1947 President's Cup
Potomac River, Washington, DC, September 20-21, 1947

From The Unlimiteds : 1947 in Review ... 50 Years Ago!
By Fred Farley - APBA Unlimited Historian

The President's Cup was a three-heat grand slam for Miss Peps V. [Danny] Foster won the first heat by a wide margin at 70.063 on a 2½-mile course. Danny then throttled way down in Heats Two and Three to make a race of it with the Deusenberg-powered Notre Dame.

Miss Peps V proved conclusively at Washington that the good fortune of Miss Great Lakes with Allison power in 1946 was no fluke.

© Fred Farley. For reprint rights to this article, please contact the author at <fredf@hotmail.com>

President's Cup Gives Foster a Sweep

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 22, [1947], UPI) -- Danny Foster of Detroit and his craft, Miss Peps V, today stacked up as the classiest combine in 1947's speedboat racing circles.

Foster, a pilot of P-38s during the war, won the President's Cup for the second straight year and thereby became the first winner of all three national powerboat races in one year -- the International Gold Cup, the National Sweepstakes and the President's Cup.

Notre Dame, piloted by Dan Arena of Canton, Ohio, was second only by a matter of yards. Band leader Guy Lombardo's Miss Great Lakes, second in Saturday's opening heat, dropped out of the race after developing engine trouble.

Despite Foster's impressive triumph, an estimated crowd of 100,000 which lined the banks of the Potomac accorded the loudest reception to Sarkis Kavoojian, a 25-year-old war veteran from Rumson, N.J. He steered his 91-cubic inch hydroplane around the five-mile course with an oar when his steering gear broke shortly after the start of the race.

Luck Rides With Foster as Miss Peps Roars to President's Cup

WASHINGTON  (Septermber 22, [1947], AP) -- Danny Foster of Oakland, Calif., drove the Miss Peps V to a clean-sweep victory in the President's Cup Regatta just as everyone though he would, but he needed luck to do it.

After taking the opening heat Saturday, Foster came back Sunday to win the second and third heats after his chief competitor, Guy Lombardo in Miss Great Lakes, fell out in the first lap of the second heat when his propeller broke.

What made it particularly lucky for Foster was this: Lombardo had gone only two miles -- and already was a quarter of a mile ahead.

Even with Miss Great Lakes out (she won here last year with Foster at the wheel), it still wasn't too easy for Miss Peps.

The 1,700-horsepower job, owned by the Dossin brothers of Detroit, shot in ahead in two surprisingly close finishes with Notre Dame, owned by Herb Mendelson of Detroit, and driven by Dan Arena of Kent, Ohio.

Miss Peps packs twice as much horsepower as Notre Dame, yet she finished with margins of only 15 and 30 yards.

The water was choppy, and the time wasn't especially good. Foster's winning speeds for the 15-mile heats were 61.713 and 60.429 miles an hour. This compares with Foster's mark of 70.2 Saturday and his record 71.18 last year.

Foster's victory makes him the first driver in history to win the big three in motorboat racing, the President's Cup, the National Sweepstakes and the Gold Cup.

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