1970 PRO Nationals

[racingfan1]

Here are some pages from the 1970 PRO Nationals on Lake DePue. I would like to thank Jerry Peterson , X-12 , for suppling me with the 1970 program and completing my collecting of programs from the 39 nationals and 2 USTS races held at DePue. Thanks to all !!!!!!!

[racingfan1]

Here are the race results from the 1970 Nationals , the race recap from Propeller magazine and another race recap that if from Tim Chances' magazine Hydroplane Quarterly. I would like to thank RC Hawie for providing me the Propeller magazine and Tim for allowing me use his article.

[racingfan1]

The following story was sent to me by Wayne Baldwin. It is story about the 1970 Nationals that appeared in a book titles This Sporting Life , This Sporting Death written by John Kiely. I would like to thank Wayne for sending it to me to add to the 1970 race history. Maybe Wayne can add a little more on the history of the book.

[racingfan1]

Here the rest of the story.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We did not have good luck at that race Dale, but an abundance of stories come out of it. One of them was meeting Author John Kiely. He traveled all across the U.S. to get stories and pictures for his book, I'm guessing from 1970 through 1972. He covered 9 sports. Motocross, Rodeo, Aerobatics, Parachuting, Karting, Polo, Powerboat, Wild Water and Grand Prix (Watkins Glen).

I'm not sure how we ended up hanging out with John except the fact that there were not many racers at DePue in his own age group or with longish hair and mustache. Malcolm Harden had just started racing, but he did not have long hair. Denny Henderson and Craig and Ashley Lawrence had not started doing the national circuit, and I had not met Alan Ishii yet, and I'm not sure if he was there. And Joe Rome wasn't there nor pitting with us yet. In any case, my brother Mark, pit man Bud Turcotte and I hit it off with John Kiely on Wednesday night in the pits after we were settled in. He was wandering by, found out we were from Texas. and we spent the weekend with him when he wasn't taking pictures and questioning boat racers. I had wondered every now and then what happened to him and his book, then sometime in the mid seventies Charlotte Queen wrote to me and said that John had published his book in 1973 and could get her hands on some. She asked if I was interested and I jumped on the chance and bought six.

If somebody doesn't identify the boats and drivers, I will do it later.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

The small picture on the cover as well as the first photo in the chapter on page 107 is Dan Kirts on the outside and Fred Hauenstein on the inside in DOH. It could be the second heat, as written in Tim Chance's story, Fred led down the backstraight followed by Dan who shortly got around Fred to go on and win the heat and championship.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Maybe someone else can identify the pit crewman holding his ears against the noise of the looper 6, and get a clue as to whose motor on page 108 that is. As has been lamented often in the past few years, we just took these motors for granted, but lucky for us it fascinated John Kiely enough that he felt it should be included in his story. It is very appropriate that this photo was in the article involving DePue.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

That's Pauli Bogosian from Granite City, Illinois in the upper left of page 109 suiting up on the other side of his V-23 runabout. I don't know show that is checking the collar on his Gentex, nor the guy to his right. He resembles Skip Mason, but I don't think it is. Probably just a spectator in the pits along with the other guy who has a resemblance to Phil Wagner. Don't know who is in the C Service hhydro leaving the pits. If that's V 29 on the runabout and hydro, then it's Larry Latta, but doesn't look like Larry in the cockpit.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Pages 110-113 are missing. The top of page 114 is me in our B wood deck Marchetti. We had Zak stacks for all the 4 cylinder Konigs, but here we ran 4 individual fixed pipes. The Zak Stak for the B was smaller in volume and was flat black. It was better than the fixed can, but the 4 pipes were better overall. Not only were they the fastest, but they still performed well even though we did not slide them. In fact, at the time, they were the fastest things going for a B Konig. Speed was the best, but they were a severe downside in a corner due not only to the extra weight, but all that weight differential also carried the disadvantage that there was a lot of detrimental leverage. This was compounded by the fact that in those days we still ran the standard Konig tower housing that gave us a higher center of gravity.

Of course everyone will recognize the picture of Billy Seebold in the right lower corner.

ADD: I just noticed that the next to the last page showed 14 of 17 pages that I sent to Dale. It may be that the missing ones didn't get through from me. Dale...I will resend them if they are still on my computer, if not they will have to wait til I get the scanner fixed. (I have two Canon scanners and I think I through the wrong disc away when I downloaded the wrong one on the new computer:(

[racingfan1]

Wayne - I went back and looked at the e-mail you send me with the pages from the book and pages 110-113 were not included with the attachments. One of the pages when I printed them out was the e-mail and there was another page that had a small picture that I didnt not include in the post. Maybe those pages were not part of the story ???

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I remember we had some problems with the email then Dale, and you called it to my attention, but it was not long after that that the stuff I sent you from Charlotte Queen did not all come through. I have changed computers in the meantime and much of my old stuff is hanging out in the Ethernet where I don't know how to find it. When I discovered the missing pages I called Joe Rome to see if he could scan them and send the pages to you. Joe said he could, but he needed your e mail. I told him I could do that, but it might be better that you e mail Joe direct. I'm not sure about transferring stuff around. And after you get Joe's e mail let's tag up and see what's missing. After that, it might be best to delete your original post and redo it to include the whole chapter as written. Everything after that will stay the same, and I can change my comments accordingly.

[racingfan1]

Will do Wayne.

[deanwilson]

Don't know who is in the C Service hhydro leaving the pits. If that's V 29 on the runabout and hydro, then it's Larry Latta, but doesn't look like Larry in the cockpit.

Most probably Dean Sr. since he is listed in the program under the C Service 1 class roster. Larry always ran the merc.
By this time Dad was only running this rig at Depue, this might actually have been the last year he raced it.
Those V-29 boats were the D hydro and D runabout that he drove for Larry also.

[racingfan1]

I have run this picture thru all my photo editing programs and I can not detect a number on the boat that is leaving the pits. The ones on shore are definately V-29.

[deanwilson]

Strictly an educated guess on my part because Larry ran a kick a$$ merc in C service and there were generally no other omc style rigs (pictured) that close to their pits.
2 trailers and 7-10 boats took up a lot of the beach, but I could be wrong.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Sounds like you are right though Dean, because the person does not sit like Larry, and the D hydro and runabout connection makes it a high probability to me.

The person covering his ears has been identified. Jerry Peterson gave me his name and sent a full photo of the boat with the six cylinder looper, but the picture is very small. I asked him to see if he can make it bigger, then I'll try to put it on here.

[racingfan1]

Wayne - I may be able to help out with that picture. Can you e-mail it to me .