Butts Aerowing-The Only Way To Fly

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I found this picture a couple of days ago, taken by my Dad I think. It was 1970 at Lakeland, Tennessee. Marshall Grant put this race on and called up a lot of his friends to come. We came from everywhereand it was like a divisional race.

This particular heat of B hydro is a historical one. On the inside is Tim Butts with his first or second "short pickle" picklefork hydro. The photo was taken right after the start and I guess Jerry Waldman on the outside and me just inside of him had hit the start just about right and at speed. Tim had jumped the gun, but it must have been very very close. I think the orange and white hydro in front is Jimmie Nichols from Kansas. He was definitely over. Fred Hauenstein wasn't there and Jimmie is the only one I can think of right now that had an orange boat. Doesn't quite look like him in the cockpit though. Maybe someone else might know who it is.

We were running Ray Nydahl's CD ignition then with the Champion polar gap plugs. Supposed to put out 50,000 volts at the plug or something like that. We lost a whole year of racing trying to make it work. The slightest bit of moisture would kill the engine, or make it cut out. I either got some spray from Jimmie or Tim in the turn and my Konig started cutting out. When I was clear from the turn, the motor came back strong and ran like a spotted a$$ ape as my Dad would say. Going into the next turn, the same thing would happen. I would catch up to some guys that passed me, then lose ground again. I may have been getting water from my own boat somehow.

Anyway, Tim Butts ended up winning the heat but was disqualified for jumping the gun. They must have gotten him on film because it looked like the only big jumper was Jimmie Nichols. Tim won very convincinly with his B looper, and that got a lot of people's attention. It was what got him in the spotlight, and he got inquiries about building boats for other drivers. His next boats were all the standard size forks. Dickie Scoponich, Johnny Dortch and John Yale were some of his first customers, all A and B boats.

We had just bought a D hydro for me and one for Clayton Elmer, a C hydro for me and a "tunnel" B hydro that was delivered by Nick Marchetti at Lakeland, Tennessee so we weren't in need of a boat at that time. We had pitted next to Tim Butts and his friend Marty Martinez at DePue the previous year and this was a continuation of a developing friendship. My Dad and Tim talked a long time. When it turned out that the B hydro/tunnel was a dangerous and and flighty wooden kite my Dad wanted Tim to build us a new B hydro. Tim didn't want to. He wanted to build a CDF hydro It wasn't until the following year though that Tim came down to Texas to drive one of our C's or D's to get an idea of what to do with building a CDF hydro.

This picture is a shot of the beginning of Tim Butts' boat building career and his revolutionary Aerowing design.