Hot Singles ! - Pictures

[willabee]

Attached is the Marathon boat I ran with a Twister. Barry Woods ran a twin Marathon at Havasu in 1970.

Cool picture, don't recognize the location.....Canada? You said the boat ended up as kindling.....does that mean some overzealous young stud was trying to go faster than his angel could fly? On the other hand, you never know how far you can push one until you take it over.

Yes, the Parker refueling photo has been posted, but that's ok, I always enjoy looking at it . What is the story that goes with the last three photos?

Barry Woods at Havasu, 1970......don't recall who got a piece of him. We sure didn't know then that he was going to become such a good driver. I believe that some of the bodies in that photo are from the Italian contingent that came with Renato and Carlo Rasini. They took advantage of every opportunity they could to see how other hulls were put together and to get dimensions from as many different boats as possible.

[willabee]

Maybe I'm wrong but..........Didn't Billy Don run Tony Rodriguez' boat, a Miles or Jones called "Sagres" at that race?
Rodriguez was a Portugese millionaire with a couple of like named 7 liter hydros that my partner, Don Lostumbo, was driving at the time. I think this was one of his few forays into OPC, and Marty O'neill wound up driving that hull later that year.T2x

Don't know if this helps jog the ol' memory banks, but just read in Mel Zikes column in Powerboat, May, 1973 that Tony Rodrigues was selected APBA Driver of the Year and has decided to "branch out" into outboards. He said he will have four boats, two in Europe and two in the States, and Mike Wallace will head up the team. The Memphis race was May 13th, Zikes' column would be about a month behind the statement...............

[mbd29]

I guess I should have given a little info. The first shot, my memory is clouded now, is AJ Nardi running the boat he bought from Kenny Kitson. I think it is the same wooden Kitson that Kenny set the UI record in at Kaukauna. I believe it is in Rockford. The second, obviously, is Art I think in Clinton Iowa. The third top is Duane Timm in a Nauss craft and Frank Freeman below in a Miles. I can't remember where. I think that is Jim Williams standing to the left in the bottom photo. He bought a new Marathon and blew it over in the first race with a TII.

[willabee]

1973 seemed to also be a year that some folks had a need for speed . Barry Woods got it all started in February at the kilos in Modesto, Ca. He used his Scotti and an Evinrude Super Strangler to set a new S class mark of 116.553. Then changed engines and raised the U class record to 105.043. That gave OMC claim to the fastest single engine outboard, Jerry Walin at 130 and change, as well as these two coveted classes and they made the mistake of saying so in their advertising. Merc didn't hesitate in deciding to put an effort together to try to get all of them back .

They said Barry had perfect conditions when he ran for the record, and if that is true, this is another case of using a photo for advertising that didn't come from the record run. The photo below is what they used to announce the record......Although it is the boat he used, I sure don't think that is water that someone wants to try to set a kilo record on, it definitely is not perfect. The 2nd shot is of the man himself .

[willabee]

I'm not exactly sure how the next series of events came about and Boob Hetzel isn't going to join us to help, so I'll have to wing it myself. Hetzel is probably the only one alive that knows the actual detail. But, now that I think about it, he probably has forgotten it anyway (he's older than me).

So Charles Alexander lets the troops know that he wants the S & U records back. I imagine that Garbrecht and Merten do a little arguing about how to go about it. Mert wants the Berghauers (he was close to those guys) to set them in a new Twistercraft sprint like Lil Red and Gary wants a Molinari with a factory driver, Bob Hering. They end up with Hering in the Koblenz Molinari going for the S record and Duane Berghauer driving the Twistercraft looking to set the U mark. They also decide that they can get in done close to home, in Kaukauna, Wisconsin.

One other thing I believe they discussed was the single engine record. Since OMC was advertising that they owned all three, they decided to go for the 3rd one and to keep the attempt a secret until they knew they could accomplish their objective. As a matter of fact, initially they didn't even tell me about it and when Garbrecht finally did, I admit I was a little hurt and a little angry. When I look back at that time, it's easy to see that completely different driver/boat combinations would have made more sense. But, people always have their own private agenda and it is obvious that Mert wanted to set the single engine himself. I will add that he took one hell of a chance in doing so. He had been busted up pretty good in Galveston and then ended up with kidney damage from a nosedive in Paris. If he would have flipped that hydro, it's a fact that nothing good would have resulted.

Barry Woods ended up owning the two records for all of three months ......here is the photo that Merc used to announce that Hering had set the S mark at 118.441 and Berghauer had upped the U to 113.271. If memory serves, Herings numbers were within one mph of the twin engine record that I think was set by Kitson's wing! The other photo is a shot of what frequently happens when drivers go for kilo records .

To be continued...............

[MN4V]

I like those tunnel extensions on the #3 boat. And that girl with the nice butt next to Frank Freemans boat!!!
Mark N

[mbd29]

That was Frank's wife.

Has anybody heard what he is doing. Last I heard of him was when he blew a new boat over in the 70's and got banged up pretty bad.

How about the Travis brothers from MN.

[willabee]

A few guys decided to get their 100 MPH patches that year. I'm trying to remember if that was an OMC promoted deal or Gulf.....I'm not sure, but Dick Summerfeldt and Brian Smith were among the guys that did go over the century mark.

Back to the single engine record attempt......This is where I could use Hetzel. To the best of my recollection, sometime in May, Jim Merten, Jimmy Kubasta and Boob Hetzel loaded up some equipment and went out west, it may have been to Parker, I don't remember. Their secret mission was to get the hydro they took with them to run better than Jerry Walin's 130. This brings me to a question.....how much modifying of an existing hull must be done to it before you can claim it is a hull of a different manufacturer?

Remember, this was a secret project and I wasn't let in on the secret initially. However, I will say that I don't believe that Mercury built that "Twistercraft". Carl Stippich did do some work on it in the boat building shop in Oshkosh, but how much he did I don't know. I think it is a Ron Jones that someone had run in the drags out west, had been returned and sat on a rack in our storage building for some time. I simply didn't pay much attention to it because it wasn't something I was ever going to be working with. mbd29, what do you know about that boats history?

Again, I'm not sure, but I think they were gone for 5 or 6 weeks (time flys when you're having fun). They came back for a couple of weeks and left again. A few weeks later was when Gary told me what they were up to and that they had suffered many delays because they had to wait on proper conditions to test. At that point, Gary said that it looked like they were going to have to give it up because they just didn't have enough power to be positive they could set the record if an official event was set up for Kaukauna.

Here comes NED , to be continued..............

[MN4V]

how much modifying of an existing hull must be done to it before you can claim it is a hull of a different manufacturer?

....

I've done alot of work on some boats. I would think if you change the basic shape of the hull (deck and sponsons) that would be good enough to call it your design. That is starting from the existing center cockpit and building out. And I have done this before.
Mark N

[willabee]

This brings me to a question.....how much modifying of an existing hull must be done to it before you can claim it is a hull of a different manufacturer?

T2x.....what is George's response to this question?

[willabee]

Writing about this has made me do some thinking and, after a mere 33 years, I may have just figured something out . I had mentioned back on post #164 that I got fed-up in 1973 and ultimately turned in my resignation. Well, this was the approximate time frame that I was the unhappy camper. So I just got to thinking that back then, being the worldly person that I was (I hadn't turned 27 yet), I probably wore my dissatisfaction around like a badge. Those guys may have noticed something was wrong and decided that until whatever it was gets resolved, they would play it safe and keep the record attempt to themselves. I probably caused that issue all by myself.....what a dummy .

Anyway, Garbrecht tells me that they're probably going to abandon the project for now. I ask a bunch of questions about what they are using for power and how close they were , etc. Gary answered and then basicly said they're close, but no cigar. I didn't tell Gary right then that I had something that I thought might put them over the top. I was working on something that wasn't authorized and I needed to figure out how to tell him and still get it built in the timeframe now required. They had a couple more things they wanted to try, and then were packing up. If Gary wanted to try it, it would need to be shipped in the next couple of days and a new powerhead from scratch couldn't be built in that time.

One of the things I was unhappy about was the way a particular driver was being treated. I decided to build a special powerhead for him to use at the next race, hoping that he would win and attitudes would change for the better. In order to get it built, I "borrowed" a 1400 block and started grinding on it at home. I slowly but surely collected most of the parts I wanted to use which included the twin pipe exhaust system I told you about earlier. At this point it needed a couple more hours of block work and was just about ready for final assembly. I don't recall for sure where I had come across that exhaust system, probably off of one of those powerheads in Europe that had about 57 carbs (that was for Mark75H ), I just remember that I had stored it above my office when that powerhead got torn down.

Typically, I'm getting windy......to be continued

[lilabner]

Remember, this was a secret project and I wasn't let in on the secret initially. However, I will say that I don't believe that Mercury built that "Twistercraft". Carl Stippich did do some work on it in the boat building shop in Oshkosh, but how much he did I don't know. I think it is a Ron Jones that someone had run in the drags out west, had been returned and sat on a rack in our storage building for some time. I simply didn't pay much attention to it because it wasn't something I was ever going to be working with. mbd29, what do you know about that boats history?

Did it start out like this?

[mbd29]

Bill: I don't know much about the boat prior to the record. Booby does if we could ever get him on here. Jim Jr. would too. Just by looking at the boat I don't believe it ever was a picklefork. Mert's other record boat was a pickle. I remember Jim saying that they did quite a bit of work on it prior to the record. It probably was Carl that did the work as he and Jim were close.

[willabee]

Bill: I don't know much about the boat prior to the record. Booby does if we could ever get him on here. Just by looking at the boat I don't believe it ever was a picklefork. I remember Jim saying that they did quite a bit of work on it prior to the record. It probably was Carl that did the work as he and Jim were close.

I'm sure it wasn't a picklefork, I think lilabner was just trying to show us a Jones hydro that he is fortunate enough to have or wishes he still did .

I just checked the article in Powerboat, it said "The wooden, three-point hydroplane was specially prepared for top-end running, with particular attention to the dimension and shape of the sponsons, transom and afterplane." I know Stippich did whatever work was done, back then he was employed by Merc and lived in his Winnebago on the Race Team grounds during the week. Maybe these are the areas that were modified from original. The article also said that the powerhead was directly mounted to a specially-geared speedmaster lower unit.

[lilabner]

[quote=willabee]I'm sure it wasn't a picklefork, I think lilabner was just trying to show us a Jones hydro that he is fortunate enough to have or wishes he still did .
quote]