BROWNIE

Sparky is applications manager for ZF Marine, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl

7xchamp

T2x: You will apreciate this story: You talk about how good the Seahawk guys were. Remember there were several other teams similar to Sal and Willy, although they were the best and most generous of all, and most flambouyant. Story you may recall re: Lynwood Lupo. When Lynwood left Merc./Lake X it was a miracle, as we all took bets that he would retire with Mercury, anyway as many know he went to work for Sal and Willy. For those who didn`t have the pleasure of knowing Lynwood, it`s to bad, he was the salt of the earth, unspoiled drove and old pickup truck lived in a house trailer, and would give you anything he had. First time I saw Lynwood after he went to work for Sal and Willy was in Key West for the worlds, I will never forget it. I saw this brand new white Cadilac Biaritz, with a bunch of people around it talking to the driver, I walked over and saw that it was Lynwood smiling from ear to ear. He was sporting a new Rolex Platinum Presidential covered in diamonds at that time probably cost over $50,000 also sitting beside him was a very cute little blonde girl. God bless him, someone appreciated him, he also had a pocket full of hundreds. I have many, many stories re: those days of Money, drugs,women, and parties that would blow your mind in more ways than people could ever imagine. When I write my book I could devote half of it to those times and those personalities. We all got caught up in it at the time, for all of my experiences I would not trade any one of them. The offshore race was just something calm to do, just for fun most of the time, it was relaxation for alot of the guys in the Bus. Not to say it wasn`t taken serious, whoever stood on the highest pile of cash was the winner, and believe me there were some pretty big piles, More in the book someday, people as you say have no idea how to play and party, at least the ones I know now. I doubt we will ever see it again, Boy was it great. Here`s a couple thousand go get some lunch for the guys, keep the change, remember???

flying fish

Richie,Ken Chatfield is who you are trying to place.Keith Sparks was his boy mechanic when they engineered the Sopwith boats,Miss Enfield etc.Ken used to say when they were going on trials he used to dread it ,as Don would give himself pain killing injections because of his back problem,and poor old ken would be stuck there feeling every bang and crash as Don opened the boat up.

flying fish

Some more pics Nigel.Another 3 to follow.

flying fish

Another 3 pics.Cor! Nigel ain`t anything on the box tonight or summit.

7xchamp

That`s it, Ken Chatfield He was one of the nicest guys in the business, and his back really did give him trouble. Quick story: When I had my shop in Torino with Dry Martini, I always told various teams that if they needed a place to work while they were in Italy they were welcome at my shop. Ken took me up on it and used my shop during the Italian races. As you know we were all fighting for the UIM world champioship. and Shead was one of our main competitors. Anyway we all agreed not to do a certain race in Italy which counted for points, so when Ken was in our shop I noticed he was really fine prepping his boat, while we were taking our time. Guess what?? he left one Fri. and did not say why or for what, they went and ran the race and scored the points against us, That one burned me for a long time, needless to say they were never invited back. Just one of many stories.

Ryan Beckley

So back to the boat at hand ...how fast / slow was it? Why did it never make it to the race course? I take this would have been around 1986 / 1987?

littlenige

Great pix again Fish. Those are some neat custom exhaust pipes (as we British say). I bet that thing sounded awesome. Did you get to travel all over to watch over the project?

littlenige

For anyone who hasn't seen it this was one of the series of pix of the Goldrush blowover - it got a lot of attention at the time as a member of the british press was on board so it became a national feature story the next day.

T2x

Looking at the pix ...it is running very wet without a lot of apparent lift and a roostertail like a fireboat......... It aint exactly what I'd call "hooked up".