On the biography of Odell Lewis in the beautiful book of Claudio Nobis:"L'Avventura dell'Offshore"(The Adventure of the Offshore),this final words that I think can put togheter all Man of those years.
...."Probably we don't see anymore a lot of people of the stamp of Odell Lewis in the competitions.
Raised on hulls to flat bottoms, hard on the waves, difficult to drive and without throttleman, these men have been a human race apart."

This thread is great.

As for Odell, he was my personal favorite driver of the group. Fabulous sense of humor, fabulous set of juevos. When I injured my ankles in the 1966 Sam Griffith race (which sunk 'Brave Moppie', 'Tin Fish', Gar Wood, Jr. I can't remember the name, but it was 48' long, with Allisons) I "invented" the cockpit bolster as it is seen today. I designed it and Roy Harmon of Biltrite built it for the "Donzi Blue Devil" that I drove for George Couzens, of Detroit. When I pulled up to the Dupont Plaza docks for inspection for the Miami-Key West race in November '66, every driver said "If I had to have all that padding to stay behind the wheel, I'd stop racing". The next race, EVERY boat had bolsters except one.... Guess who. He drove barefoot most of the time.

I don't think that it has ever been said in print, but here it is: Like Formula One, Kiekhaefer had team orders. Never beat the customer. I was racing for Holman Moody and Donzi in those days, and to an extent, I think that I was responsible for the Merc team showing up at some of the races. But if you think back, When Aronow won, right behind was Bakos, Odell, Richie, Stenback or one of those Merc team guys. I don't know who recruited for Kiekhaefer's race team, but they came up with the greatest bunch of guys ever assembled. Racing against those guys, and beating them occasionally ranks very high among my fondest memories.

For the noobies
 

A laughing Odell Lewis

A focused John Bakos

A jovial Sirois

Anybody notice a common thread running through these photos........?

Great talent comes from an outboard racing background.

T2x

Hey Powers...... wanna buy back the picture of the guy in the middle..........:p :p

Nice sideburns.......:D :D

T2x

Now that was a team, at that time in my carreer I weighed in at a whopping 150lbs and stood six feet tall, I was so wirey I could jump off the deck of a 36` high on a trailer land on my feet and laugh. I remember carrying Kiekhaefer Headers over my shoulder from the ground to the trailer, over the transom and mount on the motor, four times, then install all the custom braces. gets back to when men were men. The picture of Sirois was taken when we were both on the OPC team, that`s my motor in the background, and you are right, most of the top drivers came from outboards or GN boats.
Always good to hear from you, hope all is well.7XCHAMP

Another happy Merc driver