We have been working on the 1969 World Outboard Championship of Outboard Racing - Day 2! Footage from our buddy Tracy Chapman (Backfire) in Arizona. We have some new footage from the 1968 World Outboard Championships!
This month ( Nov. 2009) is the 40th Anniversary of the 1969 Havasu World outboard Championships. This video was produced from footage shot by Tracy Coleman who was scoring for # 3 John Taylor who entered a red 20 ft. Switzer wing with dual Mercury 125 BP's & was knocked out early on Day 1.
1969 was an important year in that OMC finally won the World Outboard World Championships with Cesare Scotti (Molinari-dual Evinrudes) winning, Johnny Sanders (Glastron/Molinari-dual Johnsons) 2nd, and Jimbo McConnell 1st single (6th Molinari-Evinrude) showing once and for all that OMC was a force to be reckoned with that continues to this day.
This video of Day 1 is the 1st of the Trilogy (3 videos) of the 1969 Championships. The stacker audio was from Dale Littlejohn from near Chicago & the Official Program & Powerboat Magazine article were supplied by Joe Fielder from Texas.
The research & narration were produce by Mark Benson & the computer editing & mixing was done by Nick Springate- Manager Gosee.tv. Mark & Nick live near Vancouver in beautiful British Columbia- Canada. In Feb. 2010 the Winter Olympics will be taking place in this area.
Future projects are the 1976 Parker 7 hour Enduro & an OMC Promotional video from the 1972 Havasu Outboard World championships. The Parker footage was sent to us by Bernie from Fond de Lac, Wisconsin & the OMC Promotional footage was sent to us by Scot Keller of Tacoma, Washington.
This 1st video in the trilogy is Day 1- 4 hours of racing against over 100 other single, dual, & triple engine boats on a 4 mile boomerang shaped course. 4 hours Saturday & 4 hours Sunday.
Cesare Scotti of Italy won the world's biggest, richest outboard powerboat race from a fine field as an American archrival, Don Pruett, crashed.
Not yet six years old, Lake Havasu city is one of the youngest communities in Arisona and the United States. It is a go-getting sort of place. With a touching glance back to the past, it has purchased London Bridge, whose 1,005 foot span will be reassembled with "dignity and respect" to link the town and its airport ( and its a damn lie, say Lake Havasuvians, that they thought all along they were getting the Tower Bridge and its more picturesque structure). It is also the site of the world's biggest and richest race for outboard powerboats- an activity more in keeping with the town's up-to-the-minute way of life.
This Outboard World Championship, which was run for the sixth time last weekend on Lake Havasu, was in essence a shoot-out among the leading engine (Mercury-OMC) and boat manufacturers. Win Havasu, the feeling goes, and the aura of victory will trickle down to the public that has something a little less special in mind than flat-out racing- like fishing, water-skiing, or just noodling around on the water.
That spirit of competition attracted 114 boats from five counties (USA,Canada, Italy, England, & Austria) for a four- hour endurance run on Saturday and another on Sunday- and for the first time nearly all the leading contenders rode so-called "tunnel" hulls. This is a new wrinkle in boating, a hull with twin sponsons forming a tunnel between them. The hull is partly supported by a cushion of air developing in the tunnel, and as a consequence speeds have risen to all time highs- better than 100 mph for the fastest boats.
Although he was not to taste the fruits of victory, the fastest man at Lake Havasu was a Texas- born Californian named Don Pruett. Pruett is not completely at home with Chamber of Commerce notions like dignity and respect. After winning the Elsinore 500 on Lake Elisinore, California this year he bit the cork out of a bottle of celebratory champagne and tossed it without a pause. He's as fast with his fists as he is with the bubbly. "I saw Don in a real battle in Galveston I think it was," said Racing Promoter Mel Sikes. "When the bar stools started flying, I just leaned back against the wall and watched. It was beautiful the way Don handled himself."
"Wild" was the way Mrs. Pruett saw it on Saturday as she observed Don's technique on the one right-hand turn of Havasu's four-mile, boomerang-shaped course. Vagrant gusts of wind disturbed the boats' air cushions, and the shore was ominously close, but Pruett cupped his head in his left hand as he took the turn with the other hand on the wheel.
For two days brusque winds had lashed the confined waters of Lake Havasu. The redoubtable Italian driver Renato Molinari had flipped his boat during a practice run. Pruett's pal Joe Habay blew- over during Saturday's race and broke his leg. Needless to say, Pruett with three big Mercury stacker engines making healthy sounds on his Ted Jones- designed hull, paid no attention to such trifles and went for the lead. After two hours his "Triple Trouble" made her only pit stop for fuel. At the end of the second hour Pruett still led. But soon he encountered trouble with the lower units of his engine rig and mechanics worked furiously to repair the damage. They did so and Pruett resumed the race. At the end of Day 1 he lay sixth, while up ahead was a three-way tie between Italy's # 33 Cesare Scotti, Texas' # 90 Johnnie Sanders, and Colorado's # 5 Robert George.
Scotti, driving a 21-foot Molinari with a pair of Evinrude X-115's, is an extremely experienced man; he was voted the Outstanding Outboarder of 1968 for winning the Florida Gold Coast Marathon and placing second in the Paris Six Hour Race during a consistently fine year. He and other Europeans are noted for steady, disiplined approach to racing. But at Havasu a rare mental lapse cost him a clear-cut lead. Experiencing engine difficulties just before the finishing flare was fired, he stopped a few yards short of the finish line and turned into the pits instead of completing the lap. Had he done so, he would have been credited with 70 laps rather than 69- the number completed by Sanders and George.
On Sunday, Scotti kept his wits about him at all times and defeated Sanders by a lap to take the $15,000.00 first place at a record average speed (for the 2 days) of 72 1/2 mph. The veteran Bill Sirois of Miami, Florida ended up in third place. Pruett? Poor devil, in his haste to catch the leader he collided with another boat and nearly sank.
The next video will be Day 2 (1st 2 hrs) then the 3rd video will be Day 2 (last 2 hrs.) Top 10- Conclusion. Stay tuned for our next video of 1969 Havasu Day 2- now in production.
