smittythewelder
04-01-2014, 11:24 AM
I see that Moses Lake, Washington is hosting the APBA Stock Nationals this year. Moses Lake has had an off-and-on history of club-level (usually Seattle Outboard) racing for a long time; nice place to run, though inclined to get breezy. I believe the Inboards have had a lot of races there, and members of the flatbottom/dragboat crowd go there to play, or used to.
But this isn't the first outboard nationals to be held in Moses Lake, which I doubt is familiar to many outside the state. In 1963, the APBA Outboard (now "PRO") Nationals were held there. I hadn't got into racing yet, but Boating News magazine (might be mixing it up with Hot Boat) had a reporter on scene, Eileen Crimmin, a fine writer and one of very few sports writers who knew anything about powerboat racing. This was the day of deflector Mercurys and 2-cylinder Konig loopers, with the odd Champion and Anzani thrown in. Quincy flatheads had not yet appeared, but the Quincy team had very strong Mercs, and Jim Schock took four class titles. Region 10, the event hosts, had a couple of winners in Dick Rautenburg, A Hydro, and Hal Tolford, C Service Hydro. Two other Reg. 10 guys, Hu Entrop in FOH and Jack Reed in COH, could have won but were gun-jumpers. California, which astoundingly now has NO alky racing, had at least two winners in Fred Hauenstein and Harry Bartolomei.
If anyone has photos of this earlier Moses Lake nationals, it would be nice to see them posted before this year's Stock event. I saw my old copy of the Boating News issue, and will be happy to forward it to Ron Hill for scanning (and keeping).
But this isn't the first outboard nationals to be held in Moses Lake, which I doubt is familiar to many outside the state. In 1963, the APBA Outboard (now "PRO") Nationals were held there. I hadn't got into racing yet, but Boating News magazine (might be mixing it up with Hot Boat) had a reporter on scene, Eileen Crimmin, a fine writer and one of very few sports writers who knew anything about powerboat racing. This was the day of deflector Mercurys and 2-cylinder Konig loopers, with the odd Champion and Anzani thrown in. Quincy flatheads had not yet appeared, but the Quincy team had very strong Mercs, and Jim Schock took four class titles. Region 10, the event hosts, had a couple of winners in Dick Rautenburg, A Hydro, and Hal Tolford, C Service Hydro. Two other Reg. 10 guys, Hu Entrop in FOH and Jack Reed in COH, could have won but were gun-jumpers. California, which astoundingly now has NO alky racing, had at least two winners in Fred Hauenstein and Harry Bartolomei.
If anyone has photos of this earlier Moses Lake nationals, it would be nice to see them posted before this year's Stock event. I saw my old copy of the Boating News issue, and will be happy to forward it to Ron Hill for scanning (and keeping).