FE Evolution

[properchopper]

2006 SAW's - when Joerg did his thing :

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[properchopper]

A few more from 2006

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[Fluid]

First 100 mph FE boat, in LA 2001. The record was set just before dark so the tech and celebration photo was in full darkness.


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The FE crew in 2002, a pretty big crowd.

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[T.S.Davis]

Wish I'd had the sense to snap a photo. In 05 we had a heat of P mono with Fuller, Hughey, Twaits, Crowe, and Nayman. There were two more I think. Can't remember who else was up there. At least 4 legends IMO. No offense to Alan. He did put a beat down on the old guys though. Alan pushed Crowe until he made a mistake and opened the door. Which was rare back then. It was pretty cool.

Ed was still running that gigantic red anodized single stick radio. That pond was hard on AM technology. He ended up biting the seawall with one of those floating works of art. Some of us secretly wept a bit. haha

Ed was my inspiration for building wood boats later on.

Off on another tangent here but who cares it's my thread..............Tom Perzanka (butchered the spelling) from Octura was at that race just to hang out and watch the carnage.

[spadforme]

I still have the magnet zapper and cell matcher that I bought from Jim Vaughn. That wasn't but about 10 years ago. man have things changed. I found a bunch of those 4200's in a box just the other day. a boat back then that cost $1000 to build now costs $200. I had a HPR 115 with twin 1950's running on 16 cells (4200's) on each motor. That thing probably weight 20 lbs.

[photohoward1]

Steve had to go home for an emergency. Left all his equipment with Alan and I. I do have to admit we used quite a bit of his stuff. Could not keep my hands off the Schluze 105 Controllers.

BTW: Fine built that boat, ran it for about 3 seconds. Didn't have the balls to open it up.
Steve showed up with the 43" Aeromarine and the thing would not turn worth darn. Rate up to the shore. Back into the Corvette and never seen again.
That was also the year Danny Fine would block for his brother. If they won they could brag about it in Boat Modeler Magazine. Boy we all had way more anger issues back then. I promptly took Danny out of the next heat. (and not with a pencil scratching his name off.) He screamed at the CD but no one said a word.
Alan also Launched Terry's boat Nose first I think that year? Still one of the funniest things I ever saw. Looked Like a Lawn Jart!
Fine standing in the water a couple of feet out in front of everyone to get an edge on the start. (what a .........OK I'll be quite now.)

That's the one. I recognize the bench as being Sharp Park too. It was for "Unlimited" offshore or what ever we were calling the nonsense we were doing then. Made one test lap I think. The thing was terrifying. It didn't get raced that weekend. It was way too much for our pond so it was probably for the best.

Look at all those Schulze 105 laying in there. That thing cost a small fortune to put together. Over $500 in gear drives. Maybe $1300 on motors. Another $1500 for speedo. Then the boat and hardware. 5 struts. Fine would have convinced Steve he needed 60 high voltage matched cells so maybe $700 . Then (5) X447 balanced and sharpened that barely cleared each other. Yikes. Nutty in 2003.

[Flying Scotsman]

Howard, this post explains a lot.....thanks

Douggie

Steve had to go home for an emergency. Left all his equipment with Alan and I. I do have to admit we used quite a bit of his stuff. Could not keep my hands off the Schluze 105 Controllers.

BTW: Fine built that boat, ran it for about 3 seconds. Didn't have the balls to open it up.
Steve showed up with the 43" Aeromarine and the thing would not turn worth darn. Rate up to the shore. Back into the Corvette and never seen again.
That was also the year Danny Fine would block for his brother. If they won they could brag about it in Boat Modeler Magazine. Boy we all had way more anger issues back then. I promptly took Danny out of the next heat. (and not with a pencil scratching his name off.) He screamed at the CD but no one said a word.
Alan also Launched Terry's boat Nose first I think that year? Still one of the funniest things I ever saw. Looked Like a Lawn Jart!
Fine standing in the water a couple of feet out in front of everyone to get an edge on the start. (what a .........OK I'll be quite now.)

[keithbradley]

That's the one. I recognize the bench as being Sharp Park too. It was for "Unlimited" offshore or what ever we were calling the nonsense we were doing then. Made one test lap I think. The thing was terrifying. It didn't get raced that weekend. It was way too much for our pond so it was probably for the best.

Look at all those Schulze 105 laying in there. That thing cost a small fortune to put together. Over $500 in gear drives. Maybe $1300 on motors. Another $1500 for speedo. Then the boat and hardware. 5 struts. Fine would have convinced Steve he needed 60 high voltage matched cells so maybe $700 . Then (5) X447 balanced and sharpened that barely cleared each other. Yikes. Nutty in 2003.

It's crazy to think of the stuff some of you guys ran at Sharp Park. Talk about racing in an over-grown toilet bowl...
I've never seen video of any of those races...do you know if any exists?

[T.S.Davis]

I've never seen any video from Sharp. Nobody had the technology then. Could have been we were all just to dirt poor. One year Fine hired a production company to film the Michigan Cup. That one was at Camp Dearborn though. They sent a young kid. He ran his mouth the entire time he was filming and ruined it. He was totally digging it but his string of profanity was too much. Chris said every drip of it was garbage.

Keith, you know how that pond is kind of bean shaped? The inside of the bean is where Dennis burned that Systems cat into the bank. Sounded like meteor hitting the earth. It was under the sod a bit.

Our drivers stand used to be a string of safety tape about 2ft. from the waters edge right the bean there. So if you came out of 4 wide you were basically pointed straight at all of us idiots standing on the shore.

My first heat out there I ran ashore on the opposite side of the pond......................so same as now.

The lawn jart launch is still possibly the funnies thing that Alan has ever done. He did right my boat but I finished the heat with a giant hunk of clay on the nose of the boat. A close second would be the race at the boy scout camp where Alan discovered that Ken had used the tops off of old inhalers as snorkel scoops on his LSO boat and tried to take a puff off them late one night. Nearly peed myself.

I was known to use picnic tables as end to end soldering jigs at races. I've soldered probably 200 cells that way after midnight in my career.

Somewhere there is a picture from the 05 nats of Pachmeyer standing next to Hughey's 10yo nephew with crackerbox boats. Paul had won the class and I think the little guy was third. The contrast was stark as Paul is about 6'3" and 300# maybe and the kid was about 4'2 and 70# wring'n wet. haha

All these silly memories are the real reason to race. For me at least. There's more to racing than just the laps. Competition sure. Of course "racing" is about that but for me good friends, great times, and lots of laughs. A race is like an excuse for a bunch boat fools to be in the same place for a while. Acting a fool just ensues on it's own.