Hot Singles ! - Pictures

[GENE LANHAM]

1st place U class, two 125hp mercs AND one 110hp merc ?? WOW-th

-----at least, they were all black---

[lilabner]

-----at least, they were all black---

Howard was a good man..

[willabee]

....Attachment 372413

This one is from Molly Ballou's collection. She labeled it Miami 225, 1971, but it is from the 1970 event. I don't know where the OMC team was hiding when this shot was taken, but you sure can see that Mercury Racing was present!

The Stickle boat was now a 17'er. If I remember correctly, Tom had managed to blow it over and I think Garbrecht was a little pissed off about that. So he had Jack Ferris just clean off the remaining splinters on the nose and close it up .... presto, Tom now has a 17' sprint!

I don't know who is in the #111. ..... Tom Sikes maybe?

to be continued .....

Guess I just pulled a "Redbird" - wrote "to be continued' and forgot about it.

I should have mentioned that Stickles' 17'er was given a name ..... STUBBY ..... the #111 was in fact Sikes.


Moving to the boats on the trailers, we have #998 Bill Sirois in a new 16' Molinari sprint. First race for the 16'ers in the USA. Apparently a rare mistake was made when setting this boat up at Lake X, it didn't test with a full load of fuel. As a result, Bill had a hard time getting planed at the start and was almost a lap behind when he finally got moving. Passed a bunch of boats, but experienced the same problem after stopping for fuel.

The #177 is Don Clark in one of those comfortable 18' rockers. He ran a good race and ended up second. The #457 is Bob Hering in another of the 18'ers, don't remember where or if he finished.

The #187 is the race winner, Jim Merten in a 16'sprint. Clark could outrun him in the rough outside the stadium, but Mert had speed on the 18'er when they came back inside. I remember a reporter trying to interview Mert after the race. The only response he ever gave the reporter was "What?" - he couldn't hear a word this guy was saying after running 3 hours or so with that stacker. I ended up answering all of the interviewers questions for Mert and the reporter was fine with that, he said he just wanted to go somewhere quiet himself.

Next you see the #22 Glastron/Molinari driven by Gary Peacock, he was running as an independent at this point in time. Behind Gary is the third 16'er, Renato's sprint that he flipped at Lake X.

Billy Don Pruett's #174 is not in the picture, but he was there. Not sure if Bill Seebold was driving for Merc Racing at this event, I'll have to look that up.

[FUJIMO]

Another "questionable" racer out of Miami was Jan Whitten. I think he hung in the same circle as Bill and Tommy...

Jan Whitten crashed his plane in the Bahamas & died, because he overloaded it with smoke. Sikes was shot & killed in his warehouse after he got out of prison, by his wife, Sharon, new boyfriend. I don't think there was ever a conviction though.

[lilabner]

Jan Whitten crashed his plane in the Bahamas & died, because he overloaded it with smoke. Sikes was shot & killed in his warehouse after he got out of prison, by his wife, Sharon, new boyfriend. I don't think there was ever a conviction though.

That would be warehouse complex. My boat and Porsche parts were three doors down. Randy Lanier was right across with race cars. Right next to me was Dickie Richardson who was one of the three murdered by the guys from the gym on 441. He had a nice 20' Cigarette. That was why Tommy Adams was killed. Lot of history there.

[2us70]

Tommy Sikes was the best thing that ever happened to Neil Chambers.

[FUJIMO]

...Sikes "Chickenship"...

[FUJIMO]

photo credit elmer stokes

[FUJIMO]

[GENE LANHAM]

Guess I just pulled a "Redbird" - wrote "to be continued' and forgot about it.

---Meanwhile back at the----


I'm sure it is an age related thing---but my 17 year old grandson sufferers the same malady 'Attention Span'

I was trying to find some pics to wind up the Dick Williams/#24 Molinari story and found this: Bill Cooper entered in the 1969 OWC .boat #13--this is the boat that he smoked us all at the Galveston Destruction Derby a few months before---I didn't recall seeing Cooper or the boat ??



TO BE CONTINUED---

[GENE LANHAM]

---Meanwhile back at the----



TO BE CONTINUED---

---And I found this in the same 1969 OWC article by Mel Crook--

[GENE LANHAM]

Guess I just pulled a "Redbird" - wrote "to be continued' and forgot about it.

Not sure if Bill Seebold was driving for Merc Racing at this event, I'll have to look that up.

Isn't this the race that was 'blown out' at the Stadium? Correcting Molly's date would be February, 1970?

March, 1970---we were all at Parker---I witnessed a conversation--you, Gary, Bill Seebold----?

[Bob V]

[QUOTE=GENE LANHAM;2947168]---Meanwhile back at the----


I'm sure it is an age related thing---but my 17 year old grandson sufferers the same malady 'Attention Span'

I was trying to find some pics to wind up the Dick Williams/#24 Molinari story and found this: Bill Cooper entered in the 1969 OWC .boat #13--this is the boat that he smoked us all at the Galveston Destruction Derby a few months before---I didn't recall seeing Cooper or the boat ??

[willabee]

....I was trying to find some pics to wind up the Dick Williams/#24 Molinari story and found this: Bill Cooper entered in the 1969 OWC .boat #13--this is the boat that he smoked us all at the Galveston Destruction Derby a few months before---I didn't recall seeing Cooper or the boat ??



TO BE CONTINUED---

I didn't recall that he had entered the 1969 OWC, but was pretty sure we lost him soon after Galveston.

[willabee]

---And I found this in the same 1969 OWC article by Mel Crook--

Right after Havasu, I was thinking Galveston. That was a real bummer, that man was boat racing's Steve McQueen! I remember the first time I ever saw him, Parker 1968. He was driving Mercury's latest secret project, a strendrive tunnel. It was an 18' Molinari with a warmed up 265 in. Chevy coupled to a Mc1 speedmaster. Five years later they would be called KT boats! During testing he put on quite a show, making those snappy one buoy turns and accelerating down the front chute. The inboard dudes went bonkers watching that boat do stuff they had never dreamed was possible. He had the driver names for the boat painted on the cowl :

Driver - Bill Cooper
Co-Driver - "Fear"

He had a camera mounted on the nose and made a film of himself driving this machine, the man had style