Scenes from the 2012 Dennis Holt Memorial Regatta

The Madison Regatta is fast approaching as events surrounding the Madison Regatta Festival are starting to begin around the community.  In terms of racing, the Dennis Holt Memorial Regatta for RC and model boats serves as a nice kickoff for Regatta week.  I made my way to Kruger Lake on Jefferson Proving Grounds today, although I didn't stay long due to other commitments and the fact that it was almost unbearably hot today and there wasn't much shade around the lake.  Anyway I was able to get a few nice pictures and here they are:

A replica of the early 1970's Notre Dame boat.  This boat competed in the 1/8th scale class

A replica of the Miss Timex, which of course was owned by famed Miss Madison Driver Jim McCormick.  This boat competed in the Thunderboat class, although it struggled to get up to speed.

The Whip Ass, and no there has never been an Unlimited to race under this name.  This particular class of RC boats actually uses weedeater engines

Another Thunderboat Class Boat.  The St. Pauli Girl.  There never has been an Unlimited to be sponsored by St. Pauli Girl, but I wish there would be, as it's one of my favorite beers

As can be seen on this pic, all RC boat races at this event were ran in a clockwise format. One interesting thing about RC boat is they don't have the same overlap rules as exist in the Unlimited class.  Coming off the first turn, boats will often bump each other or cross each other's path in order to grab the inside lane.  In this picture, you can see the boat swing wide in the turn then dive to the inside coming out of the turn, which I personally enjoyed seeing because it's a move I've done often in playing Mario Kart.

Some action from the RTR (Ready to Race) class.  This class is intended as a "beginner" class, as people can buy these boats online, and they will, as the name suggest, be ready to race the moment they are pulled out of the box.  One thing I found interesting is that the paint schemes of this class ranged from one solid color to boats that could almost pass as scale replicas of some Unlimiteds.  Although it is meant as a beginner class, many of the competitors also had boats entered in other classes of racing.

Some more RTR action

Tunnel boat action.  Much like their larger manned counterparts, Radio Controlled Tunnel Boats are smooth riders who are extremely quick through the turns.  The red boat was running away with this heat, but then blew over on the front stretch of the last lap

This is an interesting class of boats.  The Unlimited Hydroplane they most closely resemble is the failed Pay N Pak "outrigger" hydroplane.  The boats are very quick but also very volatile.  During this heat two boats saw their nose dig into the water and the boat turned over.

All in all, the local RC Boat Club put on another great show.  The crowd was a little down this year, but that is to be expected with how hot it was and perhaps because the NASCAR race at Kentucky Speedway (about an hour from Madison) was also this weekend.  I wasn't able  to get any pics of the 1/8th scale or Thunderboat classes, but they had some great races and the Thunderboat class saw a spectacular blowover with a boat getting a good seven feet off the water.  Thanks to the people who helped put this race on and also thanks to the participants of this event, who were more than glad to show off and answer questions about their hard work.  Regatta week is here!

Gold Cup For Sale: Remembering the years of the Gold Cup being hosted by the highest bidder

The more than a century long history of the APBA Gold Cup had three distinctive eras when it came to determining where the race was held: The early years when the race went to the yacht club where the previous year’s winner was registered, the middle years when the Gold Cup went to the city and race committee who placed the highest bid, and the modern era where the Gold Cup is contested at Detroit every year.  This article will concentrate on the middle era of Gold Cup racing.  The intention here is not to write a comprehensive history of the Gold Cup races during these years, but instead to discuss the procedure of bidding to host the Gold Cup and its overall effect on the sport.  The procedure no doubt had some positive effects.  The traditional race sites all got a chance to host the year’s biggest race on a number of occasions during this era.  This procedure was also indirectly responsible for the setting of what was arguably the most memorable moment in Unlimited Hydroplane racing for the twentieth century.  Overall, however, the process of hosting the Gold Cup going to the highest bidder largely had negative effects and having one set host for the Gold Cup is a better way to go.

                As the 1950’s progressed, the number of Unlimited owners steadily increased as more people with extra money to burn were ordering up thunderboats to be built and going racing.  This increased involvement in the sport, however, led the Internal Revenue Service to look into the sport’s expenditures to see if it truly qualified as a business investment.  The sport, which was still very much representative of its amateur roots, found itself needing to professionalize and modernize on many fronts and in a short amount of time.   The first and most obvious change was the creation of the Unlimited Racing Commission in 1957, which quite literally put the Unlimiteds in a class of their own and broke the sport away from the more amateur sportsman minded Inboard Racing Commission.  Other changes spoke to the more professional mindset of the newly formed URC, such as the new emphasis on prize money from race sites and sponsors for the race boats, both of which were exceptions in the past but were now becoming expectations.  The URC also brought emphasis on a true “national” tour.  In the past it was not uncommon for boats to not venture far from home for races and skip those races that took place farther away from their homeport (with the exception of the Gold Cup).  In fact, there was a couple times in which official Unlimited races took place in different cities on the same weekend.  Although it was still common for boats to skip some of the smaller races in the early years of the URC, as the 1960’s progressed it was expected that the major teams would be at all races on the schedule as the National High Point title supplanted the Gold Cup in terms of prestige.

                The formation of the URC in 1957 brought many changes Unlimited Hydroplane racing, but for the first few years the Gold Cup host was awarded by the old format of giving the Gold Cup to the winner’s “home” city continued.  That began to change in 1960.  The previous year’s winner was the Maverick who was registered with the Lake Mead Yacht Club outside of Las Vegas.  The affiliation, however, wasn’t worth much more than the proverbial paper it was written on.  Maverick was a Seattle based boat, built by Seattle based master boatbuilder Ted Jones.  Furthermore the Maverick was actually registered with the Seattle Yacht Club until 1957 when owner Bill Waggoner had a falling out with the SYC and transferred the Maverick’s registration to the Lake Mead Yacht Club.

 As if a boat owner bringing the year’s biggest race to his “home” race that actually wasn’t the home of the boat didn’t do enough to violate the spirit of the rules at the time, the 1960 Gold Cup race held in Las Vegas was a disaster.  Many questioned the ability of Lake Mead Cup Regatta to hold a major event.  There had been Unlimited races the previous two years on Lake Mead, but they were both sparsely attended and had low boat counts.  Weather was an issue at both previous events.  Furthermore, Chuck Hickling, who drove the Tempest in the event, openly questioned if the prize money for the event actually existed.  In Heat 1B Bill Cantrell flipped the Gale V and the heat was stopped.  The planned rerun, along with heat 1-C never happened due to high winds on the lake.  The next day was more of the same as high winds made it impossible to race on Lake Mead, and for the first time in its history the Gold Cup was declared a no contest (of course, this would happen again in 2008 when high winds on the Detroit River once again forced the organizers to declare no contest on the race).  The facetious manner in which the Lake Mead Yacht Club won the honor to hold the Gold Cup, along with the disappointment of having the year’s biggest event end in a no contest, led many within the sport to question the method of how the hosts were selected.  Therefore the decision was made that, starting in 1963, the host would be chosen by which ever race site bid the highest amount to hold the race for that year.  This was more in line with the more professional mindset that was taken with the URC, but it also brought an end to the era when hosting the Gold Cup was a matter of civic pride with communities rooting for hometown boats to win or defend  the right to host the next year’s race on its home waters.  So while the Seattle-Detroit rivalry would never be the same, the choosing of a Gold Cup venue became another sign of how hydroplane racing was becoming more of a professional endeavor.

From 1963-1968, the Gold Cup by and large continued its pattern of the previous decade of the race rotating between Seattle and Detroit.  That changed in 1969 when San Diego won the right to host.  San Diego was once again the host in 1970, but that also was the first race to show the blemishes of the still relatively new method of choosing a Gold Cup host.  The race was marred by the tragic accident that resulted in the loss of life of Tommy “Tucker” Fults, and the bad feelings of the loss, along with the financial difficulties that came from hosting two straight Gold Cups and all the added financial burdens that came from that, led to the San Diego racing organization to be dissolved.  It would be another three years before San Diego would rejoin the schedule.  It wouldn’t be the first time that a race committee would meet its demise due to the financial difficulties of hosting the Gold Cup.  Owensboro hosted the Gold Cup in 1978 in a race that saw Bill Muncey dominate an extremely outclassed field of only six boats in the Atlas Van Lines.  The event gathered attention initially with a $110,000 prize package (which was the largest in the sport up to that time) but with the race being largely an exhibition for Bill Muncey and the Owensboro race committee unable to make ends meet after offering such a large purse, Owensboro was off the Unlimited schedule for 1979 and the popular event would not return.  Similarly, the 1985 Gold Cup was scheduled to be held in Houston when its organizing committee bid $175,000 after hosting several successful UIM World Championship races in the early 1980’s, but the organization went bankrupt and Houston lost not only the right to hold the Gold Cup but lost its race before the 1985 season ever took place.  Houston would likewise be off the schedule and wouldn’t return with the exception of a one off event in 1989.  As can be seen, over time the financial burden of hosting the Gold Cup proved to be too much for many race committees.  While it could be said that the committees should have known better than to overstep their financial bounds, in truth the “carrot” of hosting the Gold Cup was too big for many of these committees to resist.

That is not to say that the rule didn’t have its positive effects as well.  First, the method of the rights to host the Gold Cup going to the highest bidder was at least indirectly responsible for what was arguably the most memorable moment in Unlimited Hydroplane racing in the 20^th century.  The race in Madison, Indiana was a regular event on the Unlimited Schedule since 1954 but probably wasn’t seen as a “major” event and could even be viewed as little more than a leftover from the sport’s pre-URC days when a number of small towns across the country held events that would draw a few Unlimiteds from time to time.  Then in 1971 the Madison Regatta committee put forth a bid of $30,000 to host the Gold Cup, much smaller than what was usually needed to host the Gold Cup and was little more than a “courtesy bit” by the Regatta committee.  The only catch: due to a misunderstanding in the rules Madison’s smaller than usual bid was the only one submitted to the APBA headquarters on time and Madison was the host of the Gold Cup.   Never before had such a small community hosted powerboat racing’s largest event.  This, of course, set the stage for the Miss Madison to win the Gold Cup on its home waters and became an immediate part of boat racing lore and, of course, led to the making of a motion picture many years later.  It has been argued that the one thing that has kept the Madison Regatta and the Miss Madison team going for so many years were the fond memories of this day.  This was especially prevalent when both the Miss Madison and Madison Regatta went through some leaner years in the late 1990’s.  While the Jim McCormick and the Miss Madison certainly deserves most of the credit for this amazing moment, a confusion of rules and a smaller than usual bid provided the setting for it.

Another positive effect of the Gold Cup going to the highest bidder, it could be argued that the race had an adverse effect for Tri-Cities in comparison to San Diego, Owensboro, and Houston.  Tri-Cities, Washington had been hosting an Unlimited race since 1966 and quickly became a popular event due to its location in the Pacific Northwest (which had at that point more than established itself as the hotbed of Unlimited Hydroplane racing) and the fact that the wide Columbia river provided a natural venue for the large fast boats.  Already on solid footing, the race joined the “big leagues” when it won the rights to host the Gold Cup.  The committee then hosted the UIM World Championship in 1974 and the Gold Cup again in 1975.  The three successive financially successful major events meant that Tri-Cities had a place as one of the most popular and financially solvent races on the circuit, a place that it still enjoys to this day.

As the 1980’s progressed the high bids for the Gold Cup begin to dry up.  Although the sport was enjoying a bit of a rebirth in popularity thanks to expanded media coverage, higher boat counts, and new technology such as the turbine powered engine, the right of hosting the Gold Cup didn’t take the role of civic pride that it held in previous decades.  There are a few explanations for this.  First, it is possible that after seeing the demise of the Owensboro and Houston races after putting forth huge Gold Cup bids that race committees were obviously timid about bidding such exorbitant amount that in truth had little effect in attendance for their events.  Another possible explanation is that the expanded media coverage might have actually led to less interest in hosting the Gold Cup.  During the 1960’s and 1970’s the one Unlimited race every year that was guaranteed to be on national television every year was the Gold Cup, usually broadcast a couple weeks after the event on tape delay on ABC’s Wide World of Sports or CBS’s Sports Spectacular programs.  In the early 1980’s, however, ESPN began broadcasting all of the races of the season on tape delay.  Suddenly, a race site didn’t need to hold the biggest event of the year to be on national television, it just needed to be on the schedule.  Into the late 1980’s there were more than a few whispers that Detroit was in fact bidding the highest amount to host the Gold Cup every year and the APBA was allowing other sites to hold the race as little more than an act of courtesy.

It was in this climate that the APBA and URC once again chose to review the manner in which it chose a Gold Cup host.  After some discussion, the decision was made to sell the rights of hosting the Gold Cup to the Spirit of Detroit, making it the permanent host of the Gold Cup.  Starting in 1990 the Gold Cup would have a permanent home for the first time in its history.  Having the Gold Cup at a permanent site has proven to be a boon for the event.  First, it was no secret that winning in Detroit had extra meaning for the Unlimited owners and drivers whether it was hosting the Gold Cup or not.  Chip Hanauer famously called the Detroit River course the “Yankee Stadium of hydroplane racing” and other teams would often talk about how much it meant to win in Detroit.  It also drew the biggest crowds on the tour year in and year out and, although it has probably since ceded this claim to Seattle (official attendance numbers are never really released for any event), Detroit can still claim a crowd in the six figures.  Also, in the grand scope of things, having the Gold Cup at a set site simply makes more sense.   Unlimited Hydroplane racing is often compared to other motorsports and one thing that most major motorsports hold their biggest event at the same place every season.  Formula 1 has Monte Carlo, IndyCar has Indianapolis, NASCAR has Daytona, and Unlimited Hydroplane racing has Detroit.  That isn’t to say there haven’t been issues.  The Detroit race has had its own financial issues over the years, most notably was in 2003 when the sponsoring Spirit of Detroit Association went bankrupt as the season approached and a last minute deal was put in place with a new organizing committee (known as the Detroit River Regatta Association) in place and the race was held in late August as opposed to its usual early July date.  In the end, however, the Gold Cup has largely went off without hitch and the DRRA has done a fine job of assuring that the race is a key part of not only the Unlimited Hydroplane schedule abut also holds a place as a marquee event within the Detroit committee.

It has now been over two decades since a city other than Detroit has hosted the Gold Cup.  Effectively, a generation of fans has grown up knowing only of the race taking place in the Motor City.  While the decades in which the right to host the Gold Cup went to the highest bidder certainly had some memorable and great moments, the financial burden of bidding for then hosting the race proved to be too much for many race committees as evidence by the loss of three races, one temporarily and two permanently (at least as of 2012).  In the end, having the Gold Cup at one set location is better for the sport as a whole, as it has left much of the worries surrounding the event in the past and in my opinion has made the Gold Cup an even more prestigious event.  After all, the most important and historic race of the year certainly belongs on the most important and historic venue for Unlimited Hydroplane racing.

The Return to Coeur d'Alene

Diamonds truly are forever, they just get put on a shelf for a few decades sometimes.

News broke this past week that there are plans for a five boat exhibition in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for this coming Labor Day weekend, with the hopes of having a full race starting in 2013.  This will be the first time the Unlimiteds will race on Coeur d'Alene Lake since 1968 and is certainly welcome news for longtime fans of the sport, especially in the Pacific Northwest.  Coeur d'Alene held its initial run of Unlimited races from 1958-1968, and became memorable to fans as a race that represented a certain era of racing and the boats, drivers, and personalities therein.  Coeur d'Alene was to the 1960's what Owensboro was to the 1970's and Honolulu was to the 1990's in that the race site was popular with fans and people within the sport for a decade, but for differing reasons the stability of the race site began to unravel and was taken off the schedule.   A nice recap of the first run of Diamond Cup races by Bob Senior appears on Leslie Field's website (I can't make a link to the story on here for whatever reason, but go to http://lesliefield.com/default_frame.htm and put "Diamonds Aren't Forever" in the search to read the story).
 Nostalgia no doubt has played a big role  in the organizers' pushing for a return of the Diamond Cup, this is especially true when one considers that the same committee has recently organized vintage exhibitions on Coeur d'Alene Lake.  Because of this, the exhibition and hopefully the future race in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho will have a lot of nostalgia and will almost have the feel of a vintage race of its own although it will obviously feature modern boats.  If the race does take place, the Diamond Cup race could also represent a nice balance to the international expansion.  For me, the fact that the sport is growing globally is great, but so is the fact that the sport hasn't abandoned its roots in places like Madison, Tri-Cities, and hopefully Coeur d'Alene.  As Sam Cole noted in the press conference announcing the return of the Diamond Cup, hydroplane racing has its roots in the Pacific Northwest, so hopefully this race will show the sport is staying true to its roots as it continues to grow.
As with anything that comes to Unlimited Hydroplane racing however, I'm approaching this news with cautious optimism.  It isn't any secret that exhibitions or promises of races have come up dry when it is time to have an actual race.  Just last year exhibitions were held in Sacramento and Washington, DC with promises of a full race in 2012 and neither of those came to fruition (although there is a chance that both could be on the schedule for 2013) and the Houston race site seems to be all but abandoned.  Still, the Coeur d'Alene site seems to be built on a strong foundation and it's good that American locales are once again showing interest in bringing the Unlimiteds to their city.  Here's to hoping that Coeur d'Alene Lake will once again become a regular stop for the Unlimited Hydroplane tour.

As a sidebar, Thunder The Bridge celebrated its one year anniversary last week.  I would like to thank everyone for their positive feedback when it comes to this blog.  This is literally something that I just decided to start one day and it has taken off in ways I couldn't have imagined.  So thanks to all of you for reading this and making the first year of the blog so fulfilling.  In the next couple weeks I'll be writing a few more pieces in relation to the upcoming season along with a full season preview as we get closer to the start of the season.  Stay tuned.

Fred and Al: Remembering two of the good guys

Unlimited Hydroplane Racing's most valuable asset has always been its people, and the sport lost two of its most valuable assets this week.  The sad news broke this week of the passing of hydroplane "lifers" Fred Leland and Al Thoreson.  These two great men have been eulogized on numerous hydroplane websites so that is not my intention here.  I also won't be writing a comprehensive history of their involvement in the sport, as I have covered that in large part in previous posts on  (see the archives) and once again that has been done on other websites.  For more information on the lives and careers on Thoreson and Leland I would recommend reading Fred Farley's fine writeups that have recently been posted on the H1 Unlimited website.  Instead I would like to offer a few thoughts and personal memories of these two great figures in hydroplane racing.

A term that is thrown around way too much in coverage of sports is calling a person or team a "throwback."  It is usually meant to perpetuate an image, real or perceived, that a person or persons is a gritty hardworker that reminds people of a previous era that presumably had similar gritty hard workers.  Although it is a tired out phrase, Fred Leland truly was a throwback.  Not because he was a gritty hard worker (although he was without a doubt one of the hardest working men in the sport over the last four decades) but also because of what he represented.  Leland's involvement in the sport hearkened back to an earlier era when a number of owners would show up with boats they built themselves in the backyard operating with a few (usually volunteer) crew members and a shoestring budget.  Fred Leland was, for many years, such an owner and his Miss Rock hydroplanes even developed something of a cult following in the Washington races, as they were almost always at the back of the pack but the crowd would give an ovation just at the event of the boat finishing a heat.  That all began to change in 1992 when Leland switched to turbine power and join the national tour then  in 1994 he got strong financial backing for the first time in his career.  It was with this partnership with Pico that Leland was able to show his abilities as a master boatbuilder and innovator within the sport.  Fred Leland unveiling a new hull became almost an annual event for much of the 90's, and a couple years he even would take the unheard of step in the modern era and debut two boats in the same year.  Although he lost Pico's backing after the 1999 season Leland continued his tireless involvement in the sport, continuing to run a national tour although a limited budget meant that success was often hard to come by.  I had the chance to meed Fred Leland once.  It was a chance meeting one year at the Madison Regatta (I can't remember the year) when I was walking past the RV section on my way to Broadway one night after the music on the waterfront and saw him getting into his SUV.  Although he clearly had places to be, he still talked with me for a few minutes.  Needless to say, I probably learned more in that three minute conversation about hydroplane racing than I had in reading a number articles on the sport and it upheld everything I had everything I had ever heard about Fred Leland: a very smart but very approachable man who truly loved hydroplane racing.

Speaking of the previous era of shoestring budget owners that Fred Leland hearkened back to, one of those owners was Al Thoreson.  After being a crew member and crew chief on a number of smaller Allison powered teams for the better part of four decades, Thoreson became his own owner, launching the U-7 Thor Racing team.  The team raced under a number of names during their involvement in the sport, most notably Jackpot Food Marts, Paddock Pools, and the Miss Sundek.  Thoreson's small budget team used an outdated hull (the former Squire Shop hull that is noted for carrying Chip Hanauer to his first couple of Unlimited race wins) powered by an Allison that also held the distinction of being one of the last open cockpit hulls to compete in the Unlimited class, not installing a canopy until the rules required it at the beginning of the 1989 season.  As if the outdated Allison craft wasn't already at enough at a disadvantage, the fact that it raced in the era in which the turbine powered boats raced with no fuel restrictions or N2 restrictions meant the boat was relegated to back of the pack for nearly the entirety of the team's existence.  Seeing the boat getting lapped by its turbine competitors was a common site during much of the late 1980's and early 1990's.  Despite its reputation as a tailender, I always liked the U-7 team.  This team was getting its start at the same time that I was coming of an age that I could watch the sport with some knowledge of what was going on so the Paddock Pools held a place, along  with boats like the Mr. Pringles, Miller American, and Holset Miss Madison as some of the first boats that I remember.  That and the fact that the boat always seemed to be in last place made me cheer for the boat even more, and yell "give him a chance!' at times.  The team hung around until 1992, in the process becoming one of the last piston powered teams to run alongside the U-3 in the Unlimited class.  Although I never met Al Thoreson in person, in later years I have found Jerry Hopp to be one of the friendliest people involved in the sport.  So all of this meant that the Al Thoreson's U-7 Thor Racing will hold a special place in my memory of hydroplane racing.

So Unlimited Hydroplane racing has lost two of its most respected owners this week.  Whether it was Leland, who was an owner for parts of four decades with seventeen wins, a very memorable championship season in 1996, and countless innovations, or Thoreson, whose career as an owner was brief and met with little success, both of these men represent a commitment to the sport that has been present throughout the history of hydroplane racing.  And on a personal level, I would like to thank both of them for being part of a number of great memories I have had in following the sport.  Godspeed Fred and Al.

Swapping Paint: Other Memorable Sponsorship Shifts Through the Years

As I'm sure anyone reading this has heard, USA Racing Partners has announced their return to Unlimited racing for the 2012 season,  This is, of course, welcome news for anyone involved in the sport, as the Gregory family has consistently been on of the most competitive and respected teams since they joined the Unlimiteds in 1998.  After a three year hiatus, the Gregory family is returning largely thanks to the support of Degree Men, who chose to transfer their sponsorship support from Schumacher Racing to USA Racing Partners for the upcoming season.  While this will no doubt be a point of confusion for more casual followers of the sport (as well as a possible point of rivalry between the two camps) having the Gregories back in the Unlimited pits is no doubt a welcome site.  For this post, I've decided to look at some other shifts of sponsors throughout the years.  These shifts have taken multiple forms, and have had a duration as short as one heat and as long as two decades.  I don't intend this to be a comprehensive list of every change of sponsors in Unlimited Hydroplane history, but instead a look at a handful of these shifts that have stuck out to me.

As the 1950's progressed and corporate sponsorship became more of the norm in Unlimited Hydroplane racing, a Washington based oil company decided to jump into the sport.  Ole Bardahl, who had already sponsored a number of successful Indycar teams, decided to sponsor Norm Christiansen's Tempest entry for 1957.  The Christiansen entry was driven by Norm Evans and only entered three western races on the season, including the Seattle Gold Cup where it finished twelfth.  Despite these modest beginnings, Ole Bardahl decided to drastically increase his involvement in the sport for 1958.  Ole Bardahl started his own team and ordered a hull from Ted Jones' boat shop.  The new Miss Bardahl, which would hold the distinction of being the first boat built by Ron Jones, would win three races in 1958 en route to winning the High Point championship on the year.  One of the most successful dynasties in Unlimited history was launched.  The Ole Bardahl owned Miss Bardahl entry would go on to win six High Point championships and five Gold Cups in the twelve years that Ole Bardahl was involved as an owner.

As the Miss Bardahl dynasty was drawing to a close, Atlas Van Lines was beginning to dip its toes in the water as an Unlimited Hydroplane sponsor.  Largely due to the efforts of O.H. Frisbie, Norman Manson's U-22 entry (the former Maverick hull) would wear the Atlas Van Lanes colors for the 1967 season.  The Atlas board was pleased with the positive press that came with its support but looking for a stronger team to back, Frisbie and Atlas Van Lines chose to shift their support to Bob Fendler's team, but once again the team only had modest success, its peak being two second place finishes over three years of competition.  After four years, two teams, and no first place finishes, Atlas Van Lines was once again looking for another team to back when a bit of fate happened.  Stephen Garey's "Bill Muncey: Boat Racing Legend" tells the story of O.H. Frisbie looking out the window of his Detroit apartment when he heard and saw a boat testing on the Detroit River.  The boat was Lee Schoenith's Gale Enterprises boat, who was without a sponsor for the upcoming 1971 season.  After a meeting between Schoenith, Frisbie, and driver Bill Muncey, a sponsorship deal was struck and the Atlas Van Lines colors were on its third team in five years.  The new sponsorship paid almost immediate dividends, as Atlas Van Lines got its long awaited victory in the second race of the season in Washington, DC.  Muncey followed that with a victory in Owensboro, then in 1972 the Gale/Atlas Van Lines team had what was arguably the most successful season in Unlimited Hydroplane history, winning six of seven races on the season and finishing second in the one race they didn't win.  Atlas Van Lines would make one more sponsorship shift, following Bill Muncey when he started his own team in 1976.  The relationship would continue after Muncey's death in 1981 when Fran Muncey continued the team until Atlas made the decision to end its sponsorship in 1984.  After coming to Bill Muncey looking for a win, Atlas Van Lines left the sport with six High Point Championships and as one of the most recognizable sponsors in the sport of Unlimited racing.

While the Atlas Van Lines-Bill Muncey relationship was probably the longest and most fruitful arrangement that came from a sponsorship shift, what was probably the shortest shift happened at the 1988 Gold Cup in Evansville.  In Heat 3B, the Miss Budweiser flipped and was unable to compete in the Final.  The Gold Cup was a Budweiser sponsored event that year, there was a desire to have a Budweiser boat on the water for the Final.  Rich Sutphen, owner of the unsponsored Sutphen Spirit (the former Pay N Pak turbine hull) volunteered to carry the Budweiser name.  Officially racing as "Sutphen-Miss Budweiser" and with some hastily applied Budweiser decals, the team did its new sponsor proud, as Mike Hanson drove the boat to a second place finish in the Gold Cup.  The arrangement became a footnote in history but was thrown back into the limelight after the 2009 Evansville race.  When Ellstrom racing chose to "rent" the U-17 Our Gang Racing boat after their own boat flipped in the first heat, the 1988 arrangement between Sutphen and the Budweiser team was incorrectly pointed to by many sources as another example of a team using another boat already in competition after the race had already began when, in fact, the Sutphen-Miss Budweiser was merely a way to ensure that there would be a Budweiser-sponsored boat on the water for the Final Heat of the Budweiser APBA Gold Cup.

Speaking of Ellstrom Racing, they were involved in their own sponsorship shift in the 1990's.  In 1994, Ellstrom Manufacturing made the decision to sponsor one of the strangest boats to ever roll into the Unlimited pits.  The Glen Davis owned entry was an odd "four point" design that was driven by Ken Dryden that raced as Miss E-Lam Plus.  The boat failed to qualify at Tri-Cities, then in Seattle the boat was involved in one of the scariest accidents in Unlimited history as the boat got loose, went into the air higher than anyone could remember in any of the blowover accidents through the years, then slammed back into the water rightside up.  The project was abandoned and the boat was taken to the junkyard.

Undeterred, Ellstrom Manufacturing decided to start its own team in 1995.  Still racing as Miss E-Lam Plus, the Ellstrom family was not only the owner of their sponsored boat but the team took a rare step for a new team and built their own boat.  The team was exclusively a west coast entry for the first few years, but after winning at Tri-Cities in 2000, the team made the decision to build a new boat in 2001 (winning two more races along the way) then raced the full schedule starting in 2002. 

2006 saw yet another "sponsor becomes owner" arrangement, and this time it was a curious case of history repeating itself.  In 2005, Ted Porter lent his support of Formulaboats.com to Chad Sanderson's small scale entry on the season.  The next year, Porter followed the precedent set by Ole Bardahl nearly a half century before and went from sponsoring a small team to starting his own team on a large scale, buying both of the hulls of the recently retired Miss Budweiser team.  Much like Ole Bardahl, the team found immediate success, winning the championship on the first season.

Degree Men is only in its second full season of being an Unlimited sponsor, but ironically its first go round in the sport resulted in a sponsorship shift.  The 2010 San Diego race was put together thanks to a last minute arrangement and the support of the Air National Guard and Degree Men.  As part of the deal, there were to be boats wearing the Air Guard and Degree Men colors on the water.  The choice was made for the Ted Porter owned U-7 boat to race as the Air Guard and the Billy Schumacher owned U-37 entry to be the Degree Men.  The only catch was that both of these boats already had sponsors on the season.  Therefore, their sponsors went to other boats for the San Diego race.  Therefore, the U-7's sponsor of Graham Trucking went to its teammate on the U-5, who raced as the Graham Trucking presents Formulaboats.com for San Diego.  Meanwhile the U-37's sponsor of Peters & May was transferred to Ken Muskatel's U-25  for the race.  Ironically, both of these boats would wind up being sponsored by their "one race" arrangements in 2010 for the whole of 2011.  Graham Trucking's sponsorship was shifted to the U-5 for 2011 as teammate U-7 was sponsored by Valken, and after J.W. Myers and Scott Raney left the U-37 team and bought Ken Muskatel's boat, the Peters & May sponsorship backed the new U-11 team. 

So as can be seen, the shift of Degree Men to another team is nothing new in Unlimited racing.  There has been at least one in every decade since the 1950's.  One I left off was the Oh Boy! Oberto, who sponsored a number of different teams from the 1970's to the 1990's and then sponsored the Miss Madison team starting in 2000 after a hiatus from the sport.  Sponsors are always looking to get the most "bang for their buck" so to speak, so if they feel that can come from supporting another team then naturally they will look to support that team.  So while the Degree Men shift will be a point of confusion and controversy for some, it should not be forgotten that the sport is better because of support of such sponsors.  Here's to hoping that Degree Men's support will continue for years to come.

The "Winged Wonder" flies again

News has broken recently that Ken Muskatel has purchased the former Pay N Pak "Winged Wonder" hydroplane with the intention of restoring it for the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum.  This is, no doubt, a fitting home for one of the most successful and innovative boats in the history of the sport.   In fact, with its record of four championships and twenty two race wins, the 1973-25 hull holds the distinction of being the most successful piston powered boat in the history of Unlimited Hydroplane racing.

On a more personal level, however, this boat holds the distinction of one of the first hydroplanes I have a personal recollection of.  To give away my age, I don't remember the boat's glory days of the 1970's because I hadn't been born.  As many readers of this blog will know, I grew up in Madison and make no secret of the fact that I am a fan of the Miss Madison team.  Because of this, the old Pay N Pak boat is effectively the first boat I was able to get up close and personal with, as it was the Miss Madison boat during the time I was growing up.  Therefore this post is going to be part history of the hull and part personal recollection with my main focus being on the boat's later years.

The story of the Winged Wonder began its life on the draftboards of master boatbuilder Ron Jones.  The number of innovations involved with this boat are numerous.  Although there had been a couple of Unlimited Hydroplanes that had sported the pickle fork design  since the 1960's, this boat represented the first true breakthrough for the design that would soon become the norm in hydroplane racing.  Seemingly overnight, the spoon nosed design was obsolete. It was also the first boat to use aluminum honeycomb as a primary building material, which made the boat much lighter than its competitors.  Most apparent, however, was its use of a horizontal stabilizer which immediately set the boat apart from everything else in the pits and gave the boat a decided advantage, especially in the turns.  Perhaps never before or never since has a boat represented such a separation from what was the conventional accepted design in the Unlimited class at the time, and went on to be an unheralded success.

This success came almost immediately.  When a new boat is built any team can expect a period of time to "work out the bugs" so to speak and hold judgment on the boat's success until the hull is dialed in.  As a sign of things to come, however, the "Winged Wonder" bucked this trend and won its very first race out of the box.  With Mickey Remund at the wheel the Pay N Pak won all three heats at the 1973 season opener in Miami, but then would face stiff competition the rest of the season from Dean Chenoweth and the Miss Budweiser.  At the end of the season, the Pay N Pak would win four races and edge the Miss Budweiser by less than 300 points to win the championship.

  In 1974, the Pay N Pak took five of eight races with George Henley at the wheel and ended the season with a considerable lead over second place Miss Budweiser in the High Points.  Things didn't come as easy in 1975.  Jim McCormick was named the new driver of the Pay N Pak, but after he struggled in the season's first two races owner Dave Heerensperger coaxed former driver George Henley out of retirement to take over driving duties.

George Henley in the cockpit of the Pay N Pak

 The bad luck didn't stop there, however, as the boat turned over at Owensboro and the boat didn't score any points.  Four races into the season, the Pay N Pak found itself with no race wins and was well behind the Miss Budweiser and Weisfield's in the High Point standings.  The season would turn after crew chief Jim Lucero returned the boat to the setup used in previous seasons and the team returned to its winning ways.  Winning five of the season's final six races of the season with victories in Madison, Dayton, the Gold Cup in Tri-Cities, Seattle, and San Diego, the Pay N Pak completed one of the most dramatic comebacks in Unlimited Hydroplane history and captured the championship.

A Pennzoil print ad that ran in the mid-1970's featuring the Pay N Pak

1976 would bring more changes as Bill Muncey bought out Dave Heerensperger's team and the Winged Wonder got a new paint job and a new home.  Now racing as the Atlas Van Lines, the boat picked up where it left off and won five of nine races on the year, including a string of four straight first place finishes, on its way to the High Point championship.  After four years of racing, the Winged Wonder's spot in history had been solidified.  Its twenty one first place trophies made the boat the winningest hull in the history of the sport at that point.  It was also the only hull to win four consecutive High Point championships up to that point.  Although that feat would later be eclipsed by the T-3 then the T-5 and T-6 Miss Budweiser hulls, it should be noted that these hulls always won their titles in a "tandem" with the other hulls on the team whereas the Winged Wonder won all of its titles on its own.  In only four seasons, the 1973-25 had made its mark on the sport for years to come.


In 1977, a new Jim Lucero designed hull became the primary hull for Bill Muncey's racing team and the Winged Wonder found itself on the sidelines for the majority of the season.  The boat's only appearances for that season came in the Washington races, wearing the old Pay N Pak colors.  With inexperienced driver Ron Armstrong at the wheel and working with a limited crew, the Pay N Pak's appearance at the Gold Cup in Tri-Cities and the Seafair trophy in Seattle were expected to be little more than a cameo for the Winged Wonder.  In Heat 1A of the Gold Cup, however, the old Winged Wonder hull showed it was still a force, winning the heat going away.  Then in Heat 2-C the Pay N Pak once again found itself going head to head with the Miss Budweiser for three laps until it's day ended with a violent hook that damaged the hull's left sponson.  The following week at Seattle, Armstrong and the Pay N Pak won Heat 2A but then failed to finish the Final Heat on a day that was overshadowed by a tragic accident in Heat 1A involving the Squire Shop that ended the life of Jerry Bangs.

1978 saw another change of address for the Winged Wonder.  The Miss Madison team was in desperate need of upgrading their equipment so the decision was made to acquire the 1973-25.  The Miss Madison's previous hull, known as the Miss Madison III or 1972-06, was only a year older than the Winged Wonder but might as well have been built in a different era.  The third Miss Madison boat was never the same after an accident saw the boat sink to the bottom of the Detroit River of the 1972 Gold Cup.  The team spent the rest of the season in the garage repairing the badly damaged hull, then the next season the Winged Wonder debuted and the Miss Madison team found itself racing with a suddenly obsolete hull.  Indeed, the Miss Madison III would turn out to be the last hull to be built with the old spoon nosed design built for racing in the Unlimited class (although a few other spoon nosed replicas of hydroplanes have been built for the intention of vintage exhibitions).  Although I have never seen anything official in terms of the sale price, multiple sources have claimed that Bill Muncey effectively donated the boat to the Miss Madison team and sold the boat for $1.  No doubt this was an act of goodwill on the part of Muncey but it would be hard to claim that Muncey would miss the old hull.  In a bit of irony, the Miss Madison team was buying the hull that had made its previous hull obsolete, but that boat had itself been rendered obsolete by Bill Muncey's cabover "Blue Blaster" hydroplane, so once again the Miss Madison team would find itself racing with a boat that was certainly an upgrade over its previous hull but still dated in terms of Unlimited racing.  A new team also brought the most dramatic changes to the boat in its history, as the hull was refitted to be powered by an Allison powered engine as opposed to the Rolls Royce Merlin engine which the boat had been powered by up to that point.  With its new less powerful engine and the fact that the boat was now becoming dated as more and more cabovers were showing up in the pits, it is sometimes easy to forget about the old Winged Wonder's time with the Miss Madison team.  As is often the case in Unlimited Hydroplane racing, however, the hull had a long career long after it was at the front of the pack.  It should not be forgotten that of the sixteen years that the 1973-25 boat was in the pits and racing, for eleven of those years the boat was carrying the Seal of the City of Madison, Indiana.

1978 will always be remembered as a season in which Bill Muncey dominated the field in a fully dialed in Atlas Van Lines hydroplane.  The tone was set in the season's first race when the Atlas Van Lines was not only the winner but also the only starter of the Final Heat.  Muncey would win six of the season's seven races, his only loss coming due to a blown engine in the Final Heat at Tri-Cities.  So despite being overshadowed on that season the Miss Madison still turned in a decent season, with a second place in the Gold Cup in Owensboro with Madison native Jon Peddie at the wheel and a second place in Tri-Cities with Milner Irvin at the wheel en route to a fourth place finish in the High Point standings.

1979 saw the Miss Madison team race a partial schedule, not making any appearances after finishing sixth at the Gold Cup race in Madison.  In 1980 the team once again raced a full national schedule and,  after struggling through the season's eastern tour, turned heads with a string of four straight podium finishes that was highlighted by a second place finish in the only Unlimited race to take place in Ogallala, Nebraska.  1981 was another banner year for the Winged Wonder and the Miss Madison.  Despite no wins and only one second place finish in Evansville, the Miss Madison was a consistent finisher all season long, finishing on the podium in  seven of nine races and finishing second in the High Point standings.  In 1982 Tom Sheehy took over driving duties after Milner Irvin left racing for a year but the team continued its consistent ways, finishing second in Romulus, New York (ironically finishing behind the Pay N Pak, which was back in the sport after a hiatus and in the process becoming the first team to win with turbine power) and in Madison (the team's highest finish in its hometown race since that fateful day in 1971) en route to a fourth place High Point finish.

Ten years after its debut, the Winged Wonder had gone from the undisputed leader of the pack to a consistent if not spectacular racer on the Unlimited tour.  By 1983 it was no secret that the best days were well behind the hull, but the boat was still making its mark as a solid performer for the Miss Madison team.  In an era when the shelf life for many hydroplanes didn't exceed more than six or seven years, the Winged Wonder was finishing on the podium years after its initial construction.  As if to show the boat wasn't completely obsolete, the Winged Wonder scored what was undoubtedly its most unlikely and arguably its most memorable victory in the 1983 season opener at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.  At the Final Heat, Jim Kropfeld in the Miss Budweiser and Chip Hanauer in the Atlas Van Lines were so preoccupied with one another that the Bud blew its engine and the Atlas got off to an awful start.  Ron Snyder, driving the Miss Madison (sponsored by Rich Plan) wired a perfect start and led the race from the onset.  The Atlas Van Lines gave chase but succumbed to a blown engine of its own, giving the Rich Plan a clear path to victory.  A decade after its debut, the Winged Wonder had scored its twenty third and most unlikely victory.  It was also a race that solidified Ron Snyder's well earned reputation as a driver who was able to get the most out of underpowered equipment.  As for the rest of 1983, the Rich Plan finished second in Detroit and finished an overall fourth in the High Point standings.

1984 saw another name change as the Miss Madison team secured the sponsorship of American Speedy Printing for the duration of the season.  The season started well for the team with a third place finish in Miami and a third in Syracuse and the season ended well with a second place finish at the World Championship race in Houston.  The rest of the season, however, was an exercise in frustration that saw the team finish no higher than fifth and included a four race stretch where the boat failed to score point in three races and could only muster a twelfth place finish in the other race.  As a result of the dramatic mid-season swoon, the team finished seventh in the High Points and, for the only time in its history, found itself looking up in the standings at another Madison based boat.  Jim Sedam's U-22 finished fourth in the High Points in its debut season.  In 1985 the Miss Madison opened the season with back to back runner up finishes at Miami and Syracuse and closed the season with a third place in San Diego but was befelled by another midseason swoon (although not as dramatic as the season before) that relegated the team to a sixth place finish in the High Points, although it did earn the distinction of driver Andy Coker capturing the Rookie of the Year honors for that season.  Miss Madison opened 1986 with another second place finish, and continue the season as a consistent performer.  Driver Ron Snyder returned, but then was involved in an accident that saw him being thrown from the boat in Evansville.  Despite the accident, Snyder and the Miss Madison closed the season out with a third place finish at the season finale in Las Vegas and finished the season fourth in the High Points.

Holset returned as sponsor for 1987 and the Winged Wonder continued its consistent ways.  It was also about this time that I, as a resident of Madison, became aware of the hydroplanes.  As I am sure is the case with many hydroplane fans, I inherited much of my fandom from my dad.  At least once a year we would stop by the Miss Madison shop, where the crew has always welcomed visitors even to this day.  Because of this, the 1973-25/Winged Wonder/Miss Madison IV was the first boat that I ever saw up close, even sitting in the cockpit at one point.  The Holset Miss Madison turned in another solid season, although it scored only one podium finish, a third place in the Madison race that was cut short by the horrific accident involving the Cellular One that ended the driving career of Steve Reynolds. It was also announced during the season that the Miss Madison team would be debuting a new hull for 1988, so the 1987 season was meant to be something of a "farewell tour" for the historic craft.  For the final race of the year, the team even entered the hull as the "Holset Mrs. Madison" to signify that this would be the final race for the hull.  The Mrs. Madison finished fourth at the season finale in Las Vegas and its consistent performance throughout the season meant the team would finish third in the overall High Point standings.

The Race that was supposed to be the Winged Wonder's "farewell" race.  Note that the boat is referred to as the Holset Mrs. Madison

Despite having what was supposed to be its "farewell" race at the season finale in 1987, construction delays to the new boat meant that the Winged Wonder would be pulled out of the garage for one final curtain call.  Once again Ron Snyder and the team got more than seemingly possible out of the now ancient hull by scoring a surprise second place finish in Miami.  After a fourth place finish in Detroit, the boat failed to make the cut for the Final Heat for the remainder of the Eastern tour.  The 1973-25, once the most advanced boat in hydroplane racing, now looked more like a museum piece.  The boat was the last conventional hull to race in the Unlimited class, and was one of the last boats to not have a canopy.  Despite the boat being terribly antiquated in comparison to its competitors in 1988, designer Ron Jones and others who had been involved in the Winged Wonder throughout the years had to take pride in the fact that many of the innovations that this boat represented, including the horizontal stabilizer and the pickle fork design, had now become commonplace in the sport.  The old hull had its last race at the 1988 Syracuse race, where the team failed to score any points.  Despite its underwhelming finale, the boat no doubt had made its mark on hydroplane racing as a whole.  After all, at the time of its retirement the boat still held the record for most race victories by a hull (that record would later be broken by the T-3 Miss Budweiser).  The new Miss Madison hull was ready in time for the Tri-Cities race and at long last, the Winged Wonder was retired.

Over the next few years the 1973-25 would largely do display work around Madison, then sometime in the early 1990's the boat was sold to Dave Bartush who was at the time building up a collection of hydroplanes and keeping them in a warehouse in Detroit.  It sat in the warehouse for the better part of twenty years, still in the Miss Madison colors.  Then earlier this year new begin to leak that Bartush was looking to sell off some of his collection, which is where the Ken Muskatel and the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum comes in.  With that the Winged Wonder now awaits restoration into its original form.  Although I have to admit I'll be kind of sad to see the Miss Madison paint come off the hull it's fitting that the boat will wear the colors that it made such a huge splash and broke so many records in the early 1970's.  Also, since H.A.R.M. makes a concerted effort to keep all of its boats in racing condition, the possibility of seeing the Pay N Pak "Winged Wonder" on the water again is certainly exciting.  So while the boat won its championships and made its history years before, for a generation of fans around Madison this was the first hull that many of us saw and will always hold a place in our hearts.

All images taken from the web.  Thanks to Leslie Field's website, Jim Sharkey's "Hydro's Who's Who," and Fred Farley's articles on Ron Jones and Jim Lucero for the information that was used in this post.

The Last Days of the Gold Cuppers

Whenever there’s a major breakthrough in innovation in Unlimited Hydroplane racing, there are always those teams who are slow to adapt to the change.  More often than not, these slow adapters are small budget teams forced to race with outdated equipment and meet with little or no success on the water.  With this in mind, it comes as a surprise that this trend did not begin with the introduction of Allison and Rolls Royce Merlin engine powered modern hydroplanes into hydroplane racing, not right away at least.  The Gold Cuppers built years before the Unlimiteds that were on the water at the same time, more than held their own against the Unlimiteds at the time.  Although major race wins such as the Gold Cup often went to modern Unlimited Hydroplanes during this era, a boat with a “G” designation was always there and won at least one race every year but one between 1946 and 1955.

                On paper, the Unlimited Class was officially born in 1946 when the cubic inch piston limitation, along with most restrictions on the length, width, and weight of a boat, were abandoned in order to take advantage of the newly available aircraft engines from fighter planes used during World War II.  Despite the new unrestrictive rules, however, there was not a wealth of new boats using the new power sources right away.  In fact, only two boats in the 1946 Gold Cup used these modern power sources: the Miss Windsor, a Merlin powered craft that was unable to start a heat in the race, and the Miss Great Lakes, an Allison powered craft which made a strong showing for the Allison’s debut in powerboat racing.  For the first two heats, the Miss Great Lakes finished second behind the Tempo VI, then in the third heat the Great Lakes jumped out to a big lead before blowing its engine and allowing the Tempo VI to win the heat en route to a Gold Cup victory.  The Tempo VI was a boat that was definitely a representative of the sport’s pre-World War II era.  The boat was actually the former “My Sin” which had previously won the 1940 and 1941 Gold Cup races but was renamed Tempo VI after being bought by famed bandleader and inboard racing veteran Guy Lombardo.  Despite the new name and owner, the Tempo kept the same setup as it had while racing as the My Sin along with its Miller engine.  So while the Miss Great Lakes grabbed headlines with its record breaking speeds on that first national race after the end of World War II, the winner on the day was a pre-War relic and a sign that the Gold Cuppers could hold their own against modern engines.

Guy Lombardo driving the Tempo VI to victory in the 1946 Gold Cup.  Photo taken from the web

                1947 saw the birth of the national tour, although Hydroplane racing was still very much a regional sport and would continue to be so for the next decade or so.  Once again, however, much of the attention and most of the trophies were grabbed by a pre-World War II boat.  The Dossin-owned entry, built in 1939 and ran previously as the So Long, underwent a major conversion previous to 1947.  The boat was converted to Allison power and changed its name to Miss Peps V.   The new name represented something else new in hydroplane racing at that time: sponsorship.  The boat became something of a representation of the transitions happening around hydroplane racing at the time, the boat being a Gold Cupper that converted to a modern power source and taking advantage of the new rules put in place for the Unlimited Class.  Carrying the Pepsi colors, the Miss Peps V won five of the seven races it entered that year, including the Gold Cup at Jamaica Bay.  Other races that year were won by the Tempo VI and the Notre Dame, meaning that seven of the nine official Unlimited races were won by pre-World War II Gold Cuppers that year.  Despite this, it should be noted that most of the boats carrying “G” designations were taking advantage of the rules of the Unlimited class and were using Allison or Merlin powerplants, so they weren’t pure “Gold Cuppers” as was understood in the pre-World War II era.  The following years would see more of these boats carrying “G” designations while using modern powerplants find more success in Unlimited Hydroplane racing.

                1948 saw the first boats to officially carry the “U” designation into Unlimited hydroplane competition.  It also was the beginning of a string of years that were unique at the top level of hydroplane racing.  From 1948 through 1953, separate championships were awarded for the Gold Cup class and the Unlimited class although they competed at races simultaneously, much in the same way that separate offshore classes will often be on the water at the same time at races in the modern era.  Three Unlimiteds (along with one pre-World War II boat carrying a U designation, the Hi Barbaree) made their debut in 1948, but only one managed to score any points that year.  The Jack Schafer owned U-1 Such Crust finished second and won the first major race for the newly-christened U-Boats, capturing the 1948 President’s Cup to go along with a second place finish in the Gold Cup that year.  The year, however, belonged to the Gold Cuppers once again.  Compared to the lone points scorer for the Unlimiteds, a fleet of twelve Gold Cuppers scored points in at least one race in 1948, including Allison powered Miss Great Lakes winning the Gold Cup after just falling short the previous two years.  This would prove to be the last Gold Cup win for a "Gold Cupper" hydroplane.  The G-13 Tempo VI won the Detroit Memorial regatta en route the overall National Championship for the season. 

A Monel Metal advertisement featuring the 1948 Gold Cup Champion the G-4 Miss Great Lakes.  Photo taken from the web.

1949 once again saw the “split” format used in awarding a Gold Cupper class champion and an Unlimited class champion, but after only one season the tide had definitely turned in favor of Unlimiteds.  Compared to the previous year when only one Unlimited managed to score championship points, ten Unlimited Hydroplanes scored points in 1949.  Most dominant among the Unlimiteds was the My Sweetie.  Piloted by the legendary Bill Cantrell, the My Sweetie won the APBA Gold Cup and five other races en route to the National Championship.  As for the Gold Cuppers, the field had dwindled to six point scorers after a string of strong seasons.  The G-boats still made their presence felt, however.  The G-60 Lahala, a New Jersey based Allison powered boat driven by Harry Lynn, won the New Jersey Governor’s Cup and the Cambridge Gold Cup, the latter being the second time the Lahala captured the race in a venue better known for rowing regattas.  Once again, however, Guy Lombardo’s Tempo VI was the class of the Gold Cupper field.  The eleven year old hull won in Baltimore and was a consistent finisher throughout the season to capture the national championship.

The G-13 Tempo VI, shown here many years later after it was preserved by H.A.R.M.  Photo taken from the web

1950 signaled the beginning of the end on a number of levels for the Gold Cuppers.  Only four G-Boats competed this year, with three of those four scoring any points.  Furthermore, this year saw the debut of the revolutionary propriding Slo-Mo-Shun IV designed by Ted Jones.  The impact this hull had on hydroplane racing cannot be overstated and has been covered by a number of hydroplane writers through the years, but for the purposes of this article the focus should be on how quickly the craft made every hydroplane built before it obsolete.  In scoring a dominant victory at the 1950 Gold Cup (which was still the only true national race at that point), the Slo-Mo-Shun IV deemed even Unlimiteds built a year or two before as obsolete, so it was no secret that the tail dragging pre-World War II hydroplanes’ days were numbered.  Despite the changing times, the Tempo VI once again had a solid season.  Guy Lombardo’s entry won four races on the year, including the National Sweepstakes Regatta and the Red Bank Gold Cup (both in Red Bank, New Jersey), the Buffalo Launch Club Regatta, and a repeat win at the Star Spangled Banner race in Baltimore.  The Canadian-American’s Freeport, New York based entry would continue to be one of the most prominent boats on East Coast races for the following years.

1951 saw an increase in Gold Cupper entries compared to previous years.  One of the best performances of the year by a G-Boat was turned in by Bill Cantrell driving Horace Dodge’s Hornet entry at the Seattle APBA Gold Cup.  The former “Why Worry” finished second in two heats and finished an overall second on the day, finishing second in the first two heats to the Slo-Mo-Shun V.  The Hornet went dead in the water during the third and final heat, but that heat was stopped after the tragic accident involving the Quicksilver which resulted in the loss of life to driver Orth Mathiot and riding mechanic Tom Whitaker, another Gold Cup boat which made its debut in 1951 but was built in a style that was more representative of the pre-World War II era.  The Hornet would go on to finish third in the President’s Cup race and finish third overall in the National High Points as well as the championship for the Gold Cup Class.  The only race won by a Gold Cupper that year was once again Guy Lombardo in the Tempo VI at the National Sweepstakes Regatta in Red Bank.

Two generations of hydroplane design competing side by side.  The G-31 Hornet is in the background and the U-37 Slo-Mo-Shun V is in the foreground.  Photo taken from the web.

Four Gold Cuppers scored points in 1952.  The Such Crust IV, a new boat from the Jack Schafer camp, won the Steel Cup in Pittsburgh with Bill Cantrell at the wheel.  At the APBA Gold Cup in Seattle, the G-2 Hurricane IV finished second in the first heat and failed to finish the last two heats, but that was good enough for an overall third in one of the strangest Gold Cup races in history that saw only one boat (overall winner Slo-Mo-Shun IV) finish the last two heats.    The Dee Jay V, a Ventor style hull on again off again competitor since its 1950 debut, had an adventurous day at the Imperial Gold Cup in New Martinsville, West Virginia.  In the first heat the G-66 Dee Jay V drove to an easy victory over the 7-litre Mercury driven by Oliver Elam after the Miss Pepsi went dead in the water.  In the second heat, the Dee Jay V caught fire but amazingly driver (and boat designer) Norman Lauterbach continued to drive a few laps until finally being flagged off the course by boat owner Daniel Murphy.  Despite being outscored by the 7-litre hydro Mercury, the Dee Jay V was awarded the “win” as account of being the only Unlimited class boat to score points on the day.  The race would prove to be the last for the colorful boat.  The G-31 Hornet-Such Crust, driven by Lou Faegol, finished first in the first heat en route to an overall second at the Detroit Silver Cup and finished all three heats in fourth place to place fourth overall at the President’s Cup Regatta in Washington, DC.  Despite these being the only two races the Hornet-Crust boat entered, it proved to be enough to capture the Gold Cup Class championship for the boat in 1952.  Of course, this was indicative of how hydroplane racing was conducted at the time.  Consider that overall High Point champion Miss Pepsi only entered five of the twelve races in 1952.

1953 saw the Gold Cuppers take home three more first place trophies.  The G-8 Short Snorter, a boat that made its debut in 1939 driven by Stan Dollar, entered only two races on the season but made them count.  First the boat won the Lake Tahoe Regatta then won the Mapes Mile High Gold Cup, also held on Lake Tahoe.  The Tempo VI returned to competition and was once again a winner in Red Bank, capturing the Red Bank Gold Cup.  The G-22 Such Crust III, another Jack Schafer entry driven by Chuck Thompson, was the only G-Boat to enter the Gold Cup that year and finished an overall third.  The Such Crust III went on to finish second in the Silver Cup in Detroit and the President’s Cup in Washington, DC to win the Gold Cup class championship.  This would prove to be the third straight year when the Gold Cupper championship was won by a boat that did not win a race on the year (despite the fact that multiple races were won by other G-Boats all three of those years), and it would also be the last year that the APBA would award a separate championship for the Gold Cup class.  With the Unlimited sport inching toward becoming a more professional endeavor and the loss of their championship; it was only a matter of time before the Gold Cuppers, more representative of the amateur past of the sport, would be a thing of the past.  Despite the slowly dwindling number of G-Boats, a few entries would soldier on for the next few years.

The G-8 Short Snorter en route to victory in the 1953 Mapes Mile High Gold Cup.  Photo taken from the web.

Seventeen boats scored points in 1954, but only two of those boats carried the old “G” designation.   The Short Snorter once again entered the two Lake Tahoe races, but this time had to settle for second and third place finishes.  Also competing in the Mapes-Mile High Gold Cup was the Hurricane IV, who finished second in the only race it qualified for that year.  For the first time in post-World War II racing, no Gold Cupper boat won a top level hydroplane race and no Gold Cupper competed in the APBA Gold Cup.

After the cancellation of the Gold Cup class championship in 1953 and the G-Boats failed to make much of a showing in 1954, it perhaps looked as if the Gold Cuppers were dead.  In 1955, however a new G-Boat debuted and had perhaps the best season ever by a Gold Cupper in the modern era.  Not surprisingly, it was the owner and the team that was the most successful G-Boat over the past decade.  Guy Lombardo came out of semi-retirement in 1955 and debuted a new hull, the G-13 Tempo VII.  The boat was still built within the pre-World War II specifications to qualify as a “G” boat although it did use Allison power.  After an inauspicious beginning where the boat only entered two of the season’s first five races, one of which was the Gold Cup race in Detroit where the boat failed to finish a heat and saw driver Danny Foster suffer injuries, the boat went on one of the most memorable streaks of the 1950’s.  Danny Foster returned to the cockpit and went on a tear where the boat won five consecutive races it entered: The Copper Cup in Molson, Montana, the Silver Cup in Detroit, the President’s Cup in Washington, DC, and the Governor’s Cup in Madison which would give the Tempo VII the distinction of winning the most races in 1955.  The President’s Cup Regatta, then considered second in prestige only to the Gold Cup, saw the Tempo VII make an incredible come from behind victory.  Going into the Final Heat the Tempo VII was fourth in points and 231 points behind the Miss Pepsi that had won its previous two heats.  In the third and final heat, however, everything went the Tempo’s way as the Miss Pepsi went dead in the water and the Tempo VII went on to victory and the right to meet President Dwight Eisenhower.  After winning in Elizabeth City, the Tempo VII won the Governor’s Cup in Madison, which at that time was in only its second year as a National Unlimited Hydroplane tour race but became a representation of the changing times: this would prove to be the last victory in the Unlimited Class for a boat carrying a “G” designation.  Despite the Tempo’s incredible run, its late start probably prevented any chance of the boat capturing the National High Point championship for 1955 and Lombardo, Foster, and the Tempo VII team had to settle for second in the High Points behind the U-55 Gale V.  It should be noted however, that the Tempo VII finished ahead of the Gale V on a routine basis in 1955 and the Gale V entered and finished on the podium in all five races that the Tempo VII won.  Despite its late start, Lombardo’s Tempo VII was definitely the boat to beat in 1955. 

Almost to prove that the Tempo VII’s success wasn’t a fluke, another Gold Cupper, the G-22 Such Crust III also had a stellar season in 1955 and won the St. Clair International Boundary race.

Unfortunately, neither the Tempo VII nor the Such Crust III was able to repeat their success in 1956.  The Tempo VII entered the season opening Maple Leaf Trophy race in Windsor, Ontario, but sustained damage and was unable to start a heat.  The only other race it entered was the season’s penultimate race: the Governor’s Cup in Madison where the boat finished fourth.  The Such Crust III found itself plagued with mechanical difficulties throughout the season and saw its best finish as a third place (in a field of four) at the St. Clair International Boundary race.  The hydroplane racing world around them was also changing.  By 1956, many of the top flight teams were converting from Allison engines to the more powerful Rolls Royce Merlin engines and within a few years it became no secret that a team would need a Merlin engine if it expected any type of long term success (although a handful of teams used Allison power throughout the thunderboat era of Unlimited racing).  The Gold Cup boats, already considered by many to be too small to carry an Allison engine, was way too small to handle the horsepower of the Merlin and an already dying design option became completely obsolete.  Also, the sport was becoming more professional with the formation of the Unlimited Racing Commission in 1957.  The Gold Cuppers, more representative of the sport’s amateur days of being an expensive and adventurous hobby for those who had the means and the will to throw a lot of money around, found themselves as a square peg in the round hull of the newly professionalized Unlimited sport.  So when the Unlimited Racing Commission had its first season in 1957, the Gold Cuppers were left in the past.  A decade after the new relaxed rules and the creation of the Unlimited class planned their obsolescence, the Gold Cuppers were finally no more.  It should be noted, however, that the two remaining G-Boats did compete for a few more years as U-Boats.  The Such Crust III continued for three years under the same name as the U-60 and the Tempo VII was sold, the name changed to the U-99 Miss Detroit, and had a couple of stellar seasons topped off by a 1960 President’s Cup victory.

After 1956, the G designation was no more in the Unlimited Class.  Every now and then over the last few decades there is talk of recreating the “G” Class as a step down from the Unlimiteds on the hydroplane ladder or perhaps as a substitute for the Unlimiteds by some ambitious souls.  Most notably, during the back and forth between the two competing Unlimited sanctioning bodies in 2004, both the Hydro-Prop and the Unlimited Lights (who had sanctioned the “outlaw” Unlimited races that year) leadership claimed to have tentative plans of creating a G Class.  Currently there are a handful of boats carrying this designation, but they are a few and the sanctioning North American Challenge Cup Series has never really gotten off the ground.  It has been more than a half a century now since the last time a G-boat competed alongside the Unlimiteds, and really their story has never been told.  It was not uncommon for over twenty Unlimiteds to compete over the course of the season in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, so the loss of a couple boats built to obsolete specifications was hardly remised during this era.  The accomplishments of the boats owned by Guy Lombardo, Jack Schafer, and the other G-Boats, however, show that even when facing the new innovative boats these smaller hulls could still compete and grab its share of victories.

My thanks to Jim Sharkey’s “Hydros Who’s Who,” Leslie Field’s Hydroplane History website, and various articles by Fred Farley available through the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum for the information provided for this post.