B-Looper

[Steve Crabtree]

My brother Mark getting ready to race the B-Lopper (converted to gas) on our home made Hal Kelley FOO-LING Runabout at LaGrange, MO in 1975. That's Dad waving back at the camera, God rest his soul. Mark is bent over doing something, I am to his left with my back to the camera. I was 15 in this picture and ran my A Merc on the same boat earlier.

We were racing with the Midwest Pleasure Boat Association at the time and there was an uproar about us racing this engine. The club had the classes set up by factory rated HP, 10 hp and under, 20 hp and under all the way up to 150 hp and under plus 2 free for all's and we were going to run it with the other 20 cubic inch engines. They all got so upset they called Chris at home and asked him how much horse power it had on gas and he told them it would have about 40 hp if ran on gas. So they made us race it in the 40 hp and under class. They held a special meeting a short time after the race and banned us from racing it ever again.

Yea those were the days.

[Mark Crabtree]

Steve,

I got exposed to this web site by our brother Dan. I am emotionally overwhemled with this stuff. What no one knows about that outfit, is OF Christner helped build that engine, set it up on the boat and monitered the boat and engine performance.

That outfit you see, is "Harvey Crabtree Sr" and "OF Christner" all wrapped up into one. I miss them both.

By the way, the boat was 11' long and I really don't think we realized what we had here. That boat was extremely fast.

I was bending over to make sure the rope was tight. Looks like Curtis was helping. Or is that my imagination.

Mark