1971 U-6 Miss Madison

Reprinted from Skid Fin Magazine, 2003, Volume 1 Number 2.

There are some stories that are almost too good to be true. The story of the 1971 Miss Madison is one of them. Madison, Ind., is a tiny town full of turn-of-the-century brick buildings with wrought-iron gates and cobblestone walkways. Flow baskets hang from streetlights and little kids play with their dogs on the grassy banks of the river. It is a town that feels virtually unchanged since the 19th century. Madison grew up along side the mighty Ohio River, and the people of Madison are especially partial to boat racing. They have been putting on one type of boat race or another since before World War I.

In 1960 Samuel DuPont gave the town one of his Nitrogen race boats. The city quickly formed a race team around the boat, renamed her Miss Madison and began to campaign her across the country. The effort was short lived when the boat crashed and was destroyed in the 1963 Gold Cup. DuPont sold them a second boat, and soon that one was called the Miss Madison.

The Madison team had talent, determination, and love for the sport, but they had no money. By the early 1970s the second Miss Madison was almost obsolete, but she was still loved by the town’s 13,000 residents. In 1971, with the economy flagging, the city fathers decided to try to boost tourism by hosting unlimited racing’s most prestigious race, the Gold Cup.

Ten teams qualified for the race, with the high-roller teams like Budweiser, Pay ‘N Pak, Atlas Van Lines and Notre Dame all qualifying well over 100 mph. The aging Miss Madison, operating on a shoestring budget, qualified near the bottom of the field at only 99 mph.

On the day of the race the big big-budget teams slugged it out toe-to-toe. Several boats fell by the wayside due to accidents and mechanical breakdowns. By the end of the final heat, much to everyone’s surprise, the Miss Madison and driver Jim McCormick had won the Gold Cup in front of the hometown crowd!

The story was so compelling that is has been made into a movie that was released in 2005. The star of the movie about the Miss Madison would have to be the Miss Madison hydroplane, but the real Miss Madison wasn’t in running condition when the movie came along. The Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum quickly put together a replica using the Savair’s Mist hull. The “Mist Madison” has been one of the Museum’s most reliable hulls, running at a number of different sites across the country to promote the movie.