1983 UIM World Championship
The Day Jerry Schoenith’s Miss Renault Became World Champion
By Steve Garey
It was a warm, sunny Sunday, October 2nd, 1983 in Houston, and eighteen hydroplanes sat on the shore of Clear Lake, near NASA headquarters, to run for the Union of International Motorboating’s World Championship.
The field was pared down to twelve starters with a series of races on Saturday - a rather unique format that saw the six fastest from Friday’s qualifying session seeded into Sunday’s race. All the rest had to run in a four heat event on Saturday to fill out the field with six more qualifiers.
Boats representing four nations entered, the bulk of the fleet from the U.S. Italy sent their outboard champion Renato Molinari with a specially-built, enlarged outboard with two Evinrudes on the transom.
From Australia came the Rolls-Merlin powered Miss Bayswater Bulk, a two-time winner of the E.C. Griffith Cup, symbol of boat racing supremacy Down Under. In Houston, the "Bulk” won the consolation race for non-qualifiers and was the alternate on Sunday.
France was represented by Jerry Schoenith’s U-3 Miss Renault-Elf, a Jon Staudacher wood hull powered by a turbocharged Allison engine.
When the smoke had cleared from the wild preliminary heats on Sunday, the final field comprised Chip Hanauer driving Fran Muncey’s Atlas Van Lines, Milner Irvin in Miss Renault, Jim Kropfeld in Miss Budweiser, Ron Armstrong in Chet’s Music Shop, Tom D’Eath in The Squire Shop, and Jack Schafer, Jr. in American Speedy Printing.
There was a huge collision going into the first turn as Ron Armstrong’s U-80 switched lanes, cutting off the Squire and slamming into the Atlas. D’Eath limped the Squire back to the pits as Hanauer’s boat stopped on the next lap with severe hull damage and began to take on water.
With Jim Kropfeld leading, Hanauer jumped into the lake to gain assistance for his sinking craft. The race was stopped and had to be restarted.
None of the three boats involved could continue, so George Johnson in Bill Wurster’s Executone got in along with Renato Molinari, and Jimbo McConnell in another outboard boat, the USA Racing, the former Aronow Unlimited powered by four Johnsons.
The Miss Budweiser appeared to be a shoo-in as the six boats poured over the line. After a lap. However, the Bud's Rolls-Griffon was running sour and Kropfeld pulled her off the course. This left the lead to Jack Schafer, but almost immediately, his Speedy Printing entry stalled, and Milner Irvin took over and won.
It was the first win for a Schoenith-owned boat in eleven years, and the only Unlimited win in Milner Irvin’s fourteen year career.
[Reprinted from Thunderboat, December 2009]