Henry Wagner "Wagner Static"

[Ron Hill]

http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forums/showthread.php?p=77947#post77947

A thread for Henry.

[Ron Hill]

I don't know where to start with Henry Wagner stories. I do know this, his Ford Ranchero is parked in Francis Hauenstein's driveway in Kngsburg California, in front of Jimmy Hauenstein's Corvette.

When I was a kid, I didn't REALLY like Henry Wagner.

I had been to Worchester, Massachusetts for the Stock Outboard Nationals. While at the Nationals I realized every hydro there had 1" aluminum air traps, full length to the transom and no bottom fin.

When I got home from Worchester, (My dad had been there and seen them) we took the bottom fin off my brother's Thompson and and added full length 1" aluminum air traps to his C-D Hydro. We pick up 7 MPH.

Russ and his girl friend Judy (Bunker Hill's mother) and I decided to go to the labor Day Regatta at Hanford, California. We had no idea where Handford was but left at 4:00 A.M. to "GO RACING".

WE GOT to Hanford at almost driver's meeting time. Russ had never run his Six Stud with the "D" Quickie on his Thompson with on a sponson fin, and full length air traps.

The course was closed, but Russ asked Henry if he could take "ONE LAP"....Henry reluctantly agreed and let Russ take a lap...Well, Russ had never gone so fast in his life or drove a boat that would turn like that so he took two laps.

At the driver's meeting Henry made it clear he didn't want JR. Hill drinving "OUT OF CONTROL" again. Russ actually "COOLED IT" and won both heats....(He had 10 MPH on the field or more)....

I just remember Harry Bartolomie (He was running Modified Champions coming over and looking at my brother's boat....I was 13.. HArry and I became friends that day....

It was a few years before Henry and I became friends...

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I have some things to say about Henry, but it will have to wait until I get back from Washington D.C. Wish we had time to go see Sam and find the best places to eat crabs around Cheasapeak Bay.

[Ron Hill]

It was 1949, and my dad was talking about Henry Wagner and Ed Kirakawa drinking in a Walker Lake Bar at 7:00 A.M. My dad's last DeSilva "C" Racing Runabout was called "Forever Amber" not that my dad was a big drinker, but he did have a "HIGH BALL" now and then. But he wasn't too keen on drinking at 7:00 A.M.

In 1949, at Walker Lake, my dad's best friend, Frank Malloy, had a heart attack an died at the race. My dad had said, "Had Frank had a shot of whiskey he would not have died."

Wagner drinking at 7:00 A.M. was bad, but whiskey could have saved Frank.....I was 5 years old. Things were hard to figure.

Henry and Ed had said they had come over Tioga Pass on a dirt road to get to Walker Lake but they sure as hell weren't going back that way.

I went over Tioga Pass from Walker about 1986, I've never been so scared in my life and the road was paved.

My brother told me he was going to go over Tioga Pass for his telescope business and he wanted to know if I go with him...I told him I would never go over Tioga Pass again..up it or done it, way to scary for me...

Backing up, when you are 5, and your dad says, "Henry Wagner was drinking at 7:00 A.M., you have bad memories of Henry!!!

Time passed, I changed, so did Henry, maybe!!!

[russhill]

It was about 1951, I had a Banjo Neal look alike in C (Alky) Hydro. It ran pretty well. Anyway, at this San Diego race, I won. I think it may have been a regional or divisional championship. Major Red Thomas was weigh master, assisting Henry, Official APBA “Measurer.”
In those days we had boat weights, which I believe was 150, and boat and driver was 315. We didn’t weigh engines. Well, my boat weighed 149. I was about 17 and kind of a smart a$$ - I know that’s hard for anybody to believe today.
So of course Henry got involved and I said, “Your scales are wrong.” I weighed this boat 3 days ago on a big supermarket scale that registered to the nearest ¼ pound. My buddy here was a witness. Half the guys in the market could vouch for that.
I never said it was legal, because I knew it weighed 149 pounds. I had weighed it three days earlier, and assumed I’d take on enough water to weigh a pound. I don’t think I thought the pound would make me go that much faster, but I was 17. We had put the boat in the water, I ran two quick heats, I started first (a rarity for me) and didn’t take on any water.
We didn’t have “scale of the day rule then.” I offered to bet Red and Henry that their scale was off by a pound. They believed me.
Fifty or so years later I thought about telling Henry, but I didn’t.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

I remember having a few drinks with Henry at APBA Meetings when he and I were on the PRO Commission at the same time. I always enjoyed talking with him as he seemed to be very sharp about all things concerning boat racing, and since he had been around for quite some time, had always had some interesting stories to tell, and interesting points of view. He was never anything but very cordial to me, BUT I never got crosswise in inspection with him either, as he always found everything legal and nothing pushing the limits as Harry ZAK was always right on the money with any dimensions on engines he worked on. Whether that contributed to Henry's lack of problems with me in the inspection process, I never asked. I do know Harry respected Henry's knowledge, especially on the older motors. When we went back to DePue after the dredging, and Harry was the inspector at the time, he always asked Henry to assist, and inspect the C Service and Racing engines. I think he felt Henry knew those engines much better than he, and also Harry did not care much for the older stuff, as he thought it's time had come and gone many years before.

The first story concerns a midwest C Service driver named Ernie LaRose. Ernie was VERY crippled up, and could hardly get in and out of his boat, but he was an enthusiastic boat racer into his 60's, maybe even 70's, and made all the races around this area, including the Nationals, until he moved to the Phoenix area in the 80's and quit racing. Ernie had run Speeditwins for a long time, and when the 4 cyl Merc's came on the scene in the C Service class, he got Bill Seebold Sr. to build him several engines. He got a good start in his elimination heat at the Nationals this particular year at DePue and I believe won his heat, or at least finished very well in a qualified position. When he went to inspection, (and I could be mistaken), but I am sure it was Henry Wagner who looked at his engine, he was disqualified because his prop nut was 1/4" too long. I never knew or heard whether this was because he was running a Merc, or why someone would be disqualified for something like this that surely had no performance advantage, even though there was a dimension. I don't know whether the way the nut length came into the equation was it made the overall gear case measurment too long, or exactly what the finer point of the reason for the disqualification was. I just know that I and many others thought that was a really BS reason to throw somebody out, especially someone that put as much into racing as Ernie did. This really affected Ernie, and I know it took a lot of the pleasure out of the few years of boat racing he did after that.
The fact he was a really good person, and furnished everybody with shear pins (the titanium rivet type) for nothing, made it seem all the more unfair to his friends, not even considering his physical condition and the effort it was for him to participate in racing. Granted, a rule is a rule, but sometimes exercising good judgement in making an offical call of this nature trumps written rules, IMHO.


The other Henry Wagner story also concerns his duties as an inspector at a National Championship at Ackworth, Ga., in I believe the early/middle 80's. Eddie Thrilby was still running C Service at the time, in addition to the other PRO runabout classes he participated in. I don't remember now whether the class in question was Hydro or Runabout, but after winning, he went to inspection and Henry proceeded to make his inspection. Not being real familiar with these motors, and also due to the time that has passed, I am somewhat "hazy" about the exact circumstances that led Henry to disqualify Eddie, but he did throw him out for what I remember to be a "too large" crankcase opening where the carb bolted on the crankcase. When this was announced by Henry, Ed Thrilby, Eddie's Dad, immediately questioned the disqualification. Henry Wagner had a reputation for being incredibly stubborn when he made a decision, and this was one of those times and decisions. Best I remember the discussion between Ed and Henry started off somewhat heated and escalated from there. I really thought there was going to be a physical altercation in the inspection area, and I had a really good view as we were pitted right in front of it. I don't remember now what finally broke up the discussion, but neither one of them backed down from their position, and the matter was appealed, and went to the racing commission for a final decision. The matter was settled in Thrilby's favor, and the disqualificatin was voided. I seem to remember that if you measured the opening in the crankcase DIAGONALLY, instead of HORIZONALLY AND VERTICALLY, that the measurement was correct and legal, or perhaps the other way round. Anyway the way Henry measured it he found it illegal, and the other way that Ed claimed to be the correct way to measure, was legal, and Henry was overruled. I did not know him well enough to ever ask him his opinion about being overruled by the commission, or do I know whether this affected his desire to serve as an inspector after that. What I do remember is I have never seen, before or since, the amount of emotion by two parties on opposite sides of an issue, in the inspection area at a boat race.