DETROIT, June 24, 1972 — “This course is the roughest and toughest challenge in hydroplane racing,” asserted Bill Schumacher on the eve of tomorrow's $44,000 Gold Cup race.
“It also has the weirdest turns and the crookedest chutes [straightaways], is filled with driftwood and debris, has groundswells coming in from the lake, plus all of our wakes splash waves back at us from the bulkheads along the shore.
“Besides all this, the river current runs into the wind, which creates all kinds of ripples and waves, any one of which can flip your boat and snuff out your life before you know it.”
Despite his protestations of the Detroit River, where nine of the fastest propeller driven boats in the world will vie for the American Power Boat Association's coveted Gold Cup, Schumacher has won the big race twice, in Seattle in 1967 and in Detroit in 1968.
Switching Boats
His vehicle then was Miss Bardahl, the checkered thunderboat now retired. After a year with Parco O-Ring Miss, Schumacher moved to Seattle, got married and signed a contract to drive Dave Heerensperger's Pride of Pay 'n Pak, a revolutionary-designed unlimited named for a chain of West Coast department stores.
Totally unsuccessful at first with the radical pickle fork boat designed by Ron Jones, Schumacher worked with Heerensperger and his crew chief, Jim Lucero, and brought Pay 'n Pak to a point last year where it swept the last three races of the season and finished a close second to Miss Budweiser for the national championship.
This year, only the fabulously successful Bill Muncey, at the helm of two-year-old Atlas Van Lines, has managed to top Schumacher and Pay 'n Pak. And Muncey has won the Gold Cup four times, so he must remain the favorite.
Moves Backfire
Two other Gold Cup winners are competing: Jim McCormick, last year's victor in Miss Madison, and Dean Chenoweth, Miss Budweiser's driver last year. Both drivers have changed boats, however, and both have experienced little luck as a result.
McCormick is driving his own Miss Timex, preferring the dual role of owner-driver, but he has not come close to winning. Chenoweth took on the job of driving Notre Dame, a new Jones-designed boat which has also failed to win.
Why did Chenoweth, a Gold Cup winner, a two-time national champion and a victor in almost every race on the circuit in Miss Budweiser, quit a winning combination?
“I wanted a challenge, I guess,” said the Xenia, Ohio, automobile dealer. “Shirley [Mendelson McDonald, the owner] has been trying to put together a winner for 10 years, and now she's starting in all over again.”
Terry Sterett, one of the two driver sons of former champion Bill Sterett, is now the pilot of Budweiser, whose owners, Bernie Little and Tom Friedkin, seemed to have ignored the maxim, “Don't fool with a winning combination.”
After three years of domination, Budweiser's crew revised the sponsors and hull, but instead of improving her performance, it seemed to make it worse.
“The trouble was we never had proper conditions on the Coast to test those new ideas,” said Bill Sterett, “Now we've got her back to the way she was when I was driving and I think you'll see the difference Sunday.”
Muncey also has the advantage of a second Atlas Van Lines acting as a teammate in the fleet. Muncey drives U‐71 and Tom Sheehy drives U-70, which is the former Myr's Special and Miss Smirnoff and two years older.
“We've instructed Tom to push those other guys as hard as he can even though he doesn't win,” Muncey said.
Other boats and drivers in contention include Pizza Pete, with Bob Gilliam; Lincoln Thrift, a turbocharged boat, with George Henley, and Towne Club, with Fred Alter.
The next Miss Madison turned over and sank yesterday on a test run, thus denying the Gold Cup race a defending champion Her driver, Charlie Dunn, was not hurt seriously.
