Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum

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1938 Gold Cup Remembered

By Fred Farley - Unlimited Hydroplane Historian

The U.S. team held back the foreign challenge in 1937, but bowed to Count Rossi in 1938. Rossi pushed his 19-foot 7-inch ALAGI, powered by half of an Isotta-Fraschini aircraft engine, to a 3-mile lap record of 72.707 miles per hour. His best heat was 66.080 for his best heat.

ALAGI became the first and only challenger from another continent to ever win the Crown Jewel of APBA racing. The craft from Turin, Italy, won all three heats--each by a wide margin.

Years later, Rossi would donate the Martini & Rossi National High Point Trophy, presented annually to the High Point Champion Unlimited hydroplane team.

Second-place in the 1938 Gold Cup went to a homebuilt boat from San Francisco, the MISS GOLDEN GATE, which utilized a “Hisso” engine and a new-style three-point design (two sponsons and a propeller), from the drawing board of owner/driver Dan Arena.

In claiming the runner-up spot, MISS GOLDEN GATE posted the highest finish ever, up to that time, by a West Coast boat in the Gold Cup series. (CALIFORNIAN had finished third in 1931. The first Western boat to win the Gold Cup was Seattle's SLO-MO-SHUN IV in 1950.)

MISS GOLDEN GATE driver Arena and riding mechanic Danny Foster impressed mightily at the 1938 Gold Cup. Truly, a lot would be heard from both of these young men, barely out of high school, in the years to come.

The story of Arena’s and Foster’s finish in Heat Three would be told and re-told. That was when, for the last eight laps, Foster had to hang precariously out of the cockpit into the engine compartment, holding the gas controls open with his hands after the fittings connecting the foot throttle with the carburetors went adrift.

Another three-pointer, the EXCUSE ME, owned by Horace Dodge, Jr., fared less well at the 1938 Gold Cup. With the respected Bill Horn driving, EXCUSE ME resembled a hump-backed ping-pong bat. She was supposed to be a trendsetter for a new line of racing hulls, to be produced by Dodge. However, the boat wallowed along in last place and quite literally fell apart. She sank before completing a single heat.

Dodge was so soured by the EXCUSE ME experience that, for the balance of his career, he concentrated almost exclusively on step hydroplanes. The only other three-pointer to carry the Dodge colors into competition was the short-lived HORNET of 1951.

The new MISS CANADA III led for several laps in Heat One of the 1938 Gold Cup but had to withdraw on account of a faulty oil scavenging pump. DELPHINE IX dropped out with a blown gearbox.

For 1938, a new NOTRE DAME was entered but never made it to the starting line. Driver Clell Perry flipped the boat on the day before the race. He was badly injured and suffered a crippled arm. Count Rossi was reported so distraught after the accident that he (Rossi) considered withdrawing from the race.

MOTOR BOATING MAGAZINE suggested that perhaps the rudder design was responsible for the crash. But twenty-four years later, in 1962, Shirley Mendelson McDonald, daughter of owner Herb Mendelson, reported to interviewer Fred Farley that NOTRE DAME had met with foul play at the 1938 Gold Cup. She insisted that someone whose identity was known to the Mendelson team had deliberately "sawed away part of the step."

Whatever the explanation, no official action was ever taken against the alleged saboteur and the 1938 Gold Cup was run as scheduled.

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