1953 Mapes Mile High Gold Cup
Two Major Speedboat Regattas Set for Lake Tahoe This Year
Gold Cup for Hydroplanes; Runabouts Compete, Too
At least two regattas will be held at Lake Tahoe in 1953, according to Fred Main, president of the Lake Tahoe chamber of commerce and commodore of the Lake Tahoe Boat club. There will be a Lake Tahoe Gold Cup race for hydroplanes, either before or after the Seattle race, which will offer the richest cash prizes in speedboat racing to the contestants. Of course, in connection with the Gold Cup race there will be the runabout races, which, according to Fred Main, will have the richest purses In the nation.
In the future, Morlen Visel, one of the nation’s top designers and drivers of speedboats, will fly the colors of the Lake Tahoe Yacht club. He Is moving to a ranch in Carson Valley, which will be his future home. Formerly a resident of southern California, Visel has been flying the colors of the Lido Island Yacht club.
He will have a boat in the Gold Cup at Seattle.
It Is expected that Stanley Dollar and Bill Stead, both from the Tahoe club, will enter the Gold Cup races at Seattle and if one of them is the winner, he could designate Lake Tahoe as the scene of the 1954 national Gold Cup race. The race was held in Detroit for 14 years, and for the last three years has been held in Seattle. Three hundred thousand spectators lined the course of last year's race, and Lake Tahoe is expected to draw at least 75,000 in 1953 with the possibility of securing the national championship race in 1954.
Just how big the 1953 Lake Tahoe gold cup race will be will-depend on the ability of the Tahoe Chamber of Commerce and the Lake Tahoe Yacht Club to meet the requirements of the association that sponsors the national race. It is certain that it will be the richest hydroplane race in 1953, for the gold cup and the money prizes already are assured.
Fred Main is working to see if all of the requirements for laying out the course, policing It, providing the deep sea divers, the ambulances, and the timing facilities can be secured for 1953. If all this can be taken care of, the 1953 race will attract the greatest array of hydroplanes ever gathered in one race.
With Stanley Dollar, Henry Kaiser, Morlen Vlsel and Bill Stead flying the colors of the Lake Tahoe Club, that club has four of the national leaders in speed-boat racing under the banner of the club, and this fact alone will be of great assistance in securing for Lake Tahoe some of the fastest racing boats in the world, and possibly the national Gold Cup race.
Talking from Laguna Beach where he is wintering, Fred Main, president of the Tahoe Chamber of Commerce, said that it already had been assured that the Lake Tahoe regattas in 1953 would attract more and faster boats and a larger crowd than ever, before in the history of racing at the lake.
--- Nevada State Journal, February 27, 1953