Wayne Baldwin, Remember This one?

[Composite Specialties]

Hey Wayne, I watched you test this one at Alexandria in the late 70's. It sure did look like a handful. I remember seeing you hanging over the front cowl of the Butts boat to hold the nose down.

[Jeff Lytle]

Nuts man, absolutley nuts !!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

You got me there MJR. I saw that picture earlier and at first I thought "What is Marshall Grant's OF doing on my boat?" It's hard to tell from the picture, but the fuel tank is wrong and the trim is wrong, and blue a little off. I see a Kirts trailer to the right which could explain the motor but not the boat. I'm not sure who you were watching, but that motor WILL push I hydro. I remember how fast Dan Kirts looked testing down the back straight at Fort Worth.

I know it wasn't me though because I never hung out over the cowling. Too much wind resistance and my body weight wouldn't do any good at those speeds. Better to tuck down behind the cowling and watch that it doesn't lift to the point of takeoff. It reminds me though of Dick Pond at Alexandria in '66 or '67 doing just that, hanging out over a canvas deck of an old conventional hydro. He could really drive.

[Composite Specialties]

Oh well, the boat was Blue and Red with the Master Oil logo on the front cowl. The real tall guy from your team was starting it and your dad was standing about 10 feet from me when I took another picture of someone driving it in Alexandria, La. I remember watching the kirts group there and I suppose that it could have been Jerry Kirts testing it but it was not Dan.

That was a long time ago. How many others drove your Master Oil boats with you? I had more pictures of it running and some of it sitting on the stands in the water, but I can't seem to find them.

[Joe J]

So how in the hell do you start that thing? I see 2 rope pulleys, are they tied together somehow?

Joe

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I talked with Joe Rome about this also. It looks like Marshall Grant's OF Konig. Joe was going to call Marshall and find out what he knows.

I have photos of Marshall with this motor? at a lake near Lakeland, Fla. where we would test prior to racing. At first he tried two people cranking with ropes in unison, but that wasn't working out well. Then he installed a starter. I took various angles of the motor because it was so unique. It has to be Marshall's.

As far as a tall guy starting it, the only person who started my motors was me or my dad. No one else ever drove my boats except Clayton Elmer when Jack Chance still had his team and we sometimes swapped out. The only other time was 1975 and I was seriously injured at our first race in Texas. I missed the whole year except the last race at my Dad's house in October.

To make sure we were staying competitive, we hauled our stuff to the major races and Tim Butts drove his A (& maybe B) and drove our C & D. Then at Winona Charlie Bailey drove our C one heat.

I hope you can find the pictures or narrow down the date & place so I could look through my stuff because I was curious about the photo too when I first saw it. Hopefully, Joe Rome can get Marshall Grant to take a look & give us the real story.

[Composite Specialties]

It was definently Alexandria, La., and I do remember seeing Tim Butts right there as well. Maybe it was Tim Driving the boat? Interesting.

It also could have been around 1975, I know for sure it was in the mid to late 70's.

I also remember seeing Gary Pugh there running his 125cc boat that he had just built.

I know it was Alexandria because we drove there from North Carolina just to see that race, man was that a long trip.

I hope we can figure it out Wayne, it sure was a nice ride on the water.

[Composite Specialties]

Thats the same race David and Wayne. The boat is sitting in the same place that I took my picture as well, right beside the Kirts trailer.

Wayne, does that help any with who was driving the boat?

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Marc--When I saw David's picture I knew that was the same boat, same time, same place. When he posted that picture shortly after I signed up with BRF something about the pit area confused me but now the mystery is solved.

Joe Rome just got off the phone with Marshall Grant and here is the story.

Tim Butts was always tweaking the designs a little and we would get a first shot. We Bought that boat and had it painted, but it was too much boat for our D. Didn't run good. Wouldn't fly like an Aerowing. My dad was going to sell it to Marshall, the according to Marshall, just gave it to him. Dan Kirts took it home with him, and this picture was taken before it was repainted. I never raced it or even named it. When you mentioned how fast it looked on the water, you were right. Marshall thinks that 1000cc dual motor F would run 130 on a bigger boat and I think he's right. That boat ran flat with my D on it, but it was too small for Marshall's F. The only problem was cornering. There was a lot of weight hanging on that transom with two C powerheads, a starter, two driveshafts and 4 pipes.

You guys really got me thinking, & I thank David for posting that other picture again. I'm going to try to find a photo of that other boat and some other shots of Marshall's engine. There is one of him a Dieter Konig looking at it in one of the "Random shots from the pits" series.

Incidentally, Joe Rome corrected me again. Guiseppe Landini (Italy) ran one of my boats and finished 2nd in OB at UIM World Championships at Dayton< Ohio in 1978. Wilhelm Dickoff (West Germany) ran one of my boats at Laredo, Texas, and I think Erwin Zimmerman (Austria) ran one at Dayton.

[Jeff Lytle]

Here is the engine, and pics of Dieter just as I remember him.

[Composite Specialties]

Thanks Wayne for solving the mystery. I knew I was not going crazy with my memory, but who actually tested it down there? Either way, it sure was fun remembering that event. I was about 12 years old then but remember that well. Even then, all I wanted to do was design hydroplanes so I watched everything that Tim Butts made and I remember taking lots of pictures of your boats that day. I even remember when Tim Butts brought his first Aerowings to Depue. Do you remember what year that was?

Did you ever get one of those Butts laydowns with the bubble nose windshield? Mal Harden had one and I have some pictures of that one somewhere as well.

Just think, all of those years of watching all of the great boat designers, builders and racers finally led me to designing and building one of the fastest and lightest capsule boats around...

[Master Oil Racing Team]

That's a good looking boat Marc. Paint scheme reminds me of the Lone Star flag. I always wondered what it would be like to drive a capsule boat, especially a D.

Tim had an early version of his Aerowing at DePue in 1969 I think. We were pitted next to him and Marty Martinez. He had it turned upside down and I remember him showing us the S bottom. A lot of racers were skeptical back then at some of the features in his boat. It was a time of change though because horsepower increases were making motors too powerful for the size and lift characteristics of the boats were were running at that time.

Here is a photo of my laydown boat that Tim built. Man could that thing corner. This is a Rusty Rae photo.

[Dan M]

Marc,

I remember one of Tim's first Aerowings at DePue, somewhere in the early 70's. It was a "C" boat that he had built for someone, and the deal went south. He took a hole saw and cut lots of holes anywhere he could to lighten the boat so he could run his "B" on it. I think it even had the little "wing" gussets from the transon to the deck. There was a lot of "talk" about how that boat was "illegal" with the "extra" lifting members.

Dan

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Caught my own self in a lie. We took delivery of the boat in Lakeland 1974. We rigged it up & I borrowed Ray Yates' number to race with because it was hard to make a decent 3 with tape. We ran it at San Antonio also. It is the boat in the 2nd picture at the back with no MX-237 logo on the cowling. Note in the first picture how the deck is at the transom. You can compare the profile of David's picture with the one on the trailer. I guess Dan must have picked it up at Alexandria when the David and Marc took those pictures.

[Composite Specialties]

Wayne, did your Butts boat in the picture with the bubble windshield have three steps in the sponsons or two?

[Jeff Lytle]

Wayne:

Did you prefer the kneeler, or the laydown ride??

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Marc, I'm a little confused by your question. Got to look at a picture of Tim's "wasp" boat to see if there were steps on the sponson. I have a picture in my mind of a boat with steps on the sponson. It may have been my boat "TEX" that we shipped to Berlin to race in Europe. My boat "Vibora de Cascabel" had two sponsons, no steps on the sponsons.

Jeff, On the short courses with lots of traffic I like the kneel down. I like to lean into the turn, and it's easier to look around to see where everyone is. High speed (my favorite) I like the lay down. On wide sweeping turns you can really stay on the throttle I not have to hang on so hard to stay in. You just let your body drift up against the right side of the cockpit.

[Composite Specialties]

The Butts boat that Mal Harden had with the bubble windshield, had three steps on the bottom pad of the sponsons. All steps were in .25" increments. Most people use two steps today but I remember Butts being the first that I have ever seen to use the stepped sponsons.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Marc, You asked the right question, but I didn't know Tim built other boats like that. After I quit he only came down once to test that radical new design. I really wanted to try it out, but................?

Tim designed a boat for me to race in Europe after Walt Blankenstein and I smuggled a calculator and plans from John Yale's picklefork into East Berlin for Bernie Danisch to copy. The Europeans saw what was happening in America and wanted to try out a picklefork. John had all the dimensions in inches. Bernie did all his work in metric, and Dieter thought he could get it done much quicker if he had a calculator to make the conversion. Unfortunately, communists didn't like civilians having things like calculators. I still remember going through Checkpoint Charlie with Walt. Dieter had to go through a different checkpoint because he was from West Berlin.

But back to the boat.

Having raced in Berlin a couple of times before, I knew it would be rough so we had Tim design a boat for rough water. It was the first boat I ever saw with steps in the sponson. I think two, and they were flat. Later on I thought maybe three, at angles may have been better.

We tested it several times during the winter of '77. We waited for a norther to blow in. It was always very rough. We could never race in that stuff over here but the boat went through it great. I started off slow and learned to drive it into the wind and through the turns in BAD conditions. At the end I could hammer it into the wind. Not fast enough to blow over, but fast enough to be competitive. But, in the end we learned that rough water was not the same as rough with swells, which is what you encounter in Europe on rivers with traffic. The steps worked good in water with a high wind and fairly uniform waves, but we did not consider the swells or have a way to test for that. Ralph Donald---Tell us about some of the race courses you ran in Europe.

[Composite Specialties]

Wayne, was this one built after yours or before?

[Master Oil Racing Team]

"TEX" was nothing like that at all. It was pretty much the same Aerowing with a different attack on the sponsons. Your photo is the one I call a "wasp" because of the narrow midsection like a wasp, or down here in South Texas a "mud daubber" which will plug up the tattletale hose for water circulation.

[Jeff Lytle]

That was the boat Tim called the "Windwalker". Taken in Dayton at the Worlds.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Sounds familiar, but not sure. Tim had moved to Texas by then and had a warehouse where he built his boats less than a mile from Joe Rome's auto supply store. Joe needs to fill in from here.

[Composite Specialties]

Wayne, was Butts the first to use the pickle fork and also was he the first to use steps on the sponson pads?

[Mark75H]

Butts may have been the first one to use pickleforks in the modern era, but he was not the first. DeSilva, Swift and a few others experimented with them at least 15 years before Tim built any boats. ;)

[Composite Specialties]

Ok, I will clarify. How about the first to use them on pro boats.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I'm not sure Marc. I know there were other pickleforks out there, but I don't recall as far as other Pro boat are concerned. I'll look up that article and notes I did on Tim to see if it sheds any light. What I DO remember is that the leading edge was a design similar to any aircraft wing that had a stall speed around 80 mph.

The steps on sponson pads started right after I quit. I don't know who started it. It may have come as a result of our "TEX" boat when he tried a sponson that wouldn't slap and rebound off the water so hard, but I can't say. Wish we could get Tim here.

[jrome]

Tim and I spent many hours here in Stafford, Texas putting together different boat and motor combinations. Wayne and I are the reason that Tim moved to Stafford. Tim was always trying new things. The boat did not work in the turns the way we thought it would. But, we found out it was terrific as a straight away boat. We took it to Moore Haven, Florida to try to set a D-Hydro record. We didn't know anything about capsules. We made an enclosed cockpit. We broke the record one way, but the cockpit fogged up on the return trip and Tim could not see. The weather and water would not cooperate to try another run. With all of the different combinations, Tim would always learn something to help with future boat designs. Here is a picture of one of the many times that Tim, Wayne and I were having fun----draining water from a boat. As for the pickleforks, Clay Pettifor from Lake Charles had one in the '50s. Tim was the first one to bring it back in the '70s to my recollection. He stole the show with his boat in Memphis at Marshall Grant's race.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Joe--I do not remember where that was at all. Not surprising though. I found some negatives today of a new design on the bottom ( and probably top) but I don't know who for. I don't have any contact sheets and I am only looking at negatives. They were at our place and Tim took it out for preliminary tests. I don't have pictures of the other driver. I only know he was wearing a Lifeline jacket. Ray Hardy had one but it wasn't him. Kind of looks like Don Nichols, but I didn't think Don wore a Lifeline. When I get a chance I will scan the negatives & we will see.

Joe--put up some more of your stuff.

[Brand X Racing]

Wayne/Marc,
I'm almost positive my dad bought the last Butts Aerowing built. It was similar to the one in the the last photo. We took delivery in April 84. It had three step sponsons and a tunnel in the bottom. The boat was very quick and turned on rails. I think...its somewhere in Virgina. Dad sold it a couple of years later and it was never raced again.

[Brand X Racing]

I can't remember if it had one or two tunnels. I think...only one about 6 inches wide. I talked to my Dad yesterday and he's trying to find some photos. I also told him about this website!! His computer is down at the moment so getting more info will be difficult. All of my photos are in stroage back in the States. It was a really fast boat!!!!

[Composite Specialties]

I would really like to see any photos of the experimental and the three stepped sponson Butts boats. I really believe that Tim Butts was so far ahead of his time in boat designs and it still interest me today on the things that he designed and why.

[Guy]

Wayne, was Butts the first to use the pickle fork and also was he the first to use steps on the sponson pads?

I remember that "Bowson" boats (Bunky Bowerman & Teddy Thompson) developed a picklefork in the real early 70's for someone. I don't recall who it was for, but I do remember Bunky saying it was a semi-copy of another design.
I also remember thinking that it was the coolest looking Hydro I've EVER seen!

Guy

[jrome]

Back to the original picture in this thread, here is a picture of Marshall's 8 cylinder, as well as a picture of Baldy and Marshall.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Here is a picture of that forgotten hydro after Marshall Grant had repainted it.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

Here is another shot of that boat Marshall ran his 8 cyl Konig on. I had forgotten I had even named it. I took some shots of it when Tim came down from Michigan to test one of his new boats. It was Jan 76. He was working on some new stuff and we were getting ready to go to Phoenix. I'll put some stuff up about Tim on one of the Tim Butts threads.

[PROE-22]

James,
I belive I have the boat you are talking about up here in Virginia. I brought it from your father in 1988. The boat and motor are in the same condition today as the day I picked it up from your father. I will try to get some photos to you.
Bennett