Mercury Marine Invitation to the Registry

[XfireZ51]

All,

Earlier I had posted pics of a ZR-1 currently owned and displayed by Mercury Marine at their Fond du Lac, WI HQ. They actually have a separate facility that is their museum and the ZR is on display there. I have been in touch
w Rick Mackie, Senior Marketing Manager for MMRacing. He just sent me an email
inviting us to visit their facility. How many of us would be interested in taking a group trip to MMR? Fond du Lac is about 160mi north of Chicago.


Here's the email Rick sent:


To: Djsorresso
Subject: Re: MM Racing 75th

Just found out the open house dates of June 21-22 are tentative - not in stone. So - we at Racing would still like to host your coming to tour our plant and then go through the museum. It would need to be a week day. I guess now you could come anytime. You could still come up on a week day for a tour of our facility. We have a group of Int'l Distributors coming through the week of June 9 and a media conference happening June 17-19. May is pretty open with the exception of Memorial Day and later that week, may 29-30 where I'll be gone. The unknown is the museum. Would you want to have a private visit? *It is closed Mondays and Tuesdays - not sure if we could get it opened just for your group on one of those days? Or - an after hour tour which would start at 5.

Let me know your thoughts.

Rick

Let me know your thoughts.
Rick Mackie
Mercury Racing
Senior Marketing Manager

[Paul Workman]

Thanks for the update, Dom.

[WARP TEN]

Sometime this summer I would be up for a trip to Mercury. In high school I spent a brief period as a Mercury Outboard mechanic and had a group of friends with some fast (for the time) boats. I had a 13' Boston Whaler with a 50 Merc on it--did about 40. Hot stuff in the late '60s! --Bob

[Mystic ZR-1]

13' Whalers w/50 Mercs and a good 2 blade on them were a fun ride but had a tendancy to
go over backwards! More airplane then boat...

[WARP TEN]

Originally Posted by Mystic ZR-1

13' Whalers w/50 Mercs and a good 2 blade on them were a fun ride but had a tendancy to
go over backwards! More airplane then boat...

Not to hijack, but.... I never flipped mine but I did crack the transoms at the corners in two. We used to jump them on large waves--got the bow about 8' out of the water and the stern about 4'. When it went back in there was a fair amount of torque on the transom. Since the boats were new on the market Whaler gave us new boats the first two times but said a third was on us. So I built and bolted up some "elephant" braces in the transom corners and never had the problem again. --Bob

[Mystic ZR-1]

Pretty sure the 13 Whalers were rated for only 40hp.
Wake jumping is fun! Used to (back in the 70s) jump the Block Island ferry boat wake
with my 16 Tahiti w/150XS Merc. The ferry threw out a 4 - 5 foot
wake, the Tahiti would really fly! The Merc sounded great screaming at 6k+
while it was in the air!!! That is until the ferry captain
turned me in to the Coast Guard... got off with a verbal warning.
Today they'd throw the book at you, not to mention I'm too old for that kinda thing now...

[WARP TEN]

Anything new on this Dom?? --Bob

[XfireZ51]

Originally Posted by WARP TEN

Anything new on this Dom?? --Bob

Bob,

Actually there is. Although the open house is not happening, the Registry is being invited up to MM for a private tour and get together w them. Here is the email from Rick Mackie. This is exciting! We really want to have some numbers for this. I would love to have 15-20 if we could do that. Anyone from Wisconsin, MN, or Michigan or anyone else who wants to come? Nice ride up from Chicago.



"We're open anytime in August. The manufacturing floor will still be on summer hours which means production goes until 4 pm Mon-Thurs and 10:30 a.m. Friday. If we planned this correctly - we could get the plant involved and have a mini car show with a BBQ lunch deal tied in with the tour. The museum visit could be prior or after the plant tour. I still haven't made the trek to the museum myself. I'll get to that soon and get you the VIN.

Rick


Rick Mackie
Mercury Racing
Senior Marketing Manager
920.924.2032
rmackie@mercmarine.com

[WARP TEN]

Originally Posted by XfireZ51

Bob,

Actually there is. Although the open house is not happening, the Registry is being invited up to MM for a private tour and get together w them. Here is the email from Rick Mackie. This is exciting! We really want to have some numbers for this. I would love to have 15-20 if we could do that. Anyone from Wisconsin, MN, or Michigan or anyone else who wants to come? Nice ride up from Chicago.



"We're open anytime in August. The manufacturing floor will still be on summer hours which means production goes until 4 pm Mon-Thurs and 10:30 a.m. Friday. If we planned this correctly - we could get the plant involved and have a mini car show with a BBQ lunch deal tied in with the tour. The museum visit could be prior or after the plant tour. I still haven't made the trek to the museum myself. I'll get to that soon and get you the VIN.

Rick


Rick Mackie
Mercury Racing
Senior Marketing Manager
920.924.2032
rmackie@mercmarine.com

That would be great. Looks like it needs to be during the week, which is fine with me but don't know about others. It would be nice to get others from neighboring states to come. Probably plenty of hotels available nearby that Mercury could recommend for any coming longer distances. I would enjoy seeing the factory. Keep us posted. -Bob