Hot Singles ! - Pictures

[Lake X Kid]

I would not want to be strapped into the seat. That is what Roy Ridgell told me, years after he retired from racing. When he witnessed the trajectory of boat racing going toward better safety solutions.

I respect dad's old viewpoint, but the sports sensibilities had to progress. And the increased boat speeds necessitated positive changes, for the viability of the sports future. Future generations need the high probability, that they will be coming back to the dock alive.

*****

Unlike Roy, Chip Hanauer made the transition to safety capsules, and was proud of it.
Here is what Chip had to say about his contribution to safety in racing.

~~~
When I was hired to drive the new Atlas Van Lines, I was replacing perhaps the greatest hydroplane driver ever, Bill Muncey, after his death in Mexico. Although it was a new boat, it had no more safety advantages than the boat Bill died in.I am proud to say I played a role in changing how hydroplane racing approached safety.
After Dean Chenoweth’s death, less than a year after Bill's death, we made significant improvements to driver safety. No one had been belted into a race boat, but the Atlas team changed my boat, built a protective, rigid cockpit and belted me into it. That led the way to the completely encapsulated hydroplanes we see racing today.
At the time, there was opposition to my being belted in. They said I might drown. But, in my mind, if I drowned, we at least improved the situation. The way it was going at the time, the driver was killed on impact. I felt we were at least moving the peg up a notch that I survived the crash to drown. I’m proud of that contribution and proud of Jim Lucero and my Atlas team who designed the new cockpit.

Here is a photo of Roy Ridgell in B-300.

[FUJIMO]

...really nice photo kid. you happen to know what brand of boat that was, and size?... you realize that the B-300 number on this boat, that the kiekhaefer chrysler race cars had on them in '56, had also been applied here.

[2us70]

Looks like a cut down North American. Mercury ran several of those boats in those days. Number is for the Gold Coast Marathon. The inboard classes started with letters the outboards with numbers.

[Dave S]

400 hp....2 cranks......phazed for better scavaging......blower on top.......just add DFI abd ya got a monster........I don't think a 105 chrysler lower is going to last tho

[GENE LANHAM]

Here is a photo of Roy Ridgell in B-300.

[Bob V]

[Lake X Kid]

Boat 76 steering wheel is disengaged, high probability it happen with the ejection of the driver.

This is an unfortunate carnage of racing. I do not know who the participants are or where and when it happen.

[peterse90]

Boat 76 steering wheel is disengaged, high probability it happen with the ejection of the driver.

This is an unfortunate carnage of racing. I do not know who the participants are or where and when it happen.

This is a very famous 'often posted' picture. Boat #76 is Reggie Fountain and his steering wheel is doing what it is designed to do with break-away steering system;

[2us70]

76 was indeed Reggie,575 was Harry Kerslake and 486 was Danny Piggot. Harry's boat was a Baja originally intended to run as a SJ boat. This boat generated way too much lift at U class speeds hence the tunnel flaps in the picture. Harry told me to run into any wind took full down on the flaps and even then the boat would lift straight up level and loose contact with the water. I knew Harry because his own personal ride was an SD boat and we raced many times. I always thought it was funny that Harry ran those two classes at the same time.
I witnessed this accident up close from the rail just past the clock at the Marine Stadium. As the field came down for the start it was pretty plain that something was likely to go wrong. Most of them had got the timing on the clock pretty good and it got pretty crowded. This was the result.

[Mark75H]

3 things happened:

all but one of the boats came up early and slowed down

the main/front group of boats assumed they were ALL together and no one was at the back correctly running to the clock as they slowed and bunched up

the guy at the back expected everyone to maintain lanes as he came up intending to shoot thru the crowd

[WaterZebra]

76 was indeed Reggie,575 was Harry Kerslake and 486 was Danny Piggot. Harry's boat was a Baja originally intended to run as a SJ boat. This boat generated way too much lift at U class speeds hence the tunnel flaps in the picture. Harry told me to run into any wind took full down on the flaps and even then the boat would lift straight up level and loose contact with the water. I knew Harry because his own personal ride was an SD boat and we raced many times. I always thought it was funny that Harry ran those two classes at the same time.
I witnessed this accident up close from the rail just past the clock at the Marine Stadium. As the field came down for the start it was pretty plain that something was likely to go wrong. Most of them had got the timing on the clock pretty good and it got pretty crowded. This was the result.

Result of what? Crossed lanes? Drove over the back of somebody? Bump? One blew and sucked the other two with him? Sounds to me like they were almost trading paint before it happened? This is the only blow over accident that I know of that was distributed thru the Associated Press system.

Break away steering was a middle step towards safety capsules which maybe prevented injury (Reggie) but didn't stop fatalities. I blew over with one of these steering rigs and managed to get my index finger snagged on the trim switch on the way out/down. Snapped it like a twig. Still a bit twisted to this day. Steering didn't "break away" but the drum shaft bent like a wet noodle.........

[2us70]

The Marine Stadium was basically my home race course. I ran countless laps there both in races and testing. If you look at a picture of the Stadium stands you will see that they form a sideways V. The prevailing wind at the Stadium is about a 45 degrees left headwind on the front straight. This causes a pretty big vortex to form in front of the stands. I first witnessed this when red smoke flares were used to stop the 9 Hour race when Hank Bowman was killed. Over the years I noticed most blowovers happened right in front of the stands. I also noticed when I had a boat trimmed just right it would get real light passing the stands especially if you were out in the middle of the lane. Not so bad along the buoys.
In this incident as the boats came down to the start they were close together and swapping air and shuffling sideways even before they got to the stands. It didn't take much in that situation to start the action from there. Harry was the first to go since his boat was already running faster than designed. Then the other two.

[Mark75H]

Result of what? Crossed lanes? Drove over the back of somebody? Bump? One blew and sucked the other two with him? Sounds to me like they were almost trading paint before it happened?

Yes 3 boats touched and became a super wing and they all took off. No one crossed lanes, but Reggie did come into a lane that disappeared when he arrived; no one realized he was back there at full throttle.

[2us70]

That's about right from my vantage point. When tunnel boats first came on the scene power trim was not legal in many classes. The other common blowover point at the Stadium was the entry to turn 1. When you turned in to ! you went from a quartering head wind to dead on the bow. This caught out more than a few drivers. My own McCall tunnel tried to bite me several times here. I had to run it way aired out to try to keep up and if I didn't get it down going in to 1 it either wouldn't turn or it would try to blow over. I was fortunate to have only blown over once in that boat in testing.

[Lake X Kid]

Circa 1974 - 1975 the changing of the guard.
The new Merc V6 came to challenge the inline 6 for top dog.