Smarty

Was Joey Ippolito driving the Michelob Light cat? I knew he drove the V-bottom at one time. My memory on those days is hazy. I could not remember how that slug of Cigarette beat those cats. (A slug by todays standards, probably an 80 mph back then???) How fast was Long Shot?

lucky strike

Joel Halpern drove the Michelob Cat.

I think the second 39 Cig Long Shot ran about 87-88

7xchamp

This is the old Beep Beep that I took over from Wayne Vicker who throttled for Joel, I redid the entire rig, truck trailer, boat etc. converted everything to Kiekhaefer Aeromarine and renamed her Michelobe light. I put all polished rims on the trailer and truck, custom exhaust etc, she was standing tall when we showed up for the race. For some reason we were last ones out of the pits on the way to the race course, on the way we saw Gentry and Kieth Hazell blow the bow of the Scarab, we stopped to assist, then we were late for the start, and it was fairly rough, as we were playing catch-up I saw the boat starting to come apart, the sponsons were trying to break away from the tunnel, I pulled out of the race to save our lives and equip. Needless to say Joel was furious with me, told everyone I lost my nerve etc. That was before he and others saw the damage that was happening when we pulled the boat out of the water. I`ll never forget, Betty Cook came up to me and told me that took guts and it was absolutly the right move, and that Joel was just being a spoiled a-hole. I quit Joel at that race, he convinced me to run one more, if it was calm we would run if rough we would sit out. The race was NY Jones beach, I flew the course and saw it was pretty rough, Joel said it was calm, lets go for it, I got mad and said Okay hold on. We blew the whole left side of the boat, almost killed Joel, boat sunk, he messed up his leg pretty bad. Next race, New Orleans in the new alumin. Cougar I had supervised build on, as many know that`s where Joel was killed, I had Jack Stuteville throttle, and Joey Ippolitto navigated. Guess that`s what people mean when they say things are meant to be, I had to take the kids and his girlfriend Connie to the hospital, and sit with them to find the news, it was a horrible day that I`ll never forget.

T2x

Richie:

Two things...back then the Open Class cats had x dimensions that were too low..... based on the traditional V Bottom Offshore model......and this left them without much of a speed advantage over the vees.

I think we helped fix that with the Shadow Cat because when we got to the Lake, Schwebbie said they we had set them too high and it would never work........until we ran the boat .

Second Memory.......Joel brought a full fledged Stock Car to the race at Point Pleasant that year with a spare tractor/trailer to haul it...and ran it up and down the street, with open pipes and full race markings. As I recall it broke and got stuck in the middle of an intersection.

Since I had just come out of OPC tunnel boat racing ( Where we had high "X" dimensions and went fast), I thought a lot of the Offshore guys had too much money and time on their hands......

Come to think of it...I still do.

T2x

Panther

Some pictures my mother took that day....

My father knew Joel...

7xchamp

WOW: that pretty much sums it up, sure brings back memories.

Panther

Here's one more.

7xchamp

There is a whole era and transition time we could discuss about transom hights, X-dimensions etc in offshore. In the early eighties with the advent of 3 blade props and gear ratios, actually before the eighties with ratios and three blade props, we tryed all the high x dimensions, that`s when and why spacers were invented. The props just werent` surface type. Later came the # IV then the # V etc. and the rest is history. I remember the first # IV, Bill Sirois actually made them by cutting and welding the #III to make them shorter, then Merc made the new cases. When we used to run the old straight V`s we used to have to run a lot of trim angle to get the bow up, which went against the principle of surface props.
Anyway, there could be an entire book written about the stuff we tryed and did in those days, remember I was the one who started running without skegs on the lower units, was good for 2 to 3 miles per hour, and you could not tell the difference in handling, again because we werent surfacing at the time. Gotta write the book, this takes to much time.

skrap

Here's a shot of Bill Elswick's Cigarette and Petebuilt from the 1980 Benihana Grand Prix in Point Pleasant Beach NJ.

lucky strike

Thats a sweet package