1969 Merc 1250 possible super bp?

[wogi]

Offshore racers generally said "Black Power", the engineering guys said "Blue Print" .....

I'm pretty sure the T-111 was originally raced by Earl Welch (no relation). Gene, you should remember seeing it at Parker in 67/68 running six pipe Merc 1000's. I think Earl was from Missouri or Illinois. He and his friend, I think the name was Ray Bloch ,both ran the six pipe 1000's. They generally pitted together and seemed to help one another. They never ran very fast, but they seemed to always be having one hell of a good time.

That was around the time that Mercury was trying to control all of the 18' Switzer Wings and I think they ended up buying this boat and put it in storage. A few years later, Boots Spellman bought it and his friend Fred Hugg bought one of Kenny Kitson's retired El Diablo's. They put 1250 stackers on them and used them to go bar hopping in the Oshkosh area waterways! Boots was an OMC dealer and I seem to recall that he painted his engine cowling white and put Johnson stickers on them?

There were never any sister ships, an 18' Wing is an 18' Wing. Someone might think that there was some connection with this boat to Merten's Wet and Wild, but that would only be because Spellman and Mert co-drove at Parker in 1969. To my knowledge, Mert never raced the T-111. In fact I don't believe he ever ran another Wing after the accident in Galveston. However, Boots raced the T-111 once in Merrill, Wisconsin.


Boots in the T-111 at Merrill .....

Attachment 405852


The other six pipe Wing .....

Attachment 405853

thanks for clearing of that up, I was only 9years old when dad bought the boat from boots and I even played on the wrecked remains of the Wet and Wild as it was laying in Spellmen marines boat yard at the time my father bought the t-111. And the white painted cowls with Johnson painted on them, my dad ended up using the as wall decorations in his garage as Boots give them to my father, telling him that he did it because he was pissed that Mercury would not give his marina a Merc dealership, so he ended up being a omc dealer instead. Said he did it as a middle finger to Merc. He had also said that Carl K was so pissed when he seen it that he filed a law suite against Boots for false advertisement, followed by a seas and desist order threw the courts in Winnebago county in WI. Again this is just what I over heard as a kid listening to adult beer talk

[wogi]

And as for bar hopping with a wing, dad carried on that tradition.

[GENE LANHAM]

I'm pretty sure the T-111 was originally raced by Earl Welch (no relation). Gene, you should remember seeing it at Parker in 67/68 running six pipe Merc 1000's. I think Earl was from Missouri or Illinois. He and his friend, I think the name was Ray Bloch ,both ran the six pipe 1000's. They generally pitted together and seemed to help one another. They never ran very fast, but they seemed to always be having one hell of a good time.

Looks like Bloch only ran a couple laps in 1968--



---And Earl a lot better with 40 laps--

[GENE LANHAM]

Offshore racers generally said "Black Power", the engineering guys said "Blue Print" .....

I'm pretty sure the T-111 was originally raced by Earl Welch (no relation). Gene, you should remember seeing it at Parker in 67/68 running six pipe Merc 1000's. I think Earl was from Missouri or Illinois. He and his friend, I think the name was Ray Bloch ,both ran the six pipe 1000's. They generally pitted together and seemed to help one another. They never ran very fast, but they seemed to always be having one hell of a good time. .

This post started out about '1969--possible BP'---The 68 Parker 9 Hour was the first BIG race for the BP--

The 804 was a test boat at the Lake--it was called 'Odell's Boat', Odell had raced it in a GOLD COAST MARATHON

It was rigged with a pair of the new 'Studs Down' BP's and entered in the 1968 Parker 9 Hour--

50 years later we are still asking--'Who was Driving?

​

[GENE LANHAM]

The 804 was a test boat at the Lake--it was called 'Odell's Boat', Odell had raced it in a GOLD COAST MARATHON



​

​1965 GOLD COAST MARATHON--lots of familiar names--

[wogi]

ouch!!!!!!!!!!

[Bob V]

It was rigged with a pair of the new 'Studs Down' BP's and entered in the 1968 Parker 9 Hour--
​

I think the BP's are studs up now...