1951 Silver Cup
Detroit River, Detroit, MI, September 1 & 3, 1951


Those Who 'Listened In' Learned All About the Silver Cup, etc.
By Harry LeDuc

bullet Those Who "Listened In" Learned All About the Silver Cup, etc.
bullet Miss Pepsi Wins Silver Cup
bullet Statistics

DETROIT -- Clyde Fox, who knows the ancestry of everybody in all the classes of powerboat racing, had a good audience Labor Day -- large crowds on the Detroit and Belle Isle shores and at the Detroit Yacht Club.

Clyde Fox's was the voice on the public address system.

Clyde did a top job of reporting everything that happened.

He went into raptures when Chuck Thompson drove Miss Pepsi to five firsts in the 60-mile race to win the Silver Cup. He hailed its fastest speed of 98.084 miles an hour on the second lap of the first heat and its first-heat average of 96.474 mph that also won it the Lt. James J. Meehan Trophy.

Fox took his listeners through all the details of the unlimited class race. He thrilled them to the start of the first heat and extolled young Lee Schoenith for winning the start in Gale II, with Peps second, Danny Foster in Such Crust third, Andy Marcy in My Darling fourth and Warren Kade in Delphine X fifth.

When Pepsi, Gale and Such Crust high-tailed it down the Detroit shore on the second lap, announcer Fox screamed: "What a picture!"

When Such Crust's water jacket gasket blew out on the fourth lap, Clyde communicated his regret to the crowd, and he obviously felt badly when My Darling sprung a leak on the last lap.

He was ecstatic when Schoenith put Gale II across first again in the second heat, though it was only a two-boat race by that time, and Peps quickly took the lead and won hands down.

Public addresser Fox was hopeful when Horace Dodge's Hornet and seven-liter boats entered the third, fourth and fifth heats -- to make a race of it. He and the crowd on the DYC's main dock shared a thrill when, in the last heat, Pepsi blew by the seven-liter craft, Wild Catter, with Burnett G. Bartley, Pittsburgh, driving so fast Bartley lost his helmet and narrowly escaped capsizing.

Announcer Fox followed the Silver Cup race right through the blowing of sirens that marked the end of the regatta, through and into the winner's circle, when Walter Dossin became the Silver Cup's recipient in the presence of Mrs. Horace E. Dodge, Commodore Murray Knapp, Florence Sisman, Jack Schafer, the Schoeniths and a host of other VIPs; all while the cameras clicked. There was only one note of regret and Fox announced that, too. Roy Dossin, co-owner of Miss Pepsi, was at home, threatened with pneumonia and with a fever of 104 (he was reported improved today).

(Reprinted from the Detroit News, September 4, 1951)

Final Standings
1 U-99 Miss Pepsi (2)
2   Wildcatter [7-liter]
3 U-10 Delphine X
4 U-51 Gale II
5 G-31 Hornet (3)
6 G-99 Such Crust I
DNF   Tomyann [7-liter]
DNF U-16 My Darling
DNC U-50 Gale
DNC G-10 Guided Missile
DNC CA-9 Miss Supertest

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