1950 Fite Memorial Marathon
Ocean City NJ, May 30, 1950


Jersey Marathon to Murphy's Boat
Finished Only 2 Hours Before Race, Dee-Jay V Averages 81 M. P. H. for 43 Miles
By Clarence E. Lovejoy

bullet Jersey Marathon to Murphy's Boat
bullet Statistics

Ocean City NJ, May 30 [1950] — What may turn out to be the fastest Gold Cup speed boat in America this summer won the season's first big league inboard race most today.

Completed only two hours before the start of the fourth running of the John E. Fite Memorial Marathon of forty-three miles and so new that the Arno Apel Boat Yard at Lower Bank NJ had not sufficient time to paint name and number on the hull's topsides, the new Allison-powered craft owned by Daniel J. Murphy Jr. of Philadaphia and which will be christened Dee-Jay V, was a surprising winner at hardly more than half throttle.

For a while it looked if there would be no second, but eventually, nearly five minutes astern came the runner-up George E. Sarant's Etta, another Gold Cupper from Freeport, LI which won last September's Harwood Race around Manhattan.

Miller Drives Victor

Murphy, who already owns a fleet of other speed craft beached himself today and hired George (Murph) Miller of Longport NJ, to take the wheel and Norman Lauterbach of the Apel factory to ride alongside as mechanic, the same post he filled last summer in Henry J. Kaiser's new speed boats.

Miller, laying back at the start and for the first few miles on the winding course through Great Egg Harbor and Egg Harbor River to Mays Landing and return, was clocked in 31:45 for the 43 miles, some 17 minutes faster than the 1949 victory of Joe Van Blerck Jr. of Freeport, L. I., for a new marathon record at about 81 miles an hour.

Van Blerck, who had won two legs on the Fite Trophy after Guy Lombardo's initial triumph, and was favored today for a third which would have brought permanent possession, ran aground upstream and had to be towed ignominiously to the Longport pits.

Third honors went to a tiny 135 cubic inch entrant with a Ford engine, in contrast to the 1700-cubic inch piston displacement of Dee-Jay V and Etta's Allisons. This was Ed Fairbanks' Flying Saucer, a chartreuse boat from Massapequa, L. I.

Dee-Jay V, under construction all winter at Apel's new Lower Bank factory, is twenty-eight feet long and differs from most Gold Cuppers because the sponson or stabilizers are an integral part of the streamlined hull and not merely appendages.

Better Speeds Seen

All hands feel another several hundreds of revs are in her throttle once they iron out the bugs in the amazing now boat in preparation for the Gold Cup classic at Detroit and probably such other headline events as the Red Bank Sweepstakes, President's Cup and even the Harmsworth defense.

Fite Memorial Marathon (43 Miles) - Final Results
Position

Boat

Driver

Hometown

Time

1 Dee-Jay V George Miller Longport NJ 0:31:45
2 Etta (1) George E. Sarant Freeport LI 0:36:21
3 Flying Saucer (135 cu.in.) Ed. M. Fairbanks Massapequa LI 0:38:25
4 Teredo Fred Rechsteiner Port Elizabeth NJ 0:54:09
5 B John Boland Port-Au-Peck NJ 0:55:15
6 Ice Cube Daniel H.W. McCarthy Philadelphia PA 0:59:15
7 K-Rae-B Wilbert B. Ivins Millville NJ 1:03:59
8 Chanticleer Harold E. Disbrow West Long Branch NJ 1:06:23
9 Hurricane Leo R. Dixon Rumson NJ 1:09:37

(Reprinted from the New York Times May 31, 1950)


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