Offshoreonly.com - Greatest T-man of all time?

Stop this........How can you have a list of great Throttlemen.....and not have the VERY FIRST EVER THROTTLEMAN........the first and one of the best....Bobby MOORE.

How did it happen you say.........well it gets interesting right from the first race.

The Lake X boys were given a choice of which boats they wanted to race for the upcoming year.....Remember, you pick your boat means you rig your boat and you better do well with it.

Odell Lewis who was running Lake X at the time, 1970, thought that the new 32 foot Bertrams were the right stuff, so he asked for a 32 foot Bertram to race. Mr K aid OK and the rigging began.

First race of the year was in St Petersburg, Fl. Odell was so far in front, that he stopped to chat with his Daddy who was out fishing. When Odell spotted some race boats heading his way, he said his good byes and went on to finish in first place.

Everyone was impressed....what a boat, what a set of engines, what a driver (who also throttled his own boat)

Bill Wishnick comes right up to Carl Kiekhaefer and says that he wants to buy the boat right there. Carl gives him a number and Bill writes out a check and the boat is his now.........or is it??

As the story goes, the boat had been sold by Mr K to another driver who was not in the country at the time. So we now had two people who owned the same boat, but Wishnick had the boat in his hands, so he got ready for the next race.

Hot calls are put into Bertram to start making another all red 32 foot Bertram race boat ASAP....as the gentleman who was out of the country, would soon be arriving and wanted to see his boat since it had done so well in the first race.

Glass is cut, resin is poured, bulkheads are rushed into place and the mysterious curing begins to take place....will it be ready on time?

But in the world of racing only one thing matters....The Next Race.

Bill Wishnick arrives at the next race with Bobby Moore as his riding mechanic and they are excited to test this boat against the best in the world. The race starts and off everyone goes.

A long run to the first checkpoint boat and Bill Wishnick is first, he turns the wheel and goes around the checkpoint boat....and then goes around again...... and goes around again.....and finally on the next trip around, Bobby Moore reaches over to pull the throttles back and take some pressure off the steering. What?????? What did we just see here??? Does anyone have an idea why this happened???

Well when the boat was rigged, Odell knew that if he built it with no power steering, he could pick up about 10 to 15 HP per engine...so that is just what he did. No surprise, as Odell never raced a boat with power steering.

Bill Wishnick was a businessman .....so, when he got the boat in that arc around the checkpoint boat, he could not straighten it out. So from that moment on, a new position was created...THROTTLE MAN.

And I cast my vote for BOBBY MOORE!!!