I thought it was the boat Renato blew over at Havasu 69??Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Poole ModVP
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I thought it was the boat Renato blew over at Havasu 69??Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Poole ModVP
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Willabee knows-----Quote:
Originally Posted by GENE LANHAM
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# 68 "Miss Titti" Renato Molinari, Tavernola, Como, Italy; 21' Molinari, dual Mercury 1250 Stackers! He blew this boat over in practice, on Friday! Was supposed to beat OMC's Scotti, Sanders, McConnell, threat! By the way, Renato's girlfriend, was called Miss Titti, for two good reasons!Quote:
Originally Posted by GENE LANHAM
Gene's correct, that is Renato's 1969 Havasu entry. After Parker 70, I'm pretty sure it went to Bob Massey. Unfortunately, he blew it over destroying the boat and hurting himself. The boat was a reverse 's' design, the first I remember coming from Molinari's shop. It was wicked fast but tough to keep on the water. Sirois was well aware of Renato's flip at Havasu, probably watched it with the rest of us. When he began testing, you didn't see him hang it out right away like some others would have tried to do. Took his time, knew it was fast and didn't have to run it on the ragged edge to run past the competition.Quote:
Originally Posted by GENE LANHAM
That's Dave Beier in the Mercury Racing blue jacket facing Bill. Dave seemed to get along well with Bill. He built powerheads at Racing and I generally assigned his to Sirois. I can't tell who that is behind Dave or behind Bill.
That's the 18' Jones that Bill Cooper drove to wins at Long Beach in 68 and Galveston in 69. After Galveston it was memo billed to Bill Petty. Shortly after he received the boat, Jimmy Kubasta went to the booming metropolis of Wapakoneta, Ohio and converted the powerheads to stackers. I'm pretty darn sure the guy in the tan/beige outfit in both pictures is Gary Garbrecht.Quote:
Originally Posted by GENE LANHAM
I got to know the back of that boat intimately, over the years. The BP's with Bill Cooper ; The stackers with Bill Petty, and Bill Petty again, at Miami with the Twisters-Quote:
Originally Posted by willabee
Here is a really good example of what a tunnel hull looks like, after being blown over at 100+ MPH! Looks like Renato was thrown into the steering wheel & front deck, taking them right out, on his way out! He was very fortunate, not to have been killed! In a foot note, if he had won Havasu '69, it would have been the third jewel, in the Grand Slam of Outboard Tunnel Boat Racing, because he had already won Paris 6 Hour Grand Prix & Berlin 6 Hour! He went on to win Parker 7 Hour Enduro, with Bob Herring, in '75 with Mercury power & in '77, with OMC power!Quote:
Originally Posted by GENE LANHAM
Quote:
Originally Posted by mark benson
Reinforces what everyone knows. Bill Sirois could drive and win in any boat. He kept this boat in the top five for the first 4 hours at Parker, and was in the lead at the 5 hour mark. And then the lower unit thing--
Sadly, Bob Massey was killed in this boat,testing at Elsinore----
So, # 140 Bobby Massey, from Bellflower, California, moved on from the safety of his Switzer Wing, and was killed testing, the exact same boat, Renato, was almost killed in, in '69 WOC? Foot note - Stinson & Wallin, won 1970 Parker 9 Hour Enduro, in their De Silva Wing, because their OMC (Evinrude) club foot lower unit, lasted 9 hours?Quote:
Originally Posted by GENE LANHAM
You are correct, I had that backwards in my mind. Bob was hurt after flipping a triple engine Jones, I think at Parker in 70. After that accident he acquired the Molinari and ....... :(.Quote:
Originally Posted by GENE LANHAM
This might be the Jones.
Benny me lad, sometimes you say the darnest things. Where did you come up with "from the safety of his Switzer Wing" ? I'd bet if you ask anyone that's ever driven one, they will tell you that "safety" and "wing" are not synonymous. Just ask the old farts with a hitch in their get-a-long about how it felt to blow one of those bad boys over.Quote:
Originally Posted by mark benson
The single engine tunnels of the day pretty much just pitched the driver out clean as it went heading for the sky. The twins of the same era were actually a little more forgiving when it came to driver error, but generally spit you clean when it decided it had had enough of the mistakes. However, the Wing was an entirely different breed. The driver was down in that little hole and when they went over, they usually didn't let anyone out. You went for the full ride and it usually ended up with a big hurt! Schoonover, Threlkekd & Merten are names that come to mind when talking about getting hurt in a Wing.
Renato was not almost killed when he blew over the twin in 69. It spit him out and the only thing that was hurt was his pride. It tried to do a 360, but the nose struck the water before it was completed. That's why you see the damage in the front cowl area, it was water impact, not driver.
Massey had a bunch of hours under his belt racing Wings. That just meant he knew how to drive them, didn't mean they were safe. It was a whole new ballgame for the Wing pilots when they had to switch to the tunnels, some adapted, some didn't.
???A lot of things happen in a 9 hour race--OMC had 9 boats finish in the top 15. Mercury was able to improve the reliability of the lower units (including counter-rotating the left engine), and 8 months later Bill Sirois won Havasu---Quote:
Originally Posted by mark benson
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Bill:Quote:
Originally Posted by willabee
I remember Threlkeld flipping his wing at Norristown because he was experimenting with power trim (or an adjustable thrust block) for the first time as I recall. I know Merten got run over, but did he ever flip a wing? I have no knowledge of Schoonover flipping a wing either...maybe he barrel rolled one?. Dave Craig told me he barrel rolled the last wood wing (Carl K's) on the old man's strict orders to "run it wide open and turn it as hard as you can" in an effort to see how it compared to the , then new, European tunnel hulls that were just coming in. Other than those incidents, there really weren't a lot of Switzer Wing crashes (De Silva's were a whole "nuther" story), and no fatalities to my knowledge either. I don't often agree with Benny, as we know most of his stuff comes from his obscure three year library of west coast race result sheets, but in this case he may have a point. The early tunnels from Jones, Molinari, Schultz, Sidewinder, Miles, Kitson, etc, etc were a lot more tricky to keep right side up, based on the results (all of us flipped at least once or twice while getting the hang of them...even Sirois, the best of the best). Whereas wing flips were much less frequent and most of the drivers didn't back flip them. My current wing ride is much less tricky then that first little Sidewinder I drove, or the Glass Moli, or, most especially, that F****N' Milesmaster. Granted I haven't driven in multi hour marathons with a wing, but I have with a variety of tunnels and, in retrospect, I think I would rather be in the Switzer for a long day's journey on a mixed chop. While some wing drivers did "ride the flap" , at least they weren't tickling the trim buttons in and out of every turn and down the long end of a straightaway. It wasn't until the later pickleforked Moli's ( and subsequent Seebolds)that the "snap flip" was taken out of our vocabulary and the ride settled down, IMHO.
P.S. I agree with you about Renato's crash, that is classic right front re-entry damage after a tunnel makes about 290 degrees of a 360 before hitting the water...which usually happened well after the driver was ejected....
By the way....where's Jackie?..... Did Benny and his left coast cohorts stick him in some secret "collection"? :D
That ain't how it looked when it won, I never did like that show-boat paint job. In my opinion it should have went on tour as it raced. Cleaning and chroming the engines would have been ok, but the boat should have toured in black and gray as "Up, Up and Away"Quote:
Originally Posted by GENE LANHAM
This isn't about which flipped more often or was easier to flip, this is about the statement regarding returning to "the safety of the Wing". Hell, just the difference in numbers of each would tell you which flipped more often ..... the 40 Wings or the 4000 tunnels. The point I'm trying to make is that there is nothing "safe" about driving a Wing.Quote:
Originally Posted by T2x
Schoonover flipped trying to get the kilo record back, Threlkeld (who didn't have power trim) was doing the same thing when he went over. Merten spun pushing too hard to get the lead at Galveston and got hit. It seems that when that boat was pushed to it's limit, that's when the trouble began. Other drivers did blow those boats over or got into an accident as a result of a spin. When this happened, the driver usually got hurt. When a tunnel driver went over or rolled, he usually didn't. He often popped up like a cork and tried to get back into his boat!
I don't think drivers pushed the Wings like they did tunnels. I think the reason for that was because the drivers knew that blowing one over was a very dangerous thing indeed.
Even I blew a tunnel over and got right back in the next one, but I was sure "puckered" the entire time I was behind the wheel of "Wet & Wild" ..... I rest my case. :thumbsup: