1952 APBA Gold Cup
Lake Washington, Seattle WA, August 9, 1952
Cantrell, Recovering From Gold Cup Burns,
Looks Ahead to Speed-Boat Race Next Year
Seattle, Aug. 10 [1952] (AP) — Wild Bill Cantrell, badly burned when the Such Crust IV exploded during yesterday's running of the Gold cup speed-boat race, is recovering at a local hospital.
Although his body was in a cast and his face swathed in bandages, Cantrell was planning with the Such Crust's owner, Jack Schafer of Detroit, to com back next year for another challenge.
The Slo-Mo-Shun IV won the race and retained the cup for Stanley Sayres, Seattle automobile dealer. Sayres' other boat, the defending champion Slo-Mo-Shun V, cracked its engine block in the first of three thirty-mile heats and had to pull out of the race.
Of the six starters, only the Slo-Mo-Shun IV finished, and it missed part of the first heat when it lost a propeller.
The Detroit-owned Miss Pepsi set a heat record of 101.024 miles per hour in the first heat, but then had to quit with a disabled gear box. Miss Great Lakes II of Detroit split a gear box on the second lap of the race and had to withdraw. The Hurricane IV of Los Angeles developed engine trouble and stopped in the last heat.
The Crust, after finishing the first heat, exploded going into the first turn on the second heat. Cantrell was thrown clear and fished from the water by the Coast Guard. The boat burned fiercely for several minutes, but was salvaged, its upper deck burned away and it engine a wreck.
Cantrell's physician said he would be in the hospital about ten days before the cast was removed. The flash of fire that a accompanied the explosion burned him deeply in spots on body and arms, but the hospital reported today he was making satisfactory progress.
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