1947 A.P.B.A. Gold Cup
90 Mile Race Goes To Michigan Boat
Miss Peps V, With Foster in Cockpit, Annexes Trophy on 1,500 Point Total
Miss Great Lakes Next
Lombardo Loses Prize When Stabilizer Breaks, Oil Line Fails—400,000 See Test
By Clarence E. Lovejoy
In a gruelling 90-mile race on Jamaica Bay waters so rough yesterday afternoon that drivers suffered torturesome punishment and boats and engines cracked, split and fell apart, a smiling, curly-haired California bachelor and war hero. Danny Foster, became the 1947 winner of the fortieth Gold Cup classic in an amazing creation named Miss Peps V.
Its home port is the Detroit Yacht Club which means the famous old bauble that has cost millions for the usually annual challenges since 1904 will return to Michigan for next year's repetition after a one-year stay with Guy Lombardo, New York band leader of Freeport's South Shore Y. C.
After trailing Herbert Mendelson's Notre Dame, with an Oakland. Calif, chum, Dan Arena, driving in the first heat, Foster performed the well-nigh impossible by winning the second heat with a broken propeller blade that nearly thumped him out of his cockpit by vibration and romped home handily in the third 30-mile heat. A cracked hull didn't help him either. By this time only two out of twenty-three named entrants and seven actual starters were able to finish.
In point scoring which decides the trophy victor under Gold Cup rules. Foster in Miss Peps V piled up 1,500 against 750 for the runner-up, Albin Fallon, driving his own Miss Great Lakes.
Damage in First Heat
The popular Lombardo in Tempo VI, third with 427 points, broke his starboard stabilizer or sponson early in the first heat, a major damage that could not be repaired between heats. This slowed him to fifth place in this heat. As if this was not bad enough his oil line fouled in the second heat when he finished a slow second and then his oil pressure diminished to almost nothing in the last and after a couple of laps he bowed out to wind, weather and damage and pulled off the course.
According to conservative police department estimates at least 400,000 spectators ashore, afloat on yachts and zooming overhead from a variety of planes witnessed the afternoon's excitement of one downright rough water first heat bumpy but diminishing sea waves in the second and finally a smoother and nearly windless third. Gray, overcast skies blanketed out the sun and half-obscured one end of the three-mile elongated oval course from the other in a murky haze.
Speeds were slow as a consequence. The best lap was Foster's first circuit in the second heat at 61.37 miles and hour, as against Arena's 77.911 at Detroit last Labor Day. The best heat was Notre Dame’s 56.84 m.p.h. in winning the first as contrasted to Lombardo's record-setting 70.89 on 1946. Foster's two heat victories yesterday were at 55.96 m.p.h. and 56.25.
Notre Dame Goes Wet
Notre Dame, with the skillful Arena behind the wheel and his brother, Gene, riding alongside as mechanic, looked like the cup classic’s best performer in the opening heat and it was difficult for the throngs strung along several miles of shore frontage to grasp why such a craft made no appearance at the start of the second heat. The answer was a flooded supercharger.
This absence put Mendelson’s boat at an almost insurmountable handicap for the third heat. However, the Arena brothers tore out from the pits and for nine of the ten laps led the field, once opening up a half mile of wake ahead of Foster's Miss Peps V. With less than two miles to go, Notre Dame's 24-cylinder Deusenberg engine again sputtered unevenly and ominously. Neither coaxing, cajoling nor cussing could help. Arena was through for one year’s Gold Cup and he steered into the pits.
Smaller fry made brave early mileage efforts to trail along behind the favorites and even Dukie, driven by Howard Hughes, lasted two laps in the second heat. But there was far too much rough water for two others and they were forced to call it a day. These were Joe Van Blerck Jr.’s Aljo V and Henry M. Slocum’s Trudy, both representing the South Shore Y. C.
Foster will be a popular champion. The owners of Miss Peps V are three Detroit brothers. Walter, Roy and Russell Dossin. who plan to enter the cup craft in the Red Bank Sweepstakes next week, in the Detroit Labor Day Silver Cup regatta and in the President's Cup finale on the Potomac. Originally one of Lou Fageol’s Ventnor-built boats christened So Long, Miss Peps V was widened this summer and powered anew with an Allison airplane engine of twelve cylinders developing better than 1700 horse power. She is 23 feet long and has the unusual beam of ten feet, seven inches. Last month she won the Henry Ford Memorial Trophy at Detroit.
Foster has been a dare-devil most of his 29 years, although between regattas he is in a prosperous construction business with his father at Oakland. Calif.
Tired and weary last night, Foster thought Jamaica Bay one of the roughest courses he ever raced over and averred he kept his throttle only about one-fourth
Peps V can do 150 miles an hour on time-trial straightaways and even 150 miles “on paper." One of these fine days he promises to lift Sir Malcolm Campbell's world speed mark of 141 miles an hour.
Foster may do it. too. The Army Air Forces thought him quite a guy in the recent war and decorated him with the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with two clusters, and the ETO and the CBI theatre ribbons with a total of five battle stars. As a flight officer and eventually a second lieutenant, he flew in the ferry command and later over the "hump" between India and China.
(Reprinted from the New York Times, August 11, 1947)