It has occurred to me that, thus far, my stories have depicted me as a complete doofus. As I have said before,
I was young and naive. I recently had the opportunity to drive the Old Narcoosee road from Orlando to Ashton
and was amazed to see the roadside bar where I celebrated my 21st birthday (40years ago) was still there.
However, I did manage to do some things correctly while a Lake X-ite. In 1969, I completed the Bahamas 500
in a 32' Cary w/4 BP's. Dale Thayer won the outboard class in that race in a 28' Memco w/4 BP's. In July of
that year I got to run that Memco in the Sam Griffith Memorial. Once again Jerry Langer had convinced
Mr. Kiekhaefer that it would be a good idea for an OMC dealer to run the Mercury Factory boat that he had run
in the Bahamas 500. And, once again, I was determined to not let him win outboard. Somehow, I managed to
talk Chet Strickland, who was much more experienced than I, to come along as my co-driver. As I remember,
the Memco ran about 68mph. I knew we had a couple mph on Langer and we immediately took the outboard lead.
This was a 200+ mile race and at about the 100 mile point one of the BP's developed a loss of a couple
hundred rpm. At this point Langer was 2 or 3 miles behind us and was now gaining on us. We could keep running
or stop and troubleshoot with the hope we could fix it and catch Langer if he got past us......
OR we could try to fix it on the run. While I continued to drive, Chet climbed into the well and managed to
remove the wrap around cowling while we were still running about 65mph. He then climbed onto his belly on the
top cowling and noticed one spark plug wire was loose from the plug. A word to the wise...do not grab a plug wire
on a BP running at 5800rpm. Somehow he signalled to me to shut down the affected engine just long enough to
reattach the plug wire. When I restarted it we were back on speed. We finished 1st outboard and 3rd overall behind
Bill Wishnick and Peter Rittmaster. Langer finished 1 minute behind me. Mr. Kiekhaefer was not happy that we
crossed the finish line sans the wrap around but was pleased that we had set a new course record for outboards
of 62+mph. I can still see Chet stretched out on top of that engine and hanging over the water. One slip and he
would have been shark bait, but he didn't hesitate for even one second. Winning was satisfying, but not nearly
as satisfying as beating Langer. Read the post called "3rd Bahamas 500"(?) and you will understand.
-Steve Sirois
02/17/2005

Hey Mabry, how do you get to fly those jets?
In the summer of 1968, after 6 years of alternating between working at Lake X and going to college,
I finally managed to barely eke out my Bachelor's Degree at the University of South Florida.
Instead of attending graduation, I immediately went to Lake X to prepare for the Bahamas 500.
Shortly after that race, Mr. Kiekhaefer sent Ralph Seavey and I to Jacksonville to work on a boat
at MEMCO, which stood for Mabry Edwards Marine Company. I had met Mabry previously at
the Lake. The amazing aspect of this tasking was that we were to work with a legend of
Unlimiteds....Ted Jones! The project at hand was to cut a vee bottom (don't remember brand) in half
longitudinally and install a tunnel between the two halves.....Rather interesting way to "build" a tunnel
boat for outboard offshore. I think John Stenbeck ran the boat at Lake X later. As I remember, it ran
fairly well, but I don't know if it ever actually ran in a race. Anyway, Ted had some really neat stories
to tell. I will attempt to relay one of them here. It seems that a wealthy industrialist tycoon
(might have been Henry Hudson) had invested a great deal in an Unlimited race boat but the darn
thing wouldn't even get up on a plane. So he called on Ted for advice. Ted arrived at the guys office
but the boat was across town (Chicago?) somewhere. They take the elevator to the basement and
climb into the back of a hot rod limo. The tycoon slaps a $100 bill on the seat next to the driver
and says, "GO!". Turns out that the driver was a well known Indy 500 driver and they had a standing
bet that he couldn't beat his previous time between the office and the boat shop. Driver blasts out of
the basement garage, turns 90 degrees in mid air and is off to the races. Meanwhile Ted's hanging on
for dear life. I think you all know that feeling when someone else is driving and you're scared s..tless,
but when you are driving, everything is hunky dory. Also, when you are on the race course, you
know everybody around you is just as crazy as you are, but when you are busting through downtown
traffic at 100mph, you don't know anything about the other drivers. Needless to say, the driver
collected the $100 and Ted survived. Turns out the Tycoon's boat had an enormous prop shaft that
created an extrodinary amount drag.......Back to MEMCO......Mabry's boat shop was located at
Imeson airport and the Florida Air National Guard (FANG) was flying F-102's out of there. Mabry
was a LtCol and pilot in the FANG. Every day the Fighters would taxi past the shop on their way to
the runway and I would watch them blast off with the incredible boom of their hard afterburner light.
Finally, I asked, "Hey Mabry, how do you get to fly those jets?". He said, "Well, you need a college
degree and have to pass a series of tests." I replied, "What the Hell, I've got a college degree. Where
do I take the tests?". I enlisted in the FANG the next weekend. I continued to work and race for
Kiekhaefer while attending monthly Drills at FANG until early 1970. At that time I recieved a
commission as 2Lt and went to Craig AFB in Selma AL for a year of Undergraduate Pilot Training
followed by 6 months of Fighter/Interceptor training in the F-102. Except for a 6 month stint working
for Brother Bill and Doug Janisch in Miami, I spent 30 years full-time with the FANG!!!! I flew my
last sortie the morning after Bill died in January 1997 and finally retired from FANG in 1998.
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? One minute, I'm cutting a boat in half with Ralph Seavey and
Ted Jones.....and the next minute, it's 30 years later.......and that was 7 1/2 years ago. A friend of mine
once told me, "Life is like a roll af toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes."
The amazing thing about it all is that the 5 most fun things in my life have just kind of happened.
I didn't plan any of them. 1-racing boats, 2-flying fighters, 3-meeting & marrying Iris, 4-becoming
a Father, 5-becoming a Grandfather. By the way, 1-5 is the sequential order of events....NOT an
indication of level of fun.......WOW! I really got off on a tangent this time! The next time I post,
I promise I will get back to Lake X.
 -Steve  
02/18/2005
..........................

Don't stick your nose in there
Somewhere along the way, Mr. Kiekhaefer bought a mold (might have been from Aranow)
that was basically the same as the 28' Magnum and sent it to Mabry Edwards in Jacksonville.
Mabry laid up several very light hulls and sent them to Lake X. They were very light and with
reduced freeboard. We installed a 50(?) gallon ballast tank in the very nose and ran a pickup line
from the right afterplane all the way to the top of the tank with a ball valve in the cockpit.
A drain line went from the bottom of the tank, through another ball valve and out a thru-hull fitting.
The pickup was welded to a hole in the afterplane. We could open the intake valve and lower the
afterplanes just enough to pickup water. Man, you could fill that tank in nothing flat and drain it
nearly as fast. Obviously, the ballast tank was meant for rough water to keep the nose down and
could be used in conjunction with the hydraulic afterplanes to control pitch attitude. We ran triple
BP's on these boats at somewhere between 65 and 70mph. I don't remember what the race was,
but we were at Dave Craig's Skyway Marine in Miami and Wayne Vicker was running his (pink)
Memco through some pretty good lumps when he stuffed it and broke the nose off of the boat.
I think he might have nearly broke his own nose off in the process as well. Anyway, Wayne's
experience made the rest of us a little gun-shy when it came to putting any water in the ballast
tank or using too much afterplane. Shortley thereafter, we ran another race from Palm Beach to
Grand Bahama Island and back. John Stenbeck finished 1st outboard in a triple BP Magnum(?)
and I finished 2nd outboard (and 3rd or 4th overall) in triple BP Memco.

It was probably the biggest water I ever ran a race in. At times I could only barely stay on a plane
and run back and forth while quartering the waves. When I was in the troughs, I would be looking
way up at the peaks. I honestly believe that I was looking at 14'-18' seas in the Gulfstream, and
some of them were breaking. Meantime, Mabry was overhead taking pictures. Afterwards he told
 me that I should have used more ballast and/or afterplane to lower the pitch. All I could think
of was that I did not want to stuff this thing 40 or 50 miles offshore, break the nose off and end up as
shark bait. The bright side was that I had Ray Dowling riding with me. Ray was a round guy
and I very skinny, so I figured that he would be more attractive to the sharks and they might
leave me alone while they ate him. (Some other time I will try to tell the story of Brother Bill
and Chet Strickland having to abondon ship while one of them was bleeding and they only had a
single one man liferaft which only partially inflated when they fired the bottle.) Anyway, while
having zig-zagged through the Gulfstream mountains for hours, I was amazed to see the smokestack
next to the inlet emerge from the Atlantic dead ahead. You have to realize that we navigated by
whiskey compass and every time you hit hard it would spin like a top. You might not see anything
but water on the horizon for a couple of hours. It still amazes me that we ever found the finish line
in some of those races. 
-Steve
02/18/2005
.....................................

Sorry about that, I had to walk the dogs....A piece of advice....when you walk dogs in the dark
and then let them back in the house, and then you notice that there is a leaf on the
doormat....do not pick it up! It might not be a leaf....and the next time make sure that the dogs
leave all of their products out in the grass...not on the doormat.  Back to a fairly dull story....
The night before the race, and Don has not yet shown up. The next morning I find out he arrived
 at 3:00am from Europe. He doesn't have a clue about the course or checkpoints. This is a 2 day race.
Day 1 is Long Beach to San Diego. Day 2 is San Diego to Long Beach. So we blast off for day 1
heading South. Half way there we come across Bill Wishnick in his "Big Broad Jumper". He has
lost an engine and is pulling a monster wake behind him. Don, looking for a little excitement,
decides to jump the wake about 2 feet behind Wishnick. I fly across the cockpit like a ragdoll and
clobber Don. He looks at me with total disdain but still has no idea where the next checkboat is.
However, I do. A couple miles offshore from San Diego is a clump of rockswhere one of the
checkboat is to be. I point to the rocks and checkboat but Don just keeps going toward the harbor.
Seemed like a good time to get even for his wake jumping antics, so I hit him in the arm as hard
as I possibly can and finally get his attention and head him toward the checkboat. Finally we cross
the finish line and Don heads for the Hotel and many hours of sleep. Early the next morning I
took the boat out to check for leaks and come across an aircraft carrier leaving the port. I ran
a couple of circles around it to the amusement of the sailors on deck. Day 2 starts and we head
back North. Much to my amusement, Don has a very large bruise on his arm. Odell Lewis and
Mel Riggs finished first in the turbine boat and we finish second several minutes later. Odell is idling
about 50' out from the finish line dock when Don decides to pull another one of his close-by passes.
He goes by Odell at full speed with only inches to spare. If I had stuck my arm out as we went by,
I could have shaken hands with Odell....albeit, very quickly. After much SoCal hospitality, food
and whiskey at the awards banquet, I headed back to Florida a day or two later. I remember
absolutely nothing about the return trip. Dr Bob Magoon was a very close friend of Don.
Sometime during that summer, I rode with Bob in the Around Long Island (NY) race. We were
doing pretty good until we puked an engine and had to withdraw. I was under the deck calling in
to race control on the radio when gas fumes started to get to me. To this day, that was the closest
I have ever come to getting "mal de mer" (sea sick). When things finally quieted down back in
Miami, Don asked me to rig a small tunnel hull that he had acquired. I had a little time in a Molinari
at Lake X, so I took that project on with relish. I finally got the tunnel in the water and ran it around
the area some. It crowhopped alot but it ran pretty well. I went back to the dock and got Don.
We ran around for awhile and, since this was his first ride in a tunnel, he was thrilled. Also, it was
his birthday and he proclaimed this ride to be a great present. He went back into the office and,
as I walked by the parts room, I noticed an "elephant ear" prop on the floor. I didn't know who it
belonged to...so...I immediately acquired it for Don's birthday boat. WOW! Now it flew like the
Molinari had at the Lake. I went into the office and told Don he had to go for another ride. He said
he was too busy... so, once again, I hit him as hard as I could and told him he had to go for another
ride....which he did. He could not believe how much better it ran and told me to strip the boat
immediately so he could pull a mold from it.....which he did. Thus was born the "Magnum Missle".
As the summer ended, I went back to school and never again got in a boat with Don Aronow....nor
did I want to.....my fist was sore. Years later, I was saddened to hear of his untimely and tragic demise.
I don't know what ever became of Knocky House, Jake Trotter, or Jim Bruell. If any of you know,
I would be interested in hearing.  
 -Steve Sirois