Why the pickel fork

[Freedom Fighter]

Yes

The name you are looking for is Marcell, their dad built the boats, kind of a batmobile style front, the pickles where conected with a concave half circle towards the steering wheel, I thought him and his sister still ran J in 79, maybe it is his sister I remember, anyhow real quality boats, they had a extra deck throttle on the J hydro so the kids could get way out on the bow to get on plane.

Kerry

Yes, that was him, Marcell. I made the finals in ASH. And found out that I was in the slowest heat, except for Tom who only finished one heat. My memorey tells me there were around 102 ASR's and 104 ASH's! Now that was racing! We ran A's for ever it seamed. 10 eliminations heats times 2! 20 Heats of ASH and 20 Heats of ASR!

I remember Sue running JSH at the 79 nationals in Dayton. Dayton is where I met Mitch Meyer and Craig Bowman. Great Guys.

Merry Christmas.

May Santa bring you 2 mph.

[Blackhawkguy]

The Marcell boat

The last family to have the boat I remeber where the Bantings from Michigan, and another family before or after them, I do not know who had the boat last. I may also be incorect and Bantings or the other family had a boat made by mister Marcell. What I remeber was the hand made hardware, the trigger throttle and the little deck throttle flipper for getting on plane. That boat was unbeatable in J. The lead for the boat was all covered in a light green vinall, unbelievable quality throughout the boat, and it was super fast. I do remember the son ran it in A and Sue in J by the time I started racing in 78. That boat would be a find today, I think it still woud be competitive.

Kerry

[aojesus]

Marcell

Bud Marcell explained to me once that he built a boat using tooth picks to hold the decking down. When you looked real close you could see it. He clamped the wood in place, drilled very small tapered holes, dipped super dry tapered toothpicks in glue then inserted them. When the glue was dry he sanded down the tooth picks.

One of Tommy's boats had the trick air conditioned transom, air conditioned rear cockpit sides, and air conditioned sponsons.

Bud built a J boat for Pat Boylan and he and Sue got together planing off at Silver Lake NY and flipped. Boylans's boat was state of the art as well. That was the only time I finished better than Sue with my J Hedlund.

Last I knew Bob Abbott had a JSH, Frank and Andrea Slaziak had an ASH, and one of the air conditioned specials was in Elmira, NY.

[Blackhawkguy]

Yes Boyland

Boyland was the other name I was looking for, they had a boat made, then Bantings bought it from them, after that I do not know who wound up with the J from around here.

Kerry

[jsilvestri]

I raced against Brad Banting when I raced J. I remember that hydro with the flip up throttle, really cool! That boat was beatable though, as I beat him several times with my conventional Z-Craft. I have pictures of my Z-Craft somewhere and its still in my dad's garage hanging on the wall.

[Rich Russo]

It would be cool to see a pic of the Marcell Hydro, if anyone had one. I would bet it would be competitive today as well. Always wondered what the Marcell Family is doing today. Another good ASH racer was Andrea Slazick, wasn`t that her father Frank? Been away from region 2 for many years- again, always wondered what happened to all the racers from back in the day.

[aojesus]

Slacik

Frank is Andrea's dad. When she got out of racing she was running DSH. They had a huge archery business called Shehawken.

The Thousand family also had a Marcell.

If I remember correctly the Marcells called themselves the Flaming Chicken Racing Team. They had Poulet du Sud, Poulet du Nord, Flaming Chicken, and a few others.

[ZUL8TR]

This is floating.

Might look cool but lower angle of attack (2 to 4 degrees from water or sponson bottoms about 1" to 2" off water) would provide less rear bottom wedge drag and less lift induced aero drag.

[ZUL8TR]

The old shovel nose hydros and catamarans or (tunnel hulls) evolved into
a pickel fork nose ,Why.
Was it to get rid of weight on the front or decrease the amount of front end lift ?

I know they look cool.

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The pickle started with the unlimited hydros to reduce bow lift and blowovers. Of course they found that at speeds above about 120 mph the round nose was a floater and safety became an issue. So the pickle was born and blowovers were reduced. But a pickle design is not necessarly more aerodynamic than a well designed roundnose set up to run at proper trim. The old roundnoses ran WWII Merlins and Rolls Royce V16's and produced great speeds. But as the speeds increased due to greater horsepower engines the WWII stuff was phased out and they needed a safer design that would not fly. The pickle did that but not after miticulous testing to get the aero drag and running trim correct. These teams have many $$$ to test and perfect their designs.

I believe the outboard pickels came into favor at first because they were thought to look cool from observing the unlimited boats so they started to be built and tested in SO and Pro and eventually favored. That doesn't mean pickle hydros are faster than a good roundnose since there are many varibles such as water and air drag to be overcome by the available prop hoursepower, race set up, prop, driver, course layout, wind, etc. Every year new hull shapes are tried out to hopfully improve last years version. Sometimes the results are no better and sometimes worse - a never ending tale.

[Freedom Fighter]

Float

Might look cool but lower angle of attack (2 to 4 degrees from water or sponson bottoms about 1" to 2" off water) would provide less rear bottom wedge drag and less lift induced aero drag.

Well, believe it or not. That boat had 1/2" of lift and the engine was tucked way under. The transom was set at 20" so the gear case was planing on the water surface. I never did finish testing it.

[spud62w]

If I remember right I think that the kid Tom punched out the old man for sleeping to late so he only got to run the 1 heat at Hinton.

[Blackhawkguy]

sounds allot like

Didn't Jr. do the same at Dayton once, hear the B's running from the hotel room and realised he had over slept.

Kerry

(I'm quite sure he did not punch out Sr. though,)

[aojesus]

experimental J

I appologize for the quality of the pictures.
The first picture is an A Hedlund that was cut down and made into a pickle fork. I believe Mom took this picture in 1978. The Hedlund cowl was removed and a Bezoats style was put in further back in the boat. The deck was switched to canvas and the throttle side of the cockpit cut down. I took some 2nd. and 3rd.'s with it but never a 1st. until we raced it at Cardinal Ontario in near white cap conditions. The boat was much faster in very rough water.

The second picture is my other J Hedlund. I never got the old 60J fast enough to blow it over but I did manage to barrel roll (slow barrel roll) in the turn once and get thrown out of it in the turn once or twice. The Yellow arrow is a reference to where the nose was chopped on the one in the first picture. The red arrow is where the bezoats style cowl was put. The pink arrow points to a famous driver/builder from region 2.

[PopPop]

? Pickle Forks"

I do not know who origionated the "pickle fork" design but I doubt it was the in the unlimited catagory. Bob Thorton, from Virginia, had an Evinrude PR running on what he called a "lobster boat" back in the 50's. There were a few other similar boats kicking around about then. Maybe Craig Bowman could supply some more detailed history.

[Inside Lane]

Cedar Rapids

Anyone remember the 1972 Nationals?