The webpage is a brief summary of the racing career are of the late
Joe Gimbrone and a couple of the boats he sat in.
Joe was a longtime racer from Tonawanda, New York who started racing
as a teenager in the Canadian C.O.D. class.
Joe's COD was named Andiamo. He also built and drove his own
280 as well as a stock 7 Litre.
He built the 5-Litre, Blind, Crippled and Crazy for Marty
Prast, the 280 cu. in. class, Typhoon Joolie Too for John Wackerman
and the 145 cu. in. class Eager Beaver for George "Beaver"
Kovach.
Joe Gimbrone driving, J-112 was photographed from the bridge
at Ottawa
in 1974 when the boat was still Mahogany & Silver, with blue trim.
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Boats he had driven included, aside from his own:
Marty Prast's 5-Litre, Blind, Crippled, and Crazy
Tony Rodrigues 7-Litre, Div. II, Sagres
Jake Oriol's 225 cu. in. class, Time Flies
Chet Bourne's 5-Litre, Wha' Hoppen?
Jacque St. Laurent's GP-class, Nordic
and many others I can't recall at the moment. |
The 280 photos were taken in Tonawanda, New York around 1968 or so.
Joy Boy
Valleyfield 1977
(photo courtesy of Ben Lemay)
Joy Boy was named for his wife, Joy.
Joy Boy ran as the Miss Wa Ha Kie named for the sponsor's business.
The 280 hydroplanes were sold to a guy in Western, New York named Vic
Sanders.
I don't know what happened to it after that. |
The J-112 photograph was taken in 1975. The boat was painted
by then.
The 7-Litre, Division II built by Joe for the 1973 season set the Canadian
Kilo speed record in 1974 as I recall, and was High Point Champion in the
old Grand Prix Invitational class in 1975. Although the boat ran a legal
set-up for stock 7-Litre we installed a fogger to run Nitrous for GP races.
The 7-Litre last I knew, was owned by John Sweet from New Hampshire and
renamed Johnny Lightening Special or Johnny Lightening's Unemployed
All Stars or something similar.
Here is a photo taken with his girls before a Divisional race at Isle
View, Niagara River, 1970.
I knew Joe and Joy from the first day they started. Great person, hard
driver.
He and Joy did it all together, sometimes the hard way. He is and was
worthy of the articles written for him.
Above photo and note by Bill Burgess.
Here is one of the many articles written that appeared in a Regatta
Program.
Joe Gimbrone was a big man.
To portray him in words is futile. Joe was movement...action...a volatile
spirit in search of any fleeting adventure life might afford. Joe was big
in stature...a muscular man...powerfu1...with hands like a pair of catcher's
mitts...but Joe was gentle...on1y those close to him knew how gentle he
was. Joe was generous, friendly, creative, outgoing, ambitious, a true
sportsman and on occasion, controversial. He drove hard to win a race and
he drove equally hard in support of a principle he believed in. He was
loved and respected by his family to a degree not experienced by many men.
To his daughters, Sunnye and Marie, he was a special kind of hero. To Joy,
his wife, he was the ultimate partner. The Gimbrones lived power boat racing
with a fervor. Joe Gimbrone drove every heat with a grim determination
to win, but always, in the toughest competition, he was a true sportsman.
Often before a race, Joe would help a competitor with an engine problem
or loan him a propeller. Possibly giving the other fellow just a bit more
of the racer's edge.
Howie Benns, the local boy who drove his way to acclaim on the Thunderboat
trail, and Joe were friends of long standing. Howie was from Grand Island
and Joe lived on the west side of Buffalo. They met in competition on the
Niagara River.
Joe's mother remembers him building model boats in bottles during an
extended childhood illness. Later bringing home a bedraggled racing hull
which he rebuilt in the basement. He was about 14 then and that was the
beginning of his racing career. Joe and Howie raced outboards for years.
Then Joe graduated to main- taining and racing Chet Bourne's five litre
hydros. He learned the skill of building race boats from the legendary
Pop Schroeder. Some time in the early 60's, Joe designed and built a 280
in which he placed third at the Nationals, out of a field of 58. A few
years later he built Joy Boy, a seven litre, in the basement of
his home on Harriet St. in Tonawanda. This one racked up the 1975 APBA
High Point Championship, the Canadian Nationals and a Canadian speed record.
Joe always wanted to drive the hottest of the hot in the big boat classes.
This season he was offered a "ride" in the Nordic, a top runner
in the Grand Prix class. He had been claiming consistant thirds when fate
caught up with him at St. Timothee, Quebec.
Joe was a composite hero and yet the commonest of men. He was Tom Edison
and Tom Swift, Eddie Rickenbacher and Orville Redenbacher. He was Trollin'
Joe Gimbrone... How do you say goodbye? Grief...remorse...lament...Joe
wouldn't want it. He lived life at full throttle and that's the way he
would want to be remembered. |
Sadly....Joe was killed at the wheel of the Nordic in 1978 at St. Timothee.
If you have any photos of Joe and/or his boats, please send them in and we'll add them to this tribute page.
© 2003 - 2005 John Nebelecky |
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