1958-59 Stockton Boat Racing

George Little attended the Stockton, CA boat races in 1958 & 1959 and photographed some dandy pics. George passed away some years ago, but his son Robert decided to have some of them digitized and he had a couple of them posted in the ACBS newsletter. I thought they were really neat and asked the ACBS director to contact Robert and asked if he could send them to us to make a web page on in our Visitor’s Photo Albums section. I asked Bob Silva (our west coast author/historian of APBA’s “From the Vintage Notebook” news articles) to research / write the photo captions.
I think you will enjoy this one folks. Some great boat racing photographs, a neat boat race course / setting and some neat info and stories to read through as you look at the photographs.

1971 Miami

1971 Miami Eastern Divisional Inboard Hydroplane & speed boat races

Someone sent me a copy of this film a few years ago. My apologies for forgetting who did. The only notes I have on it said, “1971 Miami Eastern Divisionals”.
I have no notes on who made / produced the film. I hope we are not stepping on anybody’s toes but thought we should get this on YouTube for all to enjoy.

1974 Decatur

1977 Decatur

We hope you are enjoying the videos from past races. This one is 1977 Decatur.

1980 Dayton Nationals

1979 Nationals at Dayton

1980 Augusta GP race

Phil Kunz had all his 8mm film converted to digital format. Our first video was the Kilo record runs in New Martinsville filmed during the early through mid 1970s (scroll down to see that link).
This GP Hydroplane race that took place in 1980 from Augusta, Georgia is our 2nd one. We will be posting all of them on YouTube as we get them completed. There is lots of film that was shot from the 1970s and 1980s inboard hydroplane races and we will be posting each race as we get them done. I think these old 8mm films look pretty good on the big screen TVs. While you’re kicking back and watching these old races, keep in mind that some of the boats that attended the race may not have been filmed, or had little footage, so don’t get mad if you don’t see a boat you know was there. We’re putting in some of Phil’s photos of boats he snapped at each race and you will see those sprinkled in the video. Example would be the pic of Long Gone above (pic I took as I was watching on my big TV). The film only had a few shots of Long Gone running, but the great pic above, Phil snapped at that event. Also keep in mind that most of the film was not taken by Phil Kunz (as he was pretty busy shooting the still shots with his camera).
If you have a smart TV, simply search on YouTube for “The Vintage Hydroplanes” channel. If you subscribe to our channel it makes it easier to find out when we post more film from the old races.

2022 Monthly Calendars

The first quarter for 2022 is posted.

We also added another photo slideshow video to our YouTube channel featuring all the photographs that appeared on our monthly calendars from 2015-2020. We already have another video on our channel that featured photos used from 2005-2014, so this new video is just Part II.

1970s New Martinsville Kilo Speed Record runs

Filmed at the New Martinsville, West Virginia Kilo Speed Record runs in the 1970s and narrated by Phil Kunz. This film has inboard hydros trying to set World Speed Records while running through a 1 kilometer straightaway course. To have an official speed record run, you would need to make 2 runs through the speed trap in both directions and within a certain time frame. Your speed and times were an average between the 2 runs through the straightaway course (1 kilometer in length). This would become your official speed. Plenty of fast old hydros running through the trap.