Hot Singles ! - Pictures

[robert j garner]

Yeah i'll second that come on jackie don't keep us waiting.




Rob

[willabee]

Got some more neat stuff.....this is Lonnie Todd in an 18' Molinari with a 1250 & power trim. I believe this style is the first of the closed cockpit/rear cowled Molinari's to come over.

The story goes like this.....The very first one was "smuggled" into Fond du lac in 1967, rigged at the Fondy boathouse and Gary Garbrecht was called in to be the test driver. Mr. Kiekhaefer let a certain number of Merc VIP's in on the secret project and instructed them to be at the Fondy boathouse at a specific time to see the new weapon that was going to help Mercury dominate racing. When all were gathered, and after a short explanation of the projects intentions by Mr. K, the boat was lowered into the water. Everyone was tense with excitement, straining for a better view of the boat and the driver as he stuffed himself into the cockpit.

The boat would have to run down a short channel before it reached open water.....once in open water, it was to make three passes close to the shoreline for the benefit of the spectators. Gary turned the key and the big inline fired right on cue.....he smiled, flipped the face shield on his helmet down and shoved the hand throttle full into the "go fast" position. Off he went, down the channel and the further he went, the more the hull lifted out of the water. Everyone"s excitement grew as the boat lifted higher and higher.....the group was smiling big time and then it happened!

No one knew just how high that hull was supposed to get and, apparently, that included the driver. Just as Gary reached the open water, the engine revs increased dramatically and the Molinari began to look more like a missle than a boat. Up. up and over she went.....Splash! Just like that, the show was over. No one knew quite what to say to Mr. K, of couse they really never did. There was some muttering about how tough that boat would be to beat once we "learn how to keep it on the water". Mr. K did allow some folks to help Gary out of the drink, but the boat wasn't as fortunate.....it was broken so badly, it had to be set ablaze .

Thank God things like this didn't discourage Mr. Kiekhaefer. Another was rigged and tested successfully (don't recall who drove that one) and "the rest is history"

Gene also sent this card that he said was sent to him from Roy Ridgell when Roy was manager of European Racing.

[jlf56]

Willabee,
Seems I heard that story also. Help me with this one. In 1967 an 18' Wooden Molinari showed up in Houston. Either Lee Richter or someone else owned it and Gene Piehl (later was the single driver for Glastron) was driving it. Iy too was blown over at the Lakewood Yatch club on Clear Lake where Bill Cooper had his bad wreck. Also, there was another shorter Molinari showed up on Houston about that time and it had wider boxier sponsons. The interior was like a run-a-bout, wide and open from the seat to the transom. This boat later ended up with Kenneth Mann, the guy that had the 21' glass molly # 301.

Well, here is the Paul Harvey side of this. I just got off the phone with Lee Richter, now 90 years old and said to tell Bill Welch "Hi", tells me what he remembers about 1967. Someone from Florida call him and wanted him to drive an 18' Molly in the Colorado River race here in Texas. He did, finished he thinks 11th. He then bought the boat, painted in blue, named it Blue Gene and had Gene Piehl drive it. Blew all our old allison and mertex flat bottoms away. They took it to Havasu but didn't get much more out of him. As for the other Molly, it too showed up for the Colorado River race with none other than Art Kennedy driving it. Had forgotten about Art. Did any of you ever see the back of his jacket ??? He was the first blue eyed Englisher that was black that I ran into. He was a definite trip. Had a lot of fun with him, me being 100% Texas redneck. Anyway the little Moly wound up being passed around the Houston area till the early 70's and thats when I lost track of everything. While at Glastronin 1969 Renato brought a sport Molinari tunnel with a Phil Rollo prop and sold it to Hammond as the answer to the public runabout of the future. The boat ran beautifully for Renato but none of could ever get it to do anything but porpose. The only thing we did not have was the Rollo prop, makes you wonder. Harold about pulled his hair trying to make that thing run. It wound up in the back with the famous Banana Boat, three point hydro in reverse and Bat Boat.
Some post back I think it was you mentioned the race in Ohio. That was the race Pruett burned his eyes welding and couldn't see on race day. I ask him how he was going to race and he said, I'll follow someone out the ramp channel and follow roostertails. He was in Tripple Trouble that race. That was a comforting thought knowing he was running around out there at 100 + mph and couldn't see, but that was pruett.
Fielder

[2us70]

I recognize the location in those pictures as the Miami Outboard Club but I can't recall the boat. Did that boat later get a different rear cowling?

[John Schubert]

When Posey got out after four hours, the running order was Sanders/Posey, Molinari/Wilson and deBoom/deBoom (father & son). That doesn't sound bad, but this does.....99 laps for the leaders, 97 for 2nd and 96 for 3rd . By now, Jimbo and Merten were out after nose dives, Scotti had hit a barge, and Don Clark had flipped and got hurt badly.

After the fuel stops at four hours, it was once again Sanders vs. Molinari in the cockpits. The previous year it was the same going into the last stint, Sanders again in front. That time he hit something, damaged his prop and Molinari just beat him to the finish.....would something similar happen again? No.....Sanders won "by nearly three laps". DeBoom, with "no power trim, no factory engine and no new Molinari" finished 3rd, on the same lap as Renato. Strang said "Sanders and Posey dominated the day despite a prop bent on the opening lap (I bet it made them quicker) and failing steering (cable off pulley) on the last lap". Johnson Stingers finished 1st, 3rd, 7th and 9th.....beating Mercury for the first time in Paris.

Well, there you have it Jackie my boy.....and it didn't get any prettier when we went to Berlin .

Jimbo's hauling OMC hull and deBoom......

Bill,

Didn't Pruett also get hurt & ended up with an infection from the Seine?

[willabee]

.....but I can't recall the boat. Did that boat later get a different rear cowling?

That is something that Gene will have to answer.....I don't recall how Todd got that boat or how someone in Florida got one for Richter to race as jlf56 was describing. I thought that maybe only about a dozen of them came over. I know we destroyed at least two testing and that after we converted to the next model, there were four left in the yard.....that would have been fall of 68. I guess that means about six were sold/given to others for racing. The four remaining were offered to employees for $100.00 and eventually were gone.

When you look at the pictures of Lonnie, you can see how high those boats ran. So as guys outside of Merc got them and strapped on the new horsepower, they proved to be quite easy to blow over. The boat was designed with something like the 1100/clubfoot in mind, not a stacked 1250/SSM. I remember the first time I drove one of those. The racing team had not been formed yet, and most of this type of work was being performed by engineering in Oshkosh.....the "blue room". Dick Snyder was in charge of the group and Gary Garbrecht was the Foreman reporting to Dick. One day in late 1967, Dick came to me and said that he had heard that I wanted to drive the Molinari. I confirmed and he told me what type of test he wanted me to run and that he needed the answer that afternoon for a meeting with Mr. Kiekhaefer.

I knew about the first flip in Fond du lac and sure didn't want to become an addition to that story. So I pulled the stacked powerhead off (I'm pretty sure it was a 1250) and replaced it with a stock head. Then I went out to the river where we had some course buoys and started driving the boat by rpm. Ran 3500 on the straight and just turned it around the buoy without backing off.....remember, these boats really did tight turns. Anyway, a couple of passes at 3500, then 4500 and so on until I was running flat out. Wish I could remember for sure what flat out was, I'm thinking 70? Once I felt comfortable, I put the stacker back on and ran the tests. It was fun to drive, but you sure sat high off the water.....running into the wind was a "puckering" experience .

[willabee]

There were constant changes being made by Molinari as the engines continued to evolve. I think the boats can be grouped into "general" design catagory's, if you don't try to count all of the the minor changes or improvements made to each group. The first hulls were the open cockpit of about 16/17', followed by the 1967 18' closed cockpit/rear cowled tunnels. That style was improved and the next generation of 18'ers looked like the four raced at Havasu in 1968. Tom Stickle drove one of the four running the first 1350's in competion, and took the race overall lead position shortly after the 2 hour mark.....a single running in front of all of those twins, triples and Wings!!! Unfortunately, he went into his "smile for the camera" routine and, sure enough, over she went.....Splash (take that Mr.T ).

Here is a shot of those three generations.....Don Clark.....Lonnie Todd.....Art Kennedy

To be continued.....

[willabee]

Bill,

Didn't Pruett also get hurt & ended up with an infection from the Seine?

Hi John,
The way I remember it, Billy Don didn't get hurt, but he did get sick. He was a goggle wearer back then and had them knocked off of his face at the beginning of his two hour run. He said that he was "blasting by everyone on his way to the front" and had to drive through someone's rooster tail. Said "they blew clean off my head, couldn't find them anywhere." He did finish his stint, but had to be helped out of the boat when he came in for fuel.

Not that he was a handsome lad when he got in that boat , but I remember that he looked just horrible when he got out. It's amazing how beat up he looked after getting the Seine river blasted into his face for a couple of hours. I think about 24 hours after that experience he became quite ill.....you just didn't want that water in your eyes and mouth.....yuk!

I seem to recall a little kidding taking place later. He was bragging about how great he had been running (you know, that Superstar stuff he used to bring up every once in a while) and someone asked if that was the case, why wasn't he out front when he came in for fuel. The big guy did that laugh of his and said "hell, I thought I was.....I passed every boat that I could see."

[T2x]

The four remaining were offered to employees for $100.00 and eventually were gone.

One of them wound up in the hands of Tom Wenstadt, who, I believe, still has it.

T2x

[willabee]

The 69 boats were still 18'ers, but a little sleaker, didn't ride quite as high and, of course, a little faster.....those were the boats that the Glastron/Molinari was produced from. I really liked driving that one, got over a lot of water, turned very well.....felt comfortable. If I could get a Molinari for pleasure use today, I'd choose the 21' twin (the 1970 Havasu winner). If I couldn't get a twin, this is the single I'd pick.

1970 brought the 16' and 17' sprints. The 16's were very good closed course boats and the 17's were great in marathons. Mr.T or Olegator could tell you more about that, but I believe they'd say the 16 was a little touchy to be running at Paris or Parker. Once again, speeds increased with these hulls.

Here are those two generations.....Arie de Boom/18'.....Bill Sirois/16'.....Tom Stickle/17'

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

[2us70]

I got to drive a Glastron 18' a couple of times and I have to agree that it was an easy boat to drive. A marathon stint in one of those boats took a lot less out of the driver than most others.

[John Schubert]

The 69 boats were still 18'ers, but a little sleaker, didn't ride quite as high and, of course, a little faster.....those were the boats that the Glastron/Molinari was produced from. I really liked driving that one, got over a lot of water, turned very well.....felt comfortable. If I could get a Molinari for pleasure use today, I'd choose the 21' twin (the 1970 Havasu winner). If I couldn't get a twin, this is the single I'd pick.

1970 brought the 16" and 17' sprints. The 16's were very good closed course boats and the 17's were great in marathons. Mr.T or Olegator could tell you more about that, but I believe they'd say the 16 was a little touchy to be running at Paris or Parker. Once again, speeds increased with these hulls.

Here are those two generations.....Arie de Boom/18'.....Bill Sirois/16'.....Tom Stickle/17'

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

Bill,

The boat that I drove in 1971 with Geoff Briggs co-driving & I was leading at 5 hours, but not at 6, which Mike Downard won was Scotti's Molinari from 1970, I think. I believe that it was either a 16' or something a little less then 17'. Do you recall? Our number was 16.

[willabee]

Bill,....The boat that I drove in 1971 with Geoff Briggs co-driving & I was leading at 5 hours, but not at 6, which Mike Downard won was Scotti's Molinari from 1970, I think. I believe that it was either a 16' or something a little less then 17'. Do you recall? Our number was 16.

The only 'ON' boat I recall entered in the Paris race by either factory that was less that 17' was the 16' Molinari sprint driven by Jim Merten and Bill Sirois in 1970. It was just too small for that water.....Mert nosed in, got hurt and Tom Stickle had to take his place. They finished in the top ten, but said it was one hell of a ride.

Funny you should say that you think it was Scotti's 1970 boat and think it was less than 17'.....I say that because when I looked up the 1970 race in Powerboat, they said "Scotti shortened his new Molinari by ramming a barge". I remember an 18' marathon Molinari that Stickle tried to fly. Rather than put a new nose on it, the wood butchers just cleaned off the loose splinters and closed it up..... we called the resulting shorter version "Stubby" . Maybe your boat also lost a few inches during the repair.

The 71 race was quite a disaster for both factory teams. The Pellolio/Downard winner was the only boat from either factory to finish! Was the boat you and Geoff ran in 71 white with black trim.....that's what I remember for some reason. I recall it was getting late in the race and I was thinking that we were going to get beat 'big time' by guys that call themselves T.A.R.T. (for those that don't know, that stands for Talented Amateur Racing Team). You can imagine how disappointed I was when you didn't come back around just as the 5th hour was coming to a close .

We had a "water in the distributer " problem with all of our Twisters and lost time while they misfired around the course. When we finally figured out what was wrong, we brought them in to perform pit repairs and lost even more time. With all of that and as good as you and Geoff were running, you guys had built a huge lead.....if you don't lose the powerhead, you win by a bunch of laps.....that had to be heart breaking.

The 16' sprint we ran in 70, the winning #32 (with a starboard side American flag on the port side of the boat )and your #16.....hauling the mail

[willabee]

The #187 Boat Is The One I Ran..... I THOUGHT IT WAS THE BEST OF ALL THE MOLINARI'S I EVER RAN

No question the the 16's were good boats, just thought they were a tad small for Parker.....definitely too small for Paris. Keeping them upright and on the same lap as the leader at the beginning of a Parker race had to be a challenge. I recall you saying that Bill Sirois, driving the other 16', went by you early in the race and we know he flipped. Sirois didn't flip often, so I figure that boat was a handful in the rough water at the beginning while trying to race for the lead.

On the other hand, if a guy survived the beginning with everything in tact and wasn't too far back, they would be great boats to mount a charge for the win. The longer the race went, the better the water got, and the faster the 16' would be able to run. That was probably the thinking on entering them at Parker in the first place.

[willabee]

As I was attempting to put the Molinari's into "style generations" on this thread, Jackie Wilson and Mark75H got into an interesting conversation about the very beginning of the Molinari tunnel on another thread. It is a part of that history that I did not know and I hope that we can have a good discussion of that time frame here when Jackie gets back from holiday.

Jackie sent a couple of photos of the Torrigia hulls, two tunnels and one vee, that he bought from the builder, Geremia Chetti. I think these three boats were raced in Paris in 1964 and that Jackie bought them in 1965. As I understand it, the contention is that Molinari (probably Angelo, Renato's father) bought the business from Chetti around 1966 and that was the birth of the Molinari tunnel.

Here are the Torrigia pics that Jackie sent and I put the one of Don Clark in a Molinari from about 1967/1968 with them so you can see the similarity of the hulls. Jackie will have plenty to say about these photos.....I'll just say that the one of him in the "big" Torrigia shows him at the speed he was most comfortable with .....the other demonstrates how clever his planning always was, put the little vee on the bottom and the big tunnel on top of the trailer .....Jackie, Jackie, Jackie............