Hot Multi's - Pictures

[bernie]

While looking for other misplaced boat crap, I turned this up - had it hanging in my garage for years but must have rolled it up when we moved in 1995 maybe.
Photo credit goes to Rodger Squire.

[willabee]

I have one of those hanging in my garage.

Look at how close the one Miss BK took is to the one they used for the poster. I've seen a couple others that are also close to the poster picture.

[Mike Bruton]

As requested;
1. What was left of the light weight 21' Glass Molly I crashed on the first lap of Havasu '70
2. 21' Glass Twin at Austin Aqua race in '70. This was the same boat we finished 6th at Parker '70
3. We set a new record for this race (Houston Channel Derby) Red Adair held the record for several years. We took 8 min. off that, a 54 min. run from Houston to Galveston and back.
4. Sorry, I couldn't resist posting the pic of Bill Cooper again. This is an awesome shot. Although, I think this was a normal attitude & altitude for anything he drove

Fielder

Joe was that 2nd picture at the 69 or 70 Aqua Festival? Iwas at the 70 w/ Lee. We got 3rd place. If I remember right, Bobby Witt won. But I don't remember who got 2nd. Lee may have won that race but coming in to fuel the bottom stack on the righthand engine took in water & locked it up. Hiram Muecke wasn't racing that day & jumped in, Pulled the 2 bottom plugs out & pumped the water out of the cylinders, put the plugs back in & Lee finished 3rd. Seems like Posey may have finished 2nd overall (1st singe), but I can't remember who the 2nd place multi was. Anyway, that's a good picture of you. I miss that kind of racing.

[Ronster43]

Willabee mentioned this boat at Havasu '69 much earlier in this thread. Here is the story as I understand it.
Mr. K gave Jeff Titus the rig to run in S Fla against a twin Chrysler rig that was winning. I believe it was a 22ft McCall-built Molinari knock-off. He went to Lake X to get it and test with Odel Lewis. It ran poorly. Figured-out when he got it home that the motors had different gear ratios. When that was corrected, it would still only run in the low 80's because it was just too heavy. It wore #7 when Jeff and Jock Horner took it to Havasu in 1969. They went through a few gear cases Saturday, but were still running 11th or 12th or so. They broke the last gear case early Sunday and were done. He brought it home and repainted it...#43..."Big Job"...and put stacks on it. It was a little faster and MUCH louder. He broke the bottom out of it in a marathon in Miami and it sunk. I believe it went back to Lake X after that.

[2us70]

That boat was almost finished in John McCalls shop when I brought my first SE McCall tunnell to see what could be done to make it competitetive. We decided that I was too heavy for the tunnell with a 50 and a V-bottom would work better for me. We decided to put a v-bottom on a flat-bottom design that Bobby Drewery set a kilo record with the previous year. All of this was hashed out on a sheet of paper on the still unfinished deck of the "Big Job". I got the impression that John was not too happy about building a "Molinari". The result for me was the best race boat I ever owned.

[willabee]

...Here is the story as I understand it.
Mr. K gave Jeff Titus the rig to run in S Fla against a twin Chrysler rig that was winning. I believe it was a 22ft McCall-built Molinari knock-off. He went to Lake X to get it and test with Odel Lewis. It ran poorly. Figured-out when he got it home that the motors had different gear ratios. When that was corrected, it would still only run in the low 80's because it was just too heavy. It wore #7 when Jeff and Jock Horner took it to Havasu in 1969. ...... He brought it home and repainted it...#43..."Big Job"...and put stacks on it. It was a little faster and MUCH louder. He broke the bottom out of it in a marathon in Miami and it sunk. I believe it went back to Lake X after that.

That's a great shot of the 21' McCall. I was trying to describe it on a different thread some time back, but I didn't have a picture. Mr. Lanham was kind enough to supply the one of it at Havasu in 69 as #7. Then Jackie Wilson found one of it in 1970 when it was owned by John Henry Price and painted in the stars & stripes. It was a copy of the 21'er that Sirois ran at Havasu in 69 & 70.

I almost remember the gear ratio deal, embarrassing then and now. You are right that the boat was heavy. It ran 8/10 mph slower than the Molinari with like power. I don't remember the sinking incident, but it probably went back to the Lake for John to repair and then be sold.

The Molinari in 69.....the McCall at Havasu 69 and again in 70. In the last shot, the blurry boat leading the pack away from the dock on saturday is the McCall!

[willabee]

.....If you saw the picture taken about 3 sec. before I crashed, notice the engines were tucked all the way under, with a full fuel load. It was running between 115 & 117 down the back stretch where I pulled away from Renato. My point is, this boat would have never made a full 2hr run without going over. We didn't do enough testing, I was so blown away with the results the first time we ran it, I told Harold, let's go to Havasu! Bad call.....Fielder

Although the next shots you see are of poor quality, they should still show you one of the scariest moments in outboard racing history. I shudder every time I think of this accident! The "dive" on it's own is bad enough, but then to have over one hundred screaming tunnel boats all racing for position bearing down on an object in the water they can't see.....man, whatever was about to happen was not going to be good!

Joe is absolutely correct, he is running flat out with the engines tucked in on good water. No offense to anyone, but that should have told someone that boat was just the proverbial accident looking for a place to happen! Here are 23 sequencial shots of how the boat went from first place to the scrap heap in about 10 seconds.

In the 1st two, the boat appears to have a proper attitude. In the third, even though it's on good water, the tail is coming up and the nose going down. In the 4th just a small wake causes the tail to pop out. In the 5th the boat splashes back down on the tail.

[willabee]

In the 6th shot the tail is up again. Then the boat is tail riding with the bow up.....BAD! Joe must have backed off for a second because next the tail is up again and then it's out of the water. The tail popped three or four times during this stretch and this was on relatively good water. The last shot is the back breaker.....the Glastron/Molinari hits the wake left by a late leaving the pits 22' triple Jones. Running flat out yet, it smacks that big roller about midship.....

[willabee]

In the 11th shot, you can see the big roller had tripped the boat and the nose is going down. More of the same in the next two and about here is when Joe started asking someone for "a little assistance please"! The last two show there will be no recovery on this trip.....Joe Fielder will not be leading lap #2.

[willabee]

In shot #16, the boat continues it's head first dive into the cold Colorado. Maybe the good thing about something like this is that it happens so fast.....there really isn't much time to wonder what it's going to feel like. I remember blowing over a 18' Molinari and it seemed to take forever before it finally did splashdown.....that was too much time to wonder!

[willabee]

Shot #21 says "going, going....." and the next says "GONE"......!!!! The last is of the safety boat dragging Joe back to shore. I don't believe they ever put him in the boat, just hooked him in the water and pulled him to shore. I didn't go to where they brought him in, just didn't want to see what may have happened.

Thanks for the memories Joe!

[Mike Bruton]

Shot #21 says "going, going....." and the next says "GONE"......!!!! The last is of the safety boat dragging Joe back to shore. I don't believe they ever put him in the boat, just hooked him in the water and pulled him to shore. I didn't go to where they brought him in, just didn't want to see what may have happened.

Thanks for the memories Joe!

You must have been standing just to my right (very close to me). These are exactly like I remember it. The only thing I remember that doesn't show up in these photos is Joe throwing his arms up (kinda like he was saying oh well, or maybe something worse) right before the nose hit the water. I remember from where I was standing, when the nose was about half way submerged I could see the boat breaking up behind the cockpit & the fuel tank coming towards Joe. When Joe went under, Marie Richter & I counted I believe 62 boats run right over the spot where he went under.
Marie & Lee Richter were real close to Joe & I remember her crying. But we were somewhat relieved when we saw Joe bob up, raise his hand & then I think he passed out. Lee was back in the middle of the pack & said the spray was so bad from all the roostertails that he didn't know anything had happened. He said he missed Joe by about 3 feet.
All in all it was the scariest thing I've ever seen in boatracing.

[jlf56]

Thanks Willa;
You certainly didn't hurt anyone's feeling with that comment. As I stated, it was my call and it was a bad one. We tested at Lake Travis in Austin for a couple of runs on old props. No test on light fuel load. All I could see was the checkered flag at Havasu !!! We reproped at Havasu and that thing accelerated like the single did at Lake X with the cowbell. That was why Renato was pissed that I ran off from him on the back stretch. If if if if -----If that boat had stayed together for four hours we would have been laps ahead of Bill S. It wasn't meant to be and I'm glad everything went as it did. I would surely haved joined Cesar Scottie, Bill Cooper, Bobby Massy and others by the way I was driving. Thanks again for the pictures. Your angle was better than CBS. My back hurts everytime I see these.

Happy New Year to all !!!
Fielder

[GENE LANHAM]

"HOT MULTI'S----" by Willabee. What's happened? No activity for 8 months? One of my favorites (and I am obviously prejudiced)

A recent e mail from Willabee had this P.S: "Not everyone in Oshberg disliked Offshore"
Like Offshore or not, you have to love Howard Weiler's 'Fight & Switch' (HOT MULTI?)-- finished sixth in the 1970 Bahama's 500 with all motors turning---Howard also ran some OPC races with a DeSilva hydro and a couple of old tired BP's---
Gene

[willabee]

"HOT MULTI'S----" by Willabee. What's happened? No activity for 8 months? One of my favorites (and I am obviously prejudiced)

I remember seeing that a few times in OPC. Don't remember who did it anymore, but believe there was a Stylecraft at Havasu and a Glastron/Molinari at Portsmouth, both sporting multiple brands on the transom. All of these people were smart enough to put the Merc in the middle so they didn't have to worry about their boats splitting in half due to a horribly unbalanced power push.