1974 Boat Racing: Dayton, Ohio is An Example, What Happened to Boat Racing?

[Ron Hill]

I looked and read all those 1974 Propeller Magazines. My questions were like many, "What happened to Boat Racing?"

[Ron Hill]

1. I convinced Mercury Racing they should make .030 pistons. This allowed many older blocks to be brought back to life and the .030 breathed new power to older motors.

2. I got Garbrecht, Mercury Racing, to build "D" gearcases by ordering 12 for myself.

3. 25 SS Class was using OMC powerheads and people could take an "OLD A" and make a pretty fast 25 SS by using the OMC powerhead.

[Ron Hill]

I'm sure that was the average price per gallon.

Myself, I kept track of my expenses for tax reasons, my 1974 trip to Dayton, via Wisconsin and Neosho Boat Races compared to 1975. 1975, I didn't race at Neosho, but did go to Wisconsin, going to Dayton and coming back from Dayton.

My costs to go to Dayton, Ohio, from 1974 to 1975, doubled. I went over my figures several times, but inflation and all, had raised costs.

We bought our Irvine home in the spring on 1976 for $66,800. I had bought my first home for $25,000 in 1969, sold it in the spring of 1976 for $49,000, at the time, I owed $14,00 on it.

Our Irvine house was five bedrooms 3,000 square feet. My wife and I joked, when we could sell this house for $100,000, WE'LL GET US A good HOUSE.

Well, we got into the house late March, I had the Chicken Pox and with teaching and props we did nothing to the house. Summer came and we decided to "GO RACING". We went to Hinton, West Virginia for the Nationals.

When we go home, late August, and I went back to teaching, the neighbor's house sold for $99,000. $33,000 increase from March to August.

The Carter years saw 22% inflation.

The times, they were a changing!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

My brother Mark built his house here at Barbon Estates 1/4 mile south of the first turn of our race course and financed it at 6 percent in 1976. When Debbie and I financed our house in 1980, just west coming out of turn 4 on our race course, we paid 12 percent. And we thought we were lucky, because like you say Ron, the interest on home finance got up to 18 percent.

We shipped a Butt's hydro to West Berlin for the 1978 OD World Championships. I sold it to Motorennboot Club (MRC) for DM3000 for them to help train upcoming racers. I didn't get paid until 1979 when I came back to race in the 1979 OD World Championships at Linz, Austria. The dollar had fallen so much and the DM had risen that I ended up ahead 1600 dollars because of the Carter inflation.

[zul8tr]

What happened? My take: career and work, raising a family, inflation, too many other things to do, APBA race rules went excessive, engines got old and worn out and replacements delayed, dropping the OMC powerhead for the 25ss class as Ron Hill noted as a plus, cost increases to race, land development and people complained about races thus sites difficult to get, more ..........

An example of an engine that died was my the 25ss Mercury issued in 1973 when I started the new 25ss class. It lasted to about 1985 when the much faster 25xs was issued (1st came the 25xs power head on the longer 25ss tower and gear case that proved not good). Once the 25xs was introduced the original 25ss was dead because it was no match for the 25xs. So the old iron went into storage or sold for peanuts (kept mine). I don't know now what could have been done to keep the old version 25ss alive but if I was racing at that time I would have to invest into a complete new engine and props - more cost.

On the positive side an engine that helped racing was the Yamato Y80 in introduced in 1978 for the new 20ssh class, look where Yamato engines are now.

When I raced 25ssh and 20ssh (Yamato Y80) in APBA Region 5 in the 1970's the turnout was huge and a great time to race, very competitive, rules were simple for the class (my inspection manuals for the 1970's for each class had 1 page for rules and page backside for engine specs). I had to leave racing because of family and career commitments. Wish I stayed but couldn't.

Present APBA stock inspection manual reads like the IRS tax code.

At least I can recall the great times by reading the Propeller mags being posted - keep' em coming.