-time with the FANG!!!! I flew my last sortie the morning after Bill died in January 1997 and finally retired from FANG in 1998. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? One minute, I'm cutting a boat in half with Ralph Seavey and Ted Jones.....and the next minute, it's 30 years later.......and that was 7 1/2 years ago. A friend of mine once told me, "Life is like a roll af toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes." The amazing thing about it all is that the 5 most fun things in my life have just kind of happened. I didn't plan any of them. 1-racing boats, 2-flying fighters, 3-meeting & marrying Iris, 4-becoming a Father, 5-becoming a Grandfather. By the way, 1-5 is the sequential order of events....NOT an indication of level of fun.......WOW! I really got off on a tangent this time! The next time I post, I promise I will get back to Lake X. :o :D -Steve
Don't stick your nose in there
Somewhere along the way, Mr. Kiekhaefer bought a mold (might have been from Aranow) that was basically the same as the 28' Magnum and sent it to Mabry Edwards in Jacksonville. Mabry laid up several very light hulls and sent them to Lake X. They were very light and with reduced freeboard. We installed a 50(?) gallon ballast tank in the very nose and ran a pickup line from the right afterplane all the way to the top of the tank with a ball valve in the cockpit. A drain line went from the bottom of the tank, through another ball valve and out a thru-hull fitting. The pickup was welded to a hole in the afterplane. We could open the intake valve and lower the afterplanes just enough to pickup water. Man, you could fill that tank in nothing flat and drain it nearly as fast. Obviously, the ballast tank was meant for rough water to keep the nose down and could be used in conjunction with the hydraulic afterplanes to control pitch attitude. We ran triple BP's on these boats at somewhere between 65 and 70mph. I don't remember what the race was, but we were at Dave Craig's Skyway Marine in Miami and Wayne Vicker was running his (pink) Memco through some pretty good lumps when he stuffed it and broke the nose off of the boat. I think he might have nearly broke his own nose off in the process as well. Anyway, Wayne's experience made the rest of us a little gun-shy when it came to putting any water in the ballast tank or using too much afterplane. Shortley thereafter, we ran another race from Palm Beach to Grand Bahama Island and back. John Stenbeck finished 1st outboard in a triple BP Magnum(?) and I finished 2nd outboard (and 3rd or 4th overall) in triple BP Memco. It was probably the biggest water I ever ran a race in. At times I could only barely stay on a plane and run back and forth while quartering the waves. When I was in the troughs, I would be looking way up at the peaks. I honestly believe that I was looking at 14'-18' seas in the Gulfstream, and some of them were breaking. Meantime, Mabry was overhead taking pictures. Afterwards he told me that I should have used more ballast and/or afterplane to lower the pitch. All I could think of was that I did not want to stuff this thing 40 or 50 miles offshore, break the nose off and end up as shark bait. The bright side was that I had Ray Dowling riding with me. Ray was a round guy and I very skinny, so I figured that he would be more attractive to the sharks and they might leave me alone while they ate him. (Some other time I will try to tell the story of Brother Bill and Chet Strickland having to abondon ship while one of them was bleeding and they only had a single one man liferaft which only partially inflated when they fired the bottle.) Anyway, while having zig-zagged through the Gulfstream mountains for hours, I was amazed to see the smokestack next to the inlet emerge from the Atlantic dead ahead. You have to realize that we navigated by whiskey compass and every time you hit hard it would spin like a top. You might not see anything but water on the horizon for a couple of hours. It still amazes me that we ever found the finish line in some of those races. :D :) -Steve
Jim Harkins, Dave Martin, Gene Wagner
Those are the great names that I know personally. I had the pleasure to work with Jim Harkins down at Placida before the base closed. He was one hellava teacher. His nikname was "The Teacher". That guy could drop a weld across a aluminum plate on a transom like nobody I have ever seen. I used to run endurance down in Placida when I first started. I remember one time a driver was comming to the dock as Harkins would say "to hot". Needless to say, the smartcraft technology was in the pliminary stages of testing and the engine would not shift to neutral. You guessed it, he smashed the wall. Out of no where, Here comes Jim from his shop screaming at the guy across the lot. " You dumb MF". I see him the next day with the grinder in his hand and Jim supervising as he did so well. It was a sad day to see Jim retire. Jim Still lives down the road from me and I see him from time to time. I used to hide out in his shop and just listen to all of his stories from days past. He had a bunch of old pictures that I wish I would have saved before they threw them out once he retired.
jim harkins, dave martin, gene wagner
I'm one of the Mercury Northerners that would show up at Placida from time to time, first time was around 1980 I think - I was doing large outboard product testing. Later in life I lived in Englewood a couple years and utilized the Placida base for various boat builder functions.
Best thing about Jim Harkins was the pictures in the top of his toolbox - but seriously, that guy would give you the shirt off his back - 'course you'd have to beg for it and promise him your first born child! And yes, it was a treat to listen to Jim talk about the Lake X days.
Dave Martin still lives in Sarasota, Gene W. has moved back to the Goshen Indiana area - I saw him a couple years ago while working in the South Bend area.
Avast Mateys...Get Rich Quick
It was probably 1962 or 1963 when Milt Roeber, who ran the Boat House Bulletin department at Siesta Key, asked me if I would like to take a boat to Key West over the weekend to run a local race. I said sure, and 2 days later I was on my way South in the Keys towing a black Wellcraft with twin Mercs. Just past Marathon I get pulled by the Border Patrol. The guy asks me where I'm going. Seems that my boat looks suspicious. Apparently there were some folks running guns to Cuba in the darkness of night. In fact I had heard of someone doing exactly that and getting shot at in the process. Anyway, they let go on. At race time there were no other entries in my class so they bumped me up a class to run against a guy with twin Sportmaster units. I don't remember anything about the results, but it was fun......Later, back at Siesta Key, Milt wanted several of us (Me, Pete Brogan, Chet Strickland, and maybe Bob Eider) to stop at Happyland for a few drinks after work and to talk with Bill Davis(?). I think that was his name (Maybe someone can help me with Wellcraft history)...anyway, he was the owner of this small boat manufacturer named Wellcraft that operated out of a couple of quonset huts at Sarasota-Bradenton Airport. After a couple of beers he made a proposition to us. He needed several boat drivers that were familiar with the Boca Grande, which is actually know as Charlotte Harbor. The area is rife with hundreds of small islands and canals. We occassionally ran that far South on endurance and would run all through those canals and backwaters. Of course Gene Wagner did not know that we did that. We went lots of places that would have scared the hell out of him. And we always went there at full speed. Davis told us that he had located a lost pirate treasure buried in the area and needed help getting it out. The problem was that the Feds suspected him and were watching the site closely. He said that there were also others watching that would try to snatch the goods as soon as he uncovered it. There could be gunplay involved. He said that he had dug down some distance, had shored up the sides of the dig and only had a very short dig to pull the gold out. The plan was for us to ease into the site under cover of darkness just as he broke through, load the gold into several boats that would haul it to waiting trucks at several dispersed locations. Everything had to happen at lightning fast speed. Of course we would all be paid handsomely. As his proposition unfolded all I could think about was, "This guy is an absolute nut!". First of all, I didn't believe his story for a second; and second of all, I could see my payment being a bullet in the back of the head. He told us to think it over and he would see us later. I pretended that I had too many beers (actually I had) and didn't understand what he was talking about. Later, we (without Davis) all talked about it and decided that the guy was crazy and I never heard anything more about it. If anybody believed it....it would have been Milt Roeber. He was a little strange. He always reminded me of a blonde headed squirrel. I understand that a couple of years latter he was found dead in his mobile home.:cool: -Steve
Tape your eyes open & look out for the bear
Funny things sometimes happened on Endurance at Lake X. I think I previously explained how endurance ran 24 hours a day for 5 1/2 days a week. The day shift could get incredibly hot during Summer and if you were sun sensitive, like me, you had to cover up which made the heat even worse. Swing shift was when you missed out on all the fun of St Cloud nightlife. Things at the J&A Bar would be fairly quiet by the time you could get there after midnight. The midnight shift during Winter could be so damn cold you would think you were in Wisconsin instead of Florida. Cape Canaveral (now Kennedy) was only 35-40 miles away as the crow flies and on a number of occassions the sky would light up brightly as a launch would go off in the middle of the night. On a cold calm winter night you could almost hear the crackle of the rocket. One night a helicopter came down low over the lake and followed me for awhile. Sometimes you would be assigned to a very comfortable boat like the Jones cat. That was truly a sweet ride. Other nights you might be assigned to the #29 boat. I don't remember what brand it was but it was a very hard ride. For awhile I drove an Alim with a Buick (V6?) engine on a stern drive. That was also a pretty nice ride. One very cold night I was in that boat and it I started feeling warm and cozy. It felt like warm air was circulating around me and then I realized that it was also wet air. Discovered that a hose had a pin hole in it and hot water was spraying forward. The worst ride was a diesel that seemed to run forever. No matter how hard you abused it, it just kept on running. It was loud and smelled. Also the floor was always slippery form the diesel fuel. The hardest thing about the midnight shift was staying awake. Guys would try some weird things. One night I was sitting in the shop during my 3:00AM fuel stop when John Flood pulled into the slip, tied up and walked into the shop. I thought he looked a little weird, which was not unusual for John. I realized that he had attached tape to his upper eye lids and fastened the other end to his forehead. Yes, he had actually taped his eyes open. On another night, my headlights caught something white bouncing up and down some distance in front of me. As I overtook John I saw another novel way to stay awake. He had taken a rag and tied it around his head and then he had tied 30-40 feet of rags together and attached them to the one tied around his head. Then he threw the "tail" overboard. The rags tail would hit the water and bounce in the air. Every time it hit the water it would jerk his head back almost violently. He thought this was a great idea. But then who was I to judge. Sometime during my 1st week at the Lake I walked into the shop and I was startled to see a bear sleeping on the floor. At least that was my first impression of "Jet". Jet was probably the biggest, blackest Labrador Retriever that I had ever seen. He loved to ride in the endurance boat with us and would always be looking to liberate your lunch from your hand in the middle of the night. Late one night I was driving the deisel and Jet was laying right next to the engine. It was incredibly loud with no engine cover and the smell was enough to cover any other smell. As I got hungry, I looked back at Jet sleeping soundly some 15' behind me and stealthily eased a sandwich out of the bag and started to unwrap it only to suddenly find him sitting up next to me and slobbering like crazy. Jet didn't see, smell or hear food, he sensed it. Sometimes Jet would ride the boats for a day or two at a time. You could pull up closely to another boat and he would jump from one boat to the other while we were running along at full speed. On a number of occassions he would jump into the boat slip and attack small alligators. I think that practice stopped when he got hold of one that was a little bit too big. One night Bill and Chet (?) were out on the Lake in a small fast boat and managed to sneek up behind one of the endurance drivers without being noticed. Bill climbed into the endurance boat, eased up and hid behind the guys seat. He then reached the throttle lever beside the seat and pulled it back a little bit. Naturally the guy reached down and pushed it back forward. This went of for several itterations until Bill left his hand on the throttle. When the driver rached down and found another hand there, I think he nearly crapped his pants. We had alot of fun on the lake at all times of day and night. To this day I do not know how I managed to not get fired. Just dumb luck I guess.
:D :D :D -Steve
To test if someone is ticklish, give them a little test tickle
One summer during a break in College, I decided to try to work in Miami instead of at Lake X. Bill and Doug Janisch were both working out of Miami and had rented a house on the River and one block from the Playboy club. Bill would be racing in Europe most of the summer and Doug was gone alot. So it was beneficial for me to stay there and keep an eye on the house. To top it off, Mike Gordon kept his twin Ford powered Bertram (Fish Peddler) tied up at Bill's dock. The deal was that instead of paying dockage, we could use the boat. My only problem was to find a job. I had met Don Aronow on several occasions and decided to check in with him. I walked in the door at Magnum to find Don, Jake Trotter and Jim Bruell. I asked Don if he needed any help for a few months and was pleasantly surprised to be hired immediately. Seems Don was going for the UIM championship and must compete in Europe in order to win it. Knocky House would be on the other side of the pond with that boat, but Don must also compete in a California UIM points race as well. I just happened into the right place at the right time. He had a 28' single Mercruiser Magnum that I was to take to Long Beach and ride with him in the race. He would arrive from Europe the day before the race. The boat was already set up and on the trailer. I had some time to spend in the shop and enjoyed the camaraderie of Knocky, Jake, Jim, and Dave Stirrat. Also Alan Brown (Brownie) was next door at Donzi(?). In the evenings I would run around Biscayne Bay in Mike's Bertram. Miami had not gotten so crazy in those days, so I had a pretty good time. Finally it was time to head for Long Beach. I Hooked the boat up to Magnum stake body truck and headed West. By myself, no air conditioning, no radio, summer time, pulling a race boat. Somewhere along US-90, (I don't think I-10 was there yet) I decided I had better arm myself against desperados. I stopped at a gun shop and purchased a .32 caliber revolver and continued West. I figured that it was about 3,000 miles total so I would drive it in three 1,000 mile runs. The first night put me somewhere in central Louisiana. I spent the night in a small motel and early the next morning I carried the pistol wrapped in my maps as I headed to the truck. As I unlocked the door, the pistol slipped out of the maps and landed on it's hammer between my feet. BANG! I have absolutely no idea where the bullet went, but the first thing I did was to check that my testicles were still intact. Thankful that they were, and there did not appear to be any noticable bullet holes anywhere else in my body, I listened for any signs that I might have hit something else. Except for the shot, it was a very quiet morning, and since I had not heard any protest from anyone, I figured it would be best to get the hell out of there. From that time forward, there was never a bullet under the hammer. The six shooter was forever more a five shooter. I spent the next night and day in Las Cruces New Mexico at a very small motel. Let me say that Las Cruces may be a nice place today. In the mid-sixties it was the pits. If there are any Las Cruceans out there, sorry about that. Anyway, it would not be a great plan to traverse the deserts of Southern California in mid summer, with no AC, during the heat of day. So, I layed over until early evening and then set out for Long Beach. Half way across the desert I pulled off the road next to a small mountain and layed on the ground for a while. I will never forget how incredibly clear the sky was and I had not seen so many stars since my childhood in the farm country of Northern Indiana. I arrived in Long Beach the next morning with a week to kill before the race. I had never been in California before so I was excited to see as much as I could. I rented a motorcycle and immediately went to the Marine Stadium for the Sunday boat races. On Monday, I put the Magnum in the water and ran it to make sure there were no problems. Everything was good so I put it back on the trailer and spent the rest of the week touring. I'm going to take a break for awhile and write the rest of the story later :cool: -Steve
What I did during my summer vacation
Sorry about that, I had to walk the dogs....A piece of advice....when you walk dogs in the dark and then let them back in the house, and then you notice that there is a leaf on the doormat....do not pick it up! It might not be a leaf....and the next time make sure that the dogs leave all of their products out in the grass...not on the doormat. :o Back to a fairly dull story.... The night before the race, and Don has not yet shown up. The next morning I find out he arrived at 3:00am from Europe. He doesn't have a clue about the course or checkpoints. This is a 2 day race. Day 1 is Long Beach to San Diego. Day 2 is San Diego to Long Beach. So we blast off for day 1 heading South. Half way there we come across Bill Wishnick in his "Big Broad Jumper". He has lost an engine and is pulling a monster wake behind him. Don, looking for a little excitement, decides to jump the wake about 2 feet behind Wishnick. I fly across the cockpit like a ragdoll and clobber Don. He looks at me with total disdain but still has no idea where the next checkboat is. However, I do. A couple miles offshore from San Diego is a clump of rockswhere one of the checkboat is to be. I point to the rocks and checkboat but Don just keeps going toward the harbor. Seemed like a good time to get even for his wake jumping antics, so I hit him in the arm as hard as I possibly can and finally get his attention and head him toward the checkboat. Finally we cross the finish line and Don heads for the Hotel and many hours of sleep. Early the next morning I took the boat out to check for leaks and come across an aircraft carrier leaving the port. I ran a couple of circles around it to the amusement of the sailors on deck. Day 2 starts and we head back North. Much to my amusement, Don has a very large bruise on his arm. Odell Lewis and Mel Riggs finished first in the turbine boat and we finish second several minutes later. Odell is idling about 50' out from the finish line dock when Don decides to pull another one of his close-by passes. He goes by Odell at full speed with only inches to spare. If I had stuck my arm out as we went by, I could have shaken hands with Odell....albeit, very quickly. After much SoCal hospitality, food and whiskey at the awards banquet, I headed back to Florida a day or two later. I remember absolutely nothing about the return trip. Dr Bob Magoon was a very close friend of Don. Sometime during that summer, I rode with Bob in the Around Long Island (NY) race. We were doing pretty good until we puked an engine and had to withdraw. I was under the deck calling in to race control on the radio when gas fumes started to get to me. To this day, that was the closest I have ever come to getting "mal de mer" (sea sick). When things finally quieted down back in Miami, Don asked me to rig a small tunnel hull that he had acquired. I had a little time in a Molinari at Lake X, so I took that project on with relish. I finally got the tunnel in the water and ran it around the area some. It crowhopped alot but it ran pretty well. I went back to the dock and got Don. We ran around for awhile and, since this was his first ride in a tunnel, he was thrilled. Also, it was his birthday and he proclaimed this ride to be a great present. He went back into the office and, as I walked by the parts room, I noticed an "elephant ear" prop on the floor. I didn't know who it belonged to...so...I immediately acquired it for Don's birthday boat. WOW! Now it flew like the Molinari had at the Lake. I went into the office and told Don he had to go for another ride. He said he was too busy... so, once again, I hit him as hard as I could and told him he had to go for another ride....which he did. He could not believe how much better it ran and told me to strip the boat immediately so he could pull a mold from it.....which he did. Thus was born the "Magnum Missle". As the summer ended, I went back to school and never again got in a boat with Don Aronow....nor did I want to.....my fist was sore. Years later, I was saddened to hear of his untimely and tragic demise. I don't know what ever became of Knocky House, Jake Trotter, or Jim Bruell. If any of you know, I would be interested in hearing. :cool: :D :) -Steve
Seeeeeeroy you still kickin??????????????
Seeeeeeeeeeroy Can"t surrender yet,,,,,,,,,,,To Hot a read and I know their are a million more Lake X stories out their,,,,,,,,,,,You've rested enough exercise that literary skill,,,,,How about the Hurricane parties.............Later gofish7070 ;) ;) :)
