July 9, 1973. MADISON, Ind. (AP) - “Mr. Cold” has struck again, only now he’s also becoming known as “The Winged Wonder.”
Mickey Remund, the driver of the Pride of Pay ‘N Pak unlimited hydroplane, is the one collecting nicknames, but they don’t concern him. He just drives the boat and wins a lot.
Sunday, he won all three of his heats in the 26th Madison Regatta. The performance was good for a perfect 1,200 points, keeping him on top of the American Power Boat Association standings. He also set three course records and took home the 22nd Indiana Governor’s Cup.
The victory also won his team $4,725 of the total $25,000 purse.
The “Mr. Cold” moniker comes to the 34-year-old Palm Desert, Calif., driver from observations of this coolness on race day.
The thunderboat he drives is the cause of the second nickname, since the Rolls Royce-powered craft is the first of the hydroplane fleet to sport a horizontal stabilizer wing.
Remund, who also piled up 1,200 points in winning the season opener at Miami, Fla., broke the two-race victory string of Miss Budweiser and her driver, Dean Chenoweth of Xenia, Ohio.
A second-place finish Sunday kept Miss Bud in second place in point standings.
Both the powerful boats easily won a pair of preliminary heats and battled closely for two laps in the championship head. But Pay ‘N Pak, stabilized better in the narrow turns on the 2 ½-mile Ohio River course because if it’s wing, took over at that point and on the six-lap race going away.
“It is never easy to be Miss Budweiser or Dean,” Remund said. “We have had some good races and sometimes I win…sometimes he does.”
“That’s two wins for us, two for Bud and one for Lincoln Thrift, and we’re only 200 points ahead (in the standings). It’s going to be close all season,” Remund said.
Asked about his big surge in the championship heat, Remund said, “I stepped on the gas and nitrous oxide the first time and I found a good piece of water.”
Remund and the Pay ‘N Pak put on quite a show for the crowd of more than 50,000 that lined the Indiana and Kentucky banks of the Ohio in sweltering, mid-80 temperatures.
In this first heat, Remund drove his boat to an average speed of 104.126 miles per hour, breaking the old mark of 104.026 set by Jack Regas in Notre Dame in 1968.
In his second heat, that record climbed to 106.888 m.p.h as the Pay ‘N Pak hit a top lap of 112.080, breaking the old lap record of 109.489 set by Bill Muncey in the Atlas Van Lines in 1971.
Remund won the final heat by duplicating his first-heat average and wound up with an overall average for 45 miles of competition of 105.044 m.p.h., breaking the old record of 101.606 set in 1968 by Billy Schumacher in Miss Bardahl.
Muncey, the defending champion, was not among the final heat competitors. His Atlas boat finished second to Miss Bud in an earlier heat but blew an engine and failed to finish its second heat.
To make the whole thing even more interesting, Remund won the final heat with a bit of a handicap. While jockeying for starting position, the outside part of his aluminum steering wheel broke apart in his hands.
He drove the straights at more than 150 m.p.h., held the 35-foot boat steady through the rough turns and out-dueled Miss Bud using the spokes of the steering wheel.
Another triumph for "Mr. Cold."
