The Vintage Race Boats
returned to Detroit !!!
First things first - Detroit was a very well planned and very well run
APBA vintage event, and many thanks go the the event organizers - Tom and Jacq Bertolini and Alan and Lisa Radue.
This was a very large gathering of beautiful vintage race boats - including 3-point hydroplanes, Jersey Speed Skiffs, Gold Cup fast steppers, fire breathing grand prix hydros, and monster piston powered unlimited hydroplanes. The Vintage boats were on display all weekend, and also ran demonstration heats on the historic Detroit Gold Cup race course.
This year we were located in the "Piston Park" area, close to the start/finish line, and the logistics were just superb - nice job organizers. We had lots of space, with 3 cranes for just our vintage boats, and over 100 feet of good docking on the water. All the boats were crane launched, and the docks were so long that we could actually pre-stage our vintage heats at the dock. The boats were then released all at once - great fun and very dramatic - especially on heats with 14 vintage boats ???!!!
And this year our vintage boats had TONS of water time - with lots of vintage heats on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Yup - we had a ball, got all the running time most of us could handle, and left Detroit with empty tanks and very tired bodies !!!
The constant crane launching also gave spectators a chance to view and photograph the unique bottom designs, that illustrate the evolution of Gold Cup hulls.
The oldest boat at the event was "Scotty"- an absolutely stunning
1929 Hacker Gold Cup hydroplane. This mahogany "fast-stepper" actually finished second in the 1929 Gold Cup, and ran some pretty hot laps on Saturday.
Click here for the Story of Scotty
And again the year, we hauled some of our vintage boats for display at a fundraiser at the Grouse Point Yacht Club. There are some photos below showing showing our boats out front, the freshly restored APBA Gold Cup, and Tom D'Eath doing a superb job auctioning off the donations. And the scotch was pretty good too!!!
Yup - this was a grand celebration of the 100th anniversary of our beloved APBA Gold Cup - and the sights and sounds of our vintage race boats were just magnificent.
Enjoy the photos ???!!!
Yup - that's Dave Johnson & the Hickman Twins ???!!!
Photos by our PR-Slut - Jim Moore
Photos by Bill DeGlopper
Photos by Robert Peters
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