Marc Connelly's News (5)

The Chief gave me a pass this week. It was a trade actually: “two days next week, for one day this week.” I took the deal- I had no choice. this is Gold Cup week and I have a long ways to go before my program is race ready and competitive.

A week and a half…

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I knew that his days were growing short but still, it came as a personal blow to learn that Stan Hanauer had passed away last week. I flat loved the guy and I will miss him a great deal. Stan was a fine human being.

 

There are so many good people who will read this post that knew Stan far better than I, who can tell the great stories of his Navy days, or his hydroplane racing days.  I wasn’t a close personal friend, but Stan and I were simpatico on a special level as fellow…

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By a twist of fate, my family goes way back with the hydroplane photographers of yore. I met Vic Condiotti. And I believe that it was my father who gave Bob ‘Cuddles’ Carver his nickname after accompanying him to a ‘tie up’ to the entrance buoy entering turn one on Lake Washington one day. I remember him at cocktail parties hosted by my parents, thinking he had maybe the tenth coolest job on the planet, after the hydro drivers themselves, of course. That was over 50 years… Continue

This morning, after working with the crew to reattach a chunk of the Blue Blaster, my shoulders are a bit sore in that special way that only comes from a good, honest, evenings worth of hydroplane crew work. It feels good, a familiar old feeling from a few years back, when I was an ‘A Team’ participant on the 1982 Atlas Van Lines Restoration. Continue

Some photos need no explanation. But here is one, anyway. Continue