Hot Singles ! - Pictures

[GENE LANHAM]

[QUOTE=Bob V;2947186]

---Meanwhile back at the----





Attachment 373184

A few months later--March, 1970--Bill Petty had 'inherited' Bill Coopers 20' Jones. probably the best twin Jones at the time--

[lilabner]

photo credit elmer stokes

FUGEMO
elmer? you must be thinking of EC..try Abner. Anyway here are some better pics of the lovely Rosemary from the originals, 11 x 14..

[Bob V]

[FUJIMO]

FUGEMO
elmer? you must be thinking of EC..try Abner. Anyway...

LOL, sorry butch... Elmer on the brain I guess... Maybe its just me but, Rosemary could look a bit intimidating(?)...

[FUJIMO]

She looked like she could handle anything that came at her...Great photo Butch. Thanx for sharing.

[FUJIMO]

[FUJIMO]

Right after Havasu, I was thinking Galveston. That was a real bummer, that man was boat racing's Steve McQueen! I remember the first time I ever saw him, Parker 1968. He was driving Mercury's latest secret project, a strendrive tunnel. It was an 18' Molinari with a warmed up 265 in. Chevy coupled to a Mc1 speedmaster. Five years later they would be called KT boats! During testing he put on quite a show, making those snappy one buoy turns and accelerating down the front chute. The inboard dudes went bonkers watching that boat do stuff they had never dreamed was possible. He had the driver names for the boat painted on the cowl :

Driver - Bill Cooper
Co-Driver - "Fear"

...Bill was the president of a successful lumber company in Cali. In June of 1968, Bill was badly hurt in a flip at the start of the Clear Lake Enduro near Houston Texas. Although so severely slashed that it required 2,000 stitches & innumerable blood transfusions to save his life, he was back at the wheel of his race boat in less than two months, later in the 1968 Hennessy Cup Race. He owned & raced the first offshore race boat on the west coast, with four of the new Mercury 1250 BP engines, on a Florida built 28 Memco...named "Spooky lll". And yes, Bill passed away December 5th, 1969.

[FUJIMO]

Another of Bill Cooper's rides...

[lilabner]

She looked like she could handle anything that came at her...Great photo Butch. Thanx for sharing.

Elmer and Abner, we were both blessed by our parents..

Rosemary is a real sweetheart. I worked for her husband Phil, as an electrician apprentice, and Richie Baiz and I were at their house almost every night till eleven or so working on the three Raveau's, and Phil's F-Hydro. That's why we won so much. Nothing comes easy, and we tried everything to get just one more mph or better handling. Phil was relentless in preparing the boats, and we learned a lot by OJT. When we were done working we went inside for ice cream or something, and just shoot the bull. It was a lot of laughs most nights. They were great people. Those were fun years.

[FUJIMO]

Bill Cooper's Formula Offshore race boat at Key West in 1967 - Bill drove with Darryl Jenkins bringing up the rear...

[2us70]

In the mid 60s when I started racing the only woman driving a Raveau was Helen Campbell in H class. She shared driving with her husband Jim. Several other Raveaus made up most of the H class at the time. Just a couple of years later all the Raveaus disappeared.

[T2x]

Seems like Hot Singles is merging with Hot Multis.

[T2x]

Ken Kalibat passed away over 20 years ago suddenly. He felt ill for months but never went to doctors for any reason. Finally he gave in and while drawing blood the doctor stopped and ordered him to the hospital telling Ken that he had advanced Leukemia. The doctor pointed out that Ken had so many white blood cells in his sample that the blood was beige. The chemo regimen was so strong that it shut down all of his vitals only a few days later

[GENE LANHAM]

Seems like Hot Singles is merging with Hot Multis.

[GENE LANHAM]

Guess I just pulled a "Redbird" - wrote "to be continued' and forgot about it.

I should have mentioned that Stickles' 17'er was given a name ..... STUBBY ..... the #111 was in fact Sikes.


Moving to the boats on the trailers, we have #998 Bill Sirois in a new 16' Molinari sprint. First race for the 16'ers in the USA. Apparently a rare mistake was made when setting this boat up at Lake X, it didn't test with a full load of fuel. As a result, Bill had a hard time getting planed at the start and was almost a lap behind when he finally got moving. Passed a bunch of boats, but experienced the same problem after stopping for fuel.

The #177 is Don Clark in one of those comfortable 18' rockers. He ran a good race and ended up second. The #457 is Bob Hering in another of the 18'ers, don't remember where or if he finished.

The #187 is the race winner, Jim Merten in a 16'sprint. Clark could outrun him in the rough outside the stadium, but Mert had speed on the 18'er when they came back inside. I remember a reporter trying to interview Mert after the race. The only response he ever gave the reporter was "What?" - he couldn't hear a word this guy was saying after running 3 hours or so with that stacker. I ended up answering all of the interviewers questions for Mert and the reporter was fine with that, he said he just wanted to go somewhere quiet himself.

Next you see the #22 Glastron/Molinari driven by Gary Peacock, he was running as an independent at this point in time. Behind Gary is the third 16'er, Renato's sprint that he flipped at Lake X.

Billy Don Pruett's #174 is not in the picture, but he was there. Not sure if Bill Seebold was driving for Merc Racing at this event, I'll have to look that up.