1949 Silver Cup
Silver Cup Taken by Dodge's Craft
Cantrell Drives My Sweetie to two New Records -- Only 3 of 8 Running at End
Detroit, Sept. 5 [1949] (AP) -- Wild Bill Cantrell smashed two more speed-boat records with My Sweetie today to win the Silver Cup with virtually no competition.
Cantrell drove the Horace E. Dodge boat at an average speed of 81.,974 mph in the second and final heat of the race.
Of the eight boats that started today's 45-mile heat, only three were running at the finish. Only Jack Schafer's Such Crust, second-place winner in the first heat Saturday, gave Cantrell anything like a race and she was forced out by a broken oil line at the end of her eleventh time around the three-mile course.
Second place in today's heat went to D. Cameron Peck's Astraea II, entered from the Detroit Yacht Club, and third to Tom and Howard Hughes' Dukie, also of Detroit. these two boats were flagged off the course without finishing after all others had dropped out.
Cantrell was fifteen miles ahead of these two craft and alone in the race after Such Crust dropped out. His speed for the 45-mile heat topped the record he set Saturday at 77.639 mph. He also set a new three-mile lap mark when he sent My Sweetie roaring over the course at 85.200 mph in his ninth time around. He had set the record at 83.475 mph on Saturday.
The Canadian defender of the trophy, Miss Canada IV of Ingersoll, Ont., did not start today. She developed propeller trouble in Saturday's heat and was sent home for repairs.
(Associated Press, September 5, 1949)