Miss Chrysler Crew Remembered

By Fred Farley - Unlimited Hydroplane Historian

In power boat racing, radical ideas have a bad habit of going nowhere. For every SLO-MO-SHUN IV that made it, there's a ZEPHYR-FURY, a MISS LIBERTY, a LION BAR SPECIAL, and a STUBBY VI that didn't.

MISS CHRYSLER CREW was a bold attempt to introduce automotive power into a category dominated at the time by World War II fighter plane engines. Utilizing a pair of 426 cubic inch supercharged Chrysler hemis, the C-CREW is remembered primarily as the only autoboat to ever win a race in the APBA Unlimited Class.

Beginning in 1946, the Allison (and later the Rolls-Royce Merlin) was the engine of choice in Thunderboating. Indeed, for the better part of four decades, V-12 aircraft power plants were considered the state of the art, until the turbine revolution of 1984.

One of the earliest experiments with automotive power was the MISS GROSSE POINTE of 1948. Employing a pair of Fageol bus engines, driver Al D'Eath had to use both hands to operate the twin throttles and had to steer with his feet. MISS GROSSE POINTE unfortunately came to an untimely end when she struck the Belle Isle Bridge during the Ford Memorial Regatta on the Detroit River.

MISS CHRYSLER CREW was designed by Henry Lauterbach and first entered competition in 1966. She was an enlarged hull duplicate of owner/driver Bill Sterett's National Champion 7-Litre hydroplane, MISS CRAZY THING.

The most recent auto-powered Unlimited had been the unsuccessful MISS SKYWAY of 1956, which used a pair of Chevrolet Corvette engines with a v-belt drive to the propeller shaft. Nicknamed "the rubber band boat," MISS SKYWAY could only achieve about 40 miles per hour in trials at the Seattle Seafair Regatta on Lake Washington.

When MISS CHRYSLER CREW won Heat 1-A of the 1966 President's Cup at Washington, D.C., she fooled the skeptics who predicted that she wouldn't be competitive.

The CHRYSLER CREW's equipment inventory consisted of six hemispherical engines: two in the boat, two in the trailer, and two at the factory. And after each race, they would rotate. Keeping the hemis healthy was reportedly very costly to the Chrysler Corporation's marine division.

During her maiden year, MISS CHRYSLER CREW experienced a lot of mechanical breakdowns. But when she was running right, the maroon U-77 was able to mix it up with the best of them, including TAHOE MISS, MISS BUDWEISER, MY GYPSY, and MISS LAPEER.

MISS CHRYSLER CREW's best finish in 1966 was an overall third at the Sacramento Cup on Lake Folsom. She posted the third fastest heat of the day at 101.161 in Heat 1-C. This compared to the day's two fastest speeds of 102.273 by Jim Ranger in MY GYPSY and 102.234 by Warner Gardner in MISS LAPEER.

C-CREW's first race of 1967 was a disappointment when she failed to finish any heats of the Suncoast Cup at Tampa, Florida. But this was quickly forgotten in light of what happened three weeks later on the Detroit River.

MISS CHRYSLER CREW and Bill Sterett made their claim to fame with a three-heat grand slam at the UIM World Championship Regatta. Far behind at the finish line was second-place Ranger in MY GYPSY, followed by Bob Miller in SAVAIR'S PROBE and Jim McCormick in NOTRE DAME.

Braving extremely rough water, Sterett and MISS CHRYSLER CREW would not be denied. And in Heat 1-C, the team from Owensboro, Kentucky, turned the day's only heat at over 100 miles per hour with a reading of 100.671.

MISS CHRYSLER CREW's other significant performance of 1967 was her second-place finish in the Tri-Cities Atomic Cup on the Columbia River. Sterett made the winner, Billy Schumacher, pilot of MISS BARDAHL, work for it and led him for a few laps in the Final Heat.

After the Tri-Cities race and before the race in Seattle, Sterett suffered injuries when he crashed his Limited boat at Guntersville, Alabama. Mira Slovak, late of TAHOE MISS, was recruited to finish the season in MISS CHRYSLER CREW.

Slovak, the famed Czechoslovakian freedom flyer of the 1950s, matched Sterett's performance of the year before with a third-place in the Sacramento Cup. This included a sensational victory over Mike Thomas and the Merlin-powered MISS BUDWEISER in Heat 2-B. CHRYSLER CREW and BUDWEISER see-sawed back and forth for six heart-stopping laps around the 2-1/2-mile course. So intense was their concentration that Slovak and Thomas both miscounted their laps and ran one more time around the buoys.

Thomas, who had been slightly ahead at the end of lap-seven, returned to the pits, thinking that MISS BUDWEISER had won--only to be told that MISS CHRYSLER CREW, the leader after lap-six, was the victor.

Following a DNF in the final heat of the year at San Diego, the C-CREW retired from racing. The Chrysler Corporation changed promotional direction. And Bill Sterett accepted the ride in the MISS BUDWEISER for the 1968 season.

The efforts of owner Sterett, crew chief Jim Hay, and engine builder Keith Black to make a success of automotive power in the Unlimited ranks must be applauded. MISS CHRYSLER CREW finished second to MISS BARDAHL in a field of 23 boats in National High Points in 1967. The C-CREW was able to run with all of the other top competitors and could finish ahead of them on occasion. And her victory in the UIM race at Detroit marked her as the most honored auto-powered Thunderboat of all time.

Other automotive Unlimiteds followed MISS CHRYSLER CREW's lead. These included THE DUTCHMAN of 1967, ATLAS VAN LINES and PRIDE OF PAY 'n PAK of 1970, MISS O'NEIL & KNUDSEN of 1976, MISS TRI-CITIES of 1977, CANDYMAN of 1979, and others. But none of these came close to achieving the performance level of C-CREW. And most of these that were able to qualify eventually took backward steps to proven principles with the traditional Allison or Rolls-Royce Merlin arrangement.

The former MISS CHRYSLER CREW returned to competition in 1969 as MISS OWENSBORO, powered by an Allison engine borrowed from the MY GYPSY team. She was driven in 1969 by the likes of Ed Morgan, Fred Alter, and Tommy "Tucker" Fults. In 1970, Sterett's sons (Terry and Billy, Jr.) traded off behind the wheel.

The boat's best finish as MISS OWENSBORO was a second-place at the 1970 Madison Regatta with Billy Sterett, Jr., in the cockpit.

After 1970, the former MISS CHRYSLER CREW was sold to George Walther who wanted the U-77 designation for his new COUNTRY BOY racing team in 1971.

Walther used the number but abandoned the hull to the weeds outside the Walther family's marina near Dayton, Ohio.

This writer last saw MISS CHRYSLER CREW in 1983. She was falling apart, a victim of the elements, and has since been consigned to a landfill--a sad farewell indeed to a popular champion that once challenged the racing world as the lone auto-powered Thunderboat to achieve victory in the sport's modern era.