Hawkeye outboard club?

[Tomtall]

Came across this patch for sale on e-bay. Does any of our BRF historians have any information regarding this club from the past? The seller had some info but is not sure. He quotes the following ----------


The only information I could find on this group was in a geneology site for Benton County, Iowa. In one of the obits, it mentioned that a gentleman had been a member of what they called the Hawkeye Stock Outboard Racing Association and that he competed in hydroplane racing. From the information there, I'm guessing that this group was active in the 60's through the 80's, perhaps before, but I see no information about them currently.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

This was a VERY active club in the Iowa/Midwest area, probably back into the 60's and maybe even the 50's. Homer Schultz was very active in this club for a lot of years and is still living in the Cedar Rapids, Ia., area I believe. Most of the races that the Midwest group put on now are sanctioned by NBRA. If you went to the NBRA portion of the Hydroracer web site, you could probably post on there and they would be able to give you information about the club. They put on a large number of combined stock/alky races in the midwest area for many years. Ken Krier, Rich and Mikes father could give you a lot of information about the club I am sure. Also probably Connie Payne, the past AOF director could help with information also.

[jeff55vDSH]

Oh sure, I remember the ol' Hawkeye club! They hosted a lot of races right in my backyard so to speak. I remember that they were very active in the mid 1970's. I went down to watch their races. They were a great group of racers.
I never raced with them however. At the time I was racing in a different local club.

Some folks I think were affiliated with Hawkeye:
Homer Schultz
"Red" Ruesch
Dan Kennedy
Alan Fedderson
Maybe Celletti? (I forgot his first name)


It's been a long time. Maybe some more names/faces will pop into my memory later.

[Tim Chance]

Here is an article I did in Hydroplane Quarterly in the Spring of '72

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Back in the 1990s I went to Fort Dodge, Iowa to purchase a small load of equipment from a Hawkeye there that was a member, both he and his father. They had Merc 30H, 55H and some old Alky Deflector equipment.

Their newest boat was a C Class Sid and their oldest was a Swift D and they had the one Speedliner runabout. The father passed away and the son suffered a severe head injury with the Sid the first time out and with that they never raced again. He recalled how they would race in any small lake or slew available and had real great times doing it.

When I saw the equipment it had been stored some 30 years at that point and the C Stock Sid hydro was still as it was from the accident with a damaged sponson, front deck and cowl ripped off. Richard, the son had album upon album of racing pictures as keepsakes of those days. At the time I saw it all it was at time of sale of the house as he was moving to Des Moines for good.

Some of that equipment is destined for the Selkirk Marine Museum in particular the Quincy / Merc padded block 3rd port Deflector D and the 44 cube F engines both stamped with NOA crankcase numbers. One engine, the D has a full rotary valve crankshaft in it that looks like someone did a lot of time and development on it. Thanks to Dudley Malone - Central Marine, he managed to come up with a Turner piston to take the place of the only scored one and the engine lives on after have been run once just to see what that crankshaft was all about. It never slowed down very quick as it was about 30% heavier than a stock Merc crank with all the work done on it. The rotary valves were machined brass wedge types with the crankshaft built up and modified to slice in the air/fuel flow.

There was a second crankshaft that was not in any engine that went to a collector in Florida where it now also sits in a Merc Quincy / Merc Alky Deflector engine. Those cranks have been the subject matter of discussions for years past on message boards by their builders who took great pride in their creations and they did work in the engines they were built for.

[champhotrod]

I raced with the Hawkeye group some in the late 60s, early 70s. Had a blast
with them. They hosted the 1972 SO Nationals at Cedar Rapids and also the 1978 SO Central divisionals if I remember right. I have a 1972 Hawkeye SO cigarette lighter in my collection. My Andy Hansen built ASH can be seen on that picture Tim posted with the article he wrote. It is down in lower left, 92-W
next to the 88-W Hansen runabout.

[YankeeRacing]

If you have any specific info that you would like on HSOA you can ask. I have all of the past history paperwork on the club as my father-in-law, along with Joe Schultz started the club. Back then, adding clubs was the thing to do. All original members were from the Midwest Outboard Association. Boat racing was big back then, so HSOA was formed to promote racing closer to home. We raced in Cedar Rapids many times, Moline, IL, Sioux Cityand Quincy. In 1973 we had 23 race sites in one summer.
In 1989 or close, Hawkey Stock Outboard Association was sued along with APBA for an accident that had nothing to do with racing. The race was in Peoria, IL at a bar called Barnicle Billies. A patron of the bar who was the barmaid's boyfriend got drunk and dove off a dock with one foot of water. This happened on a Friday eve as only a few boats had pulled into the pits. He became a parplegic and sued everyone from the shoe string company to HSOA and APBA. The judge threw out some of the suits. Because HSOA was incorporated our liabilty was what we had in the check book. Not much showing, conveniently in the check book. We incorporated again as Hawkey Outboard Association, which was more fitting as we raced stock, mod and pro. Sidenote. I have been told that APBA did not go to court and settled for over a million. I hope that isn't true, but one never knows as some settlements are private.
Hawkey Outboard Association eventually joined AOF. The farming economy in Iowa and Illinois took a turn for the worst in about 1990 and HOA had a hard time finding sponsors. Most of the members then joined either St Louis Outboard drivers Association, went back to Midwest, or to a club from the Peoria Il area formed to put on local races.
It was such an active club with lots of talent. I am proud to say that my grandson is a fith generation racer coming out of Midwest and Hawkey.
Connie Payn

[YankeeRacing]

PS, My father in law was Dewey Payn. Our club put on the 1972 APBA Stock nationals in Cedar Rapids Iowa and the 1980 and 1981 APBA Mod Nationals in North Liberty, IA near Iowa City. All those nationals were very well attended.
Connie Payn