How many years did you run the runabout Wayne ? I've seen a lot of hydro pictures but never a runabout.
How many years did you run the runabout Wayne ? I've seen a lot of hydro pictures but never a runabout.
I ran runabouts from 1966 to early summer of 1969 Dale. I had a tough time in runabouts because the cockpits were so wide and I was a skinny kid. I bounced around all over. The first race I ever won was in our first DeSilva runabout, and it was a real win, not one I backed into. I beat Bobby Wilson, and he chased me around every turn, but couldn't get around. First time we had ever met, or raced together. He walked all the way down to our pits from the opposite end right after the race to shake my hand.
We could never get the boat set up like other drivers could. Mine hopped a lot in the turns even though we had made sure the bottom was flat. Jack Chance and Clayton Elmer helped us a lot, but I could never be good. I think part of the problem was I had to add about 60 pounds of lead to be legal, and all the other drivers carried the weight on their bodies and so could move around to change the dynamics of the boat. Plus, Lone Star was a runabout association. There were full fields of championship drivers like, Bruce Nicholson, Clayton Elmer, Freddie Goehl, Phil Crown, Raymond Jeffries, Louis Williams, Bobby Wilson, Artie Lund, Don Nichols, Jim Mouton, Charlie Bailey, PG Stepleton, and Roland Pruett just to name a few. Better that I stick to hydros. I quit flying lessons to take up boat racing, and I felt at home with the lift of the hydro. I had a very good grasp of when it was about to lift off, and thus could fly it to the edge. I only blew over one time in my career.
There aren't many pics of me racing a runabout Dale. Here's on taken at the State Park on Lake Corpus Christi about a mile northeast of our house on the lake. This was the first race my Dad organized and sponsored. A very cold norther blew in. It was late in the year 1967. My Dad warned everyone not to leave the cove where the race was. It was on the lee side of a very wild, maybe 30-35 mph norther that popped up. One driver, don't know who and think he was a novice, went out on the main lake and had to be towed in. His old Canalito was destroyed and he was lucky not to get stuck out there with it. It got so cold that around 2:00 a bonfire was built just about halfway above the shore and between each end of the pits, the runabout was tossed onto the fire. My Dad sped up the program and he got all the heats in in just a few hours. Nobody flipped. It was too cold. Fastest race from beginning to end I ever attended. As soon as any conk outs were returned to the pits, the gun was fired for the next heat. In and out one boat into the next if you ran multiple classes. Strangely. now that I think about it, the fields in each class were good, and few went down.
Here is a photo of me in my DeSelva.
Here is the November 1957 edition
Here is the January 1958 edition.
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I keep looking for Dan Futrell in these old Rooster Tails, but he hasn't turned up. He raced out of Nashville, Arkansas, in the late 1950's, ran a D-Hydro, Am-Pro; I'm not sure what else. Either he didn't win any races or had a driver? We (Ketzer Racing Team) ended up with his old Neal, D-Merc, and trailer, and used it when we first started racing in 1967. It must have been good equipment in its day, as it was still competitive in Arkansas and Oklahoma in '67. Anyone remember Dan Futrell?
Here is the March 1958 edition.
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