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Madison
Regatta has persevered
through good and hard times
City
to celebrate a milestone
with this year’s race event
Staff
Report
|
2010
Madison Friday,
July 2: Saturday,
July 3: Sunday,
July 4: |
(July 2010) – For 60 years, the City of Madison,
Ind., has played host to the Indiana Governor’s Cup race for
Unlimited hydroplanes. First contested in 1951, the cup will be sponsored
in 2010 by Lucas Oil.
Madison is steeped in a competitive tradition that dates back to the 1800s
when steamboats raced each other on the legendary Ohio.
Boats with internal combustion engines began racing at Madison as early
as 1911. That was when the steamship “Princess” from Coney Island
tied up in the middle of the river. Power launches ran an oval course
roughly around the boat. This was one of the earliest examples of competition
as it is characterized today around a closed course.
A series of races sanctioned by the now-defunct Mississippi Valley Power
Boat Association was conducted at Madison between 1929 and 1936. But then
a disastrous flood in 1937 and the onset of World War II brought down
the curtain on power boat racing in southern Indiana for many years to
come.
Between 1951 and 1953, the Indiana Governor’s Cup was offered to
boats in the 7-Litre and above classes.
Two boats of that description appeared in 1951: the Unlimited Class Gale
II, driven by Lee Schoenith, and the 725-Cubic Inch Class It’s A
Wonder, handled by George Davis. Due to the sparseness of the field, boats
from the smaller classes were invited by the race committee to “step-up”
to race for the Governor’s Cup. These included the Hornet, a 225-Cubic
Inch Class hull, owned and driven by Marion Cooper of Louisville, Ky.
The race consisted of a single heat of 15 miles on three-mile course.
Hornet ultimately won the race at 65.886 mph when the larger boats experienced
mechanical difficulties.
|
2010
Madison Regatta •
Saturday, June 26: Little Miss Pageant (ages 5-8). noon at
the Madison Consolidated High School Auditorium. |
The victorious Cooper would, in later years, achieve fame
as the original pilot for the community-owned Miss Madison Unlimited hydroplane.
Beginning in 1954, the Governor’s Cup became an exclusive
Unlimited affair. This was also the first year in which a multi-heat format
was used.
“Wild Bill” Cantrell won the 1954 race with Joe Schoenith’s
Allison-powered Gale IV. Cantrell won the Final Heat at 91.556 mph in
spite of a large hole in the port sponson.
The first heat to be timed at more than 100 mph in Ohio River history
was recorded in Heat 1 of the 1955 Governor’s Cup. Danny Foster did
the honors with bandleader Guy Lombardo’s Tempo VII at a speed of
102.079 mph.
Record speeds and a record entry list highlighted the 1957 classic, which
saw Jack Regas score a sensational victory over eight other contenders
with Edgar Kaiser’s “Pink Lady” Hawaii Kai III with a three-heat,
45-mile average of 106.061 mph.
The Rolls-Royce Merlin-powered “Pink Lady” was arguably
the best race boat of the 1950s and was the epitome of the all-conquering
Ted Jones design.
The 1958 and 1959 races were lean years, both in the number of participating
boats and in the area of regatta finances.
When one less than the minimum number of four entries was received in
1958, industrialist Samuel F. DuPont came to the city’s rescue with
his new and unprepared Nitrogen from Wilmington, Dela. With assistance
from other boat crews, the DuPont craft did more than just start the race.
It finished in second-place behind Don Wilson in Miss U.S. I and
scored a victory in the Final Heat with Bob Hayward driving.
Two years later, DuPont would make an outright gift of the Nitrogen to
the City of Madison. This is the boat that became the original community-owned
Miss Madison in 1961.
Two months prior to the 1960 Indiana Governor’s Cup, the Madison
Regatta was badly in debt. A $5,000 bank loan, more than 20 local groups,
and more than 150 individual members all figured in the organizational
retrenchment.
The 1960 Indiana Governor’s Cup was run as scheduled – and
so were the next half-century of Governor’s Cups at
Madison – in a tradition that continues to the present day.
• Fred Farley is the H1 Unlimited Historian and a resident of Milton, Ky. Email him at fredf@hotmail.com.
Regatta
& Raceboat
Museum