Hot Multi's - Pictures

Would love to have a color poster of the 1st one......Joe Habay at Havasu in 1969. A 20' Jones with stacked 1250 Super BP's. Looking at that shot, it's not hard to believe that he went over that day, broke his ankle.

I had totally forgotten about the 2nd one.....Bill Sirois, also at Havasu in 1969. A 21' Molinari with stacked 1250 Super BP's. This is the same boat he won with in 1970. However, at this race it was it's original orange with black trim and carried the #99. I think Merc assigned that number for Parker that year when Bob Thompson took it for a drive. Sirois finished 3rd behind Cesare Scotti's Molinari with a pair of Evinrudes and Johnny Sanders' Glastron/Molinari with a pair of Johnsons. Just think of it, a 3rd - 1st - 1st three years running at The World Championships......outstanding!!

Note: I guess full face shields were not the "in" thing " way back then "

Sirois in the #99......

Here's a couple more of the #99 boat, but now with Bill's #998 and a new black with grey paint job ( I know you've seen plenty of photos of this boat, but like Raceman says, You can't get too much of a good thing :) This is Havasu, 1970, this time with water injected 1350 stackers and speedmaster gearcases. In 69 it had BP lower units and the speedmasters alone gave it 8/10 additional mph for 1970.

Story time.......It's spring of 1970 and we are having a "stalling" problem on the tight turning tunnel boats. Jim Meininger from Tillotson comes to Oshkosh with some new carbs. We install them on this boat and Garbrecht tells me to grab a helmet, I'm driving the carb test. I had never driven that boat, but Gary had run it several times. The idea was to run flat out and then make a hard turn around Jim and Gary in the safety boat to see if these carbs would stall out.

I make a few passes and Gary waves me over and asks what's wrong. I said "nothing, why?" He informed me that I wasn't even close to getting this boat up and running the way it should. I knew how high off of the water I felt at speed in the 18's and knew I was much higher now, thought that was all this setup had. He said that he would demonstrate and ran the carb test. I asked what pinhole he was running in ( remember those cable power trim indicators ) and he said about 5 - I had been running in about 3 1/2.
I got back in and slowly pushed the trim past 3 1/2....the boat went up and up and at 5 it felt really high, but it ran much better.....over about a 2' chop. I was fortunate enough to get to do a lot of testing in that boat. When we had it painted black, I remembered that initial experience and decided I'd give the boat a name.....that's the day that "Up, Up and Away" was born. :)

By the way, the carbs didn't work, I think the fix was to add an idle tube to the original carbs.

Can't access these pictures.

T2x

A couple of shots from Lake Tahoe 1970...


The 1st one is Ed Stewart in an 18' Wing followed by Kenny Baker in his Sidewinder.

The 2nd one shows some Glastron/Molinari's and a 9 x 22 Jones coming out of the turn on the far right.

Just tried to fix the problem, would you please try to access again and let me know if we're good to go........thanks

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Originally Posted by T2x

Can't access these pictures.

T2x

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I am getting them fine. Great history here, & great pics.

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Originally Posted by willabee

Just tried to fix the problem, would you please try to access again and let me know if we're good to go........thanks

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The second set work fine.........

If at first you don't succeed..........

T2x :D

I got nothin but drool to offer to this thread, but I love the pics and history. THanks for the contributions,

fish

A couple more.....


The 1st one is Jim Merten in the reverse "S" Molinari finishing 2nd at Havasu in 1970. If this shot had just a little less left side spray, we would have the shot of cowbells that Mark75H has been looking for. Can't tell who is in the Jones behind him, but it looks like the driver is wearing goggles.....Pruett or Habay ?

When I look at the 2nd one, I wonder if T2x has dispatched anyone to go " in search of " this wing.......the article called it a " ram wing " of Levi design. It raced in Australia with 1350's. It also said it never looked good in calm waters. It was named " Banana Split ", maybe Bert Serra was doing the driving :)

I had heard somewhere that the boat Sirois won with in 1971 was the boat Merten ran in 1970. Is that correct???

Correct, changed the name......." Wet and Wild " in 1970 and " Up, Up and Away " in 1971..... cowbells in 70 and TI's in 71. Here they are side by side..........
Attachment 498612Attachment 498613

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Originally Posted by Bruce Washburn

I had heard somewhere that the boat Sirois won with in 1971 was the boat Merten ran in 1970. Is that correct???

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Hey Bill, have you seen the shots I posted 8-24-04 titled Havasu 1970. They are on page 9. These are ones that Joe Swift attached captions to. He must of had a few done up as GG had the same set. Notice in the one shot of GG, Bill Sirois, Renato, Mert, and Ceasre that Renato is the only one still with us.

The shot of Mr. T coming in for fuel has some interesting faces in the background as does the shot of Bill Sirois on the trailer.

Keep your stuff coming. You are getting into the details of the Racing Division that very few know about.

If you go into the pictures of the boats and engines back then, 1970 Havasu, you can see the transition to newer rigging. Take the steering, Renato had cable steering on the new twin and others still had ride guide. Also the three twins were not the same. Bills, Merts, and Renatos were all different. Maybe you can get into the nitty gritty on who got what and who designed all the stuff. When Hi Perf opened most of this ended up in the catalog for sale to all.

Yes Mike, I have seen that thread, but had forgotten it was there. Thanks for the reminder, I was going to post pictures from that same booklet, but now I won't duplicate what you have already done.

The picture of Stickle coming in for fuel includes the following - Jim Emerson - from Lake X offshore group, stepping onto boat wearing yellow racing jacket, Dennis Robbins - team gearcase mechanic, holding pole, Richie Powers - team powerhead mechanic, behind Robbins, Roy Ridgell - Mgr. Merc. racing / Europe, to the right of Powers in heavy coat, a non-team member in hat to right of Ridgell ( I just can't remember which driver he was with, it was either Carlo Rasini or Dick Sherrer ), and Ralph Seavy - team boat rigging, on far right in white hat.

You're right about the different equipment, I'll try to get into some of that as I post more stuff from " The Golden Era " :)

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Originally Posted by mbd29

Hey Bill, have you seen the shots I posted 8-24-04 titled Havasu 1970. They are on page 9. These are ones that Joe Swift attached captions to. He must of had a few done up as GG had the same set. Notice in the one shot of GG, Bill Sirois, Renato, Mert, and Ceasre that Renato is the only one still with us.

The shot of Mr. T coming in for fuel has some interesting faces in the background as does the shot of Bill Sirois on the trailer.

Keep your stuff coming. You are getting into the details of the Racing Division that very few know about.

If you go into the pictures of the boats and engines back then, 1970 Havasu, you can see the transition to newer rigging. Take the steering, Renato had cable steering on the new twin and others still had ride guide. Also the three twins were not the same. Bills, Merts, and Renatos were all different. Maybe you can get into the nitty gritty on who got what and who designed all the stuff. When Hi Perf opened most of this ended up in the catalog for sale to all.

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A question from the ignorant-On many of these historic threads, I see the name Molinari. Was that a designer for other companies boats or did he (????) build for himself?? Based on the number of times I see that name, he must have been pretty good.

A couple of 18' Wings from the Parker 9 Hour in 1969.......


The 1st one is Jim Merten and Boots Spellman with 1250 stackers on SSM units. They finished 1st outboard and 2nd overall, by far the best ever finish for an outboard at Parker ( I don't think one had cracked the top 10 prior to this ). Merten was not a factory driver at this time, however, because he lived in Oshkosh, it was kind of easy for some factory guys to help him prepare for Parker ;)

I lost my Shooting Star because of this race :( I had bought the boat, fixed it up, installed a DSH assy and was out of money for any more pieces ( remember, I worked for Merc......we had alot of fun, didn't make any money ). Merten. a plumber, had an 1100 powerhead, a SSM and a prop. Spellman owned a Marina. We pooled our resources and had a complete boat that we could all drive and store. We sold the Star so Merten would have the money to buy the engines for the Wing. After the race he was told that he didn't have to pay for the engines, but the Star was already gone.

The 2nd shot is Kenny Kitson, also running 1250 stackers on SSM's. We had brought a pair of new BP's to Parker for Kenny, but he decided that he didn't trust the gearcases for a 9 hour. We loaned them to someone else. Kenny finished 4th, driving by himself! Ed Stewart, in a 20' Wing finished 3rd.

This was the last year that they used a real Lemans start. When the gun went off, drivers actually ran from the fence, climbed into their boat and took offf!!! What a dumb idea :eek: You had guys that slipped and fell, got hurt and didn't even start - how many of those guys do you think really took time to hook up kill switches?

By the way, when you look at Kenny's picture, you now know where the famous shot used in the Champion spark plug ad came from :cool: