Finally started Aronow Research paper....

[HyperDonzi]

After talking about this all school year, Finally started it today. 2 pages, and just got started on theories on who killed the king. After I get it done, Would some of you check the info out and see if it all makes sense and really happened?

Oh, And Brownie.... http://www.njppc.com/OldOffshoreStories/AronowFullSpeed55.htm :D

Tommy

[HyperDonzi]

Don Aronow was the most influential person ever associated with boat racing of all times. He started many boat building companies that are still thriving today.

Donald Joel Aronow was born on March 1st of 1927. He was the third child and first son of Herman and Gertrude Aronow. The family was originally from Russia, but moved to Brooklyn in 1900. When he was young, his father owned a gas station, and Don developed a knack for working on cars. At 14, he would buy cars, fix them up, and then sell for a profit. Up until age 17, he was described as a juvenile delinquent. He then started behaving right when attending Brooklyn College. He majored as a physical education teacher for middle school students, then after six months decided to quit because he wasn’t making enough money to support his family. After teaching, he received an offer from his father in-law to run a construction business. Quickly afterward, he started his own business and was a self-made millionaire before he turned 30. He retired with his family to south Florida at age 32 with over 2 million dollars.

He started boat racing in 1962 in a boat so inefficient and rough, that it was compared to driving a car off a 10 foot cliff at 55miles per hour, five times a minute. He started his first boat company, Formula Boat co. in late 1963 to help finance a new race boat. In 1969, he came up with his first remarkable offshore boat. It was a 32-foot long boat that was called “The Cigarette.” This name has stuck with any big offshore style boat more than 30 years after the original was made. The boat was so remarkable because it could handle six-foot waves at over 80mph when attaining 70 on flat water was an accomplishment. His style of driving would test the strength of the boat. During one race, Allan Brown was navigating and said, "You know, we can still win this even if we back off a little." Don looked over at him, smiled, and pushed the throttles too wide open.

Don Aronow was more of a businessman than anything else. Once 3 friends and him made a bet at a bar. Each put 100$ down and said the first one out of the bar with a woman got the money. The 3 other friends went in and started talking to beautiful women, then Don walked in and found the ugliest woman in the bar and walked out with her. He had won the bet.

In 1963, Formula Marine was started on North 188th Street in Sarasota Florida. In 1964, the race proven boat molds and factory were sold to Thunderbird Products. Aronow kept one of the molds, a 17-foot low profile day boat, and cut a foot off the back, then launched the new design in 1964. The boat was nicknamed the “Sweet Sixteen” and the company was named Donzi, after record producer Morris Levy called it just another “Donsi.” It wasn’t long until Donzi’s were synonymous with offshore racing, at which point Aronow sold that company and started up a new one called “Magnum Marine.” He did this a few more times with Cigarette Offshore, Apache Powerboats, Squadron XII, USA Racing Team, and even building boats for the US Customs Agents. All of these companies were on 188N Street, which has been nicknamed “Thunder Boat Row” and “Gasoline Alley”

On February 3rd, 1987, Don Aronow was shot and killed in his Mercedes while leaving Fort Apache, which was the name of the Apache Powerboats factory. The killer is still unknown to this day. There has been many theories about what happened, and only a few make enough sense to have happened.

[RedDog]

Good writing Hyper - keep up the good work! Although some of your references might make your teacher blush wink

[ToonaFish]

Great stuff, Tommy! You've clearly been doing quite a bit of research... I'd never heard many of these details of his life... thanks for the lesson!

Bunches,

Celene 'deadlines, deadlines, why do they call them deadlines?'

[HyperDonzi]

No deadlines...Extra Credit :) Longest research paper written this year was a 3 page double spaced paper...Im past that already. Amazing how when its intresting how its fun to do :D

Tommy

[Fish boy]

Tommy, sounds great so far; I am sure your teacher will be thrilled.

Did you happen to see the special on tv a few weeks ago? it had a pretty good short summary of his life that might be helpful (although I am sure some of the people who knew him well might argue with a few of the points made). :D :D

Good luck,
fish

[Marlin275]

In 1963, Formula Marine was started on North 188th Street in Sarasota Florida. Tommy it was Miami not Sarasota. :)

[DonzigoJR]

HyperDonzi, "Atleast it should be."
Great job. FYI-They have a book out there about Don. Not sure if you have it, but I know there is alot of great info. This may help with the paper. Great job so far....The info is awesome. Thank you. I'm sure that you will do very well with the paper. :D

David

[BUIZILLA]

Not 100% sure, but i'm 99.5% positive that Formula marine was started on N.E. 141st Street and Biscayne Blvd...

right out Poodle's back door actually wink

J

[Ranman]

Hyper,

Great article link there.

You have picked a good topic. There is tons of info on Don and you should be reading as many sources possible. There are lots of opinions out there. You will have to form your own somewhat.

I think it is pretty well documented as to who killed Don. I don't feel it is a mystery. Basically, Ben Kramer ordered the hit and his triggerman (name escapes me) carried it out.

I also don't think Don founded Apache per se, but designed and sold Ben Kramer and Apache their first hull.

[RPD]

Hyper... the 16 didn't get the name "sweet sixteen" until around 1990 or so... it was the "ski-sporter" in the 60's and 70's.... check the brochure section of the registry.

[TuxedoPk]

When's the deadline for the paper? I heard that the movie should be out in a year or two with Tom Cruise playing Don Aronow.

[HyperDonzi]

FishBoy, Yes I caught it, was great to watch!! Didnt write down anything, remember the basics of what they said.

Marlin275, Sarasota (looking for the pounding my head graemlin) Donzi is in Sarasota now right? Where did I get Sarasota??

DonzigoJR, We will have to have Scot change it sometime, and the book...I have been putting off buying it since August!! Now I have a good excuse...Ill have to see if I can find a deal on "The King Of Thunerboat Row" and "Speed Kills"

BUIZILLA, I will just go ahead and call them to be positive!!

Ranman, I gotta agree, I think it was Ben Kramer, Will have to search that name and see what comes up. Did you read that one thing on OSO, a long article scanned up? Was really good.

RPD, Thanks!! Will change it!

TuxedoPk, It will be before the end of this school year, sometime before mid June.
Cant wait to see the movie!!

Thanks for all the help!!
Tommy

[mattyboy]

Hyper you need to make this a field presentation, get a class trip going to the AOTHIII for extra credit wink :D
good work


Matt

[BUIZILLA]

Hyper, the last name of the triggerman is YOUNG, first name escapes me.. But, i'm 100% positive of the last name.

J

[Formula Jr]

Tom. You seen like a stand up guy. I'll send you "Thunder Boat Row and Heart of Glass. E-mail an address. I'll be wanting them back when you are done. Also, the Thunderboat Row History of the 16 is completely wrong. Not that that would matter for a grade. I would pay more atention to your sentence structures. Don't repeat words. And break up the cadence of the paragraphs. And if Teach is female, you will have to get rid of the "ugly" reference in the Bar Story. "Least attractive" is much better. :D

Extra points, if you can find grammer mistakes in this post. :D

[MOP]

Curious how many of the guys on the board actually knew him. No one will ever surpass his reputation. Being born in 40 I grew up in awe of him and his boats, I was in Daytona for a bike thing in the 60's and he showed up but I didn't get to see him. Keep up the good work Hyper!

[BillG]

Formula Jr
Grammar is spelled "GRAMMAR". Forget the points.

Bill G

[FASTEDDIE]

third word should be seem not seen.

[Ranman]

The "H" in "History" should be lower case.

atention = attention

"Structures" should be singular.

A sentence shouls never start with "And".

"be wanting" should simply be "want".

"Not that it would matter for a grade." is not a sentence.


Looking for the dangling participle...

[mattyboy]

"attention" not atention which you should pay more of!!!!!
Hyper,try to explore you literary license, instead of ugly use," she had a face like 20 miles of bad road in a rainstorm" or she had worked the business end of the ugly stick one too many times wink :D
throw around a couple of 25 cent words like
ismus ( ismus be my lucky day) eek! :D

Listen to me I'm prelaw or premed what's the difference
I also know alot about English, I did walk on that side of my high school one or 2 days a week on my way to the exit eek! wink
Tommy, you'll do fine just don't listen to me

[Surfer]

I always thought that "Donzi baby" was what Dons hot secratary called him. Hence the company name.

[Ranman]

King of Thunderboat Row says that "Donzi" came from Don's friends who were ribbing him about something. They tried to make his name more feminine and called him "Donsey" as a joke.

[boatnut]

I met Don in California at an offshore race we were in (75 ??)-- he had Cigarette going at the time and there was an early Cig 28 with a single BBC in the race, and Don spent an afternoon talking to all of us -- dynamic guy. My favorite Arronow story (shortened) was when he was still running his construction company in NY/New Jersey and he was low bidder on a big demolition job in Manhattan. Everyone else bid high as it took lots of permits and almost an act of congress to be able to move all the construction equipment across super busy New York City. Don's solution:
paint all the cats, trucks, cranes etc. olive drab green and camo -- dress all your employees in army surplus fatigues -- and drive across the city on Sunday morning (without any permits) like it was a National Guard exercise or something -- quite a guy.

[MOP]

YOU YOUNGINS BETTER WATCH IT MESSING WITH THE OLD DOG!

[Fish boy]

Hows the paper coming? Did you get the tape?

[HyperDonzi]

Yep, I got it, been meaning to thank you!!

It is slowly coming along a bit more, I ran into the problem of no spare time due to the boat being in the water now :D

[Moody Blu']

Actually, the name donzi came from Morris levy, the was head of roulette records in NYC, also a close friend. Well, morris had kidded with don about being cited from esquire magazine for having a "classy interior design". since esquire was a fancy shmancy magazine, being cited for a classy interior from the magazine wasnt the most macho of honors.

morris slidover to don onenight and said in a fairy type voice, " geez donnie, I guess we'll have to start calling you 'donsey.'"

thats EXACTLY how it was named :cool:

so you see the last laugh was on mossis levvy :D

[Mark Albers]

Donzi Aficionados wink

I never knew Don was into motorcycles

Any info on what he rode ???

Mark 311 :cool:
Sarasota - - - W F O
(close to the factory and far from a dream)

[Fish boy]

Tommy,
I understand not finding time to get stuff done when the boat is calling you.

Maybe you can use it in your paper. Try turning in a blank stack of paper, and when your teacher asks you about it, tell her/him that you got so far into your research that you wrote the paper from the perspective of Don Arronow. then point the the blank pages and tell your teacher that this how much work you could have gotten done with all those great boats and hot girls around all the time. wink :D :D :D :D