1953 APBA Gold Cup
Lake Washington, Seattle WA, August 9, 1953

Miss Pepsi To Be Retired From Racing
By Kent Powell

Longer course Proposed Oval for Gold Cup Cut to 3.75 Miles 90 Miles At 100 M.P.H. Gold Cup Regatta Slated On Sunday Speed Record Set by Slo-Mo-Shun IV Cup Boat Bought By George Simon Coast Speed Boat Loses Propeller Sayres Sued by Lawyer Gold Cup Entrant Ripped In Tune-Up On the Eve of the Gold Cup Race Sunday Race Condemned Miss Pepsi to be Retired Slo-Mo-Shun, ‘Grand Old Lady’, Sweeps Gold Cup Distaff Side Prays Home Slo Mo IV Slo-mo is Dream Boat to Driver Calling the Space Patrol In the Wake of the Roostertails Five Boats With But One Thought Gold Cup Race Won in the Pits Gold Cup Invaders Won't Return Says Schafer The Old Lady Got Into Another Race Gold Cup Race Sidelights Slo Mo Shun IV Surprised Slo-mo-shun IV Captures Gold Cup Race for Third Time Schafer Reluctant to Return to Seattle Slo Mo Shun IV Keeps Gold Cup Slo Mo IV Remains Queen The"Old Lady" Does It Again The Gold Cup Stays in Seattle Statistics

Miss Pepsi, Detroit's hulking twin-engined hydroplane which provided the principal competition for the Slo-mo-shuns in the past two Gold Cup races, has run her last race.

Pepsi's retirement was announced yesterday in Detroit by her owners, Walter and Roy Dossin. The boat will be turned over to the Greenfield Museum in Detroit for historical purposes.

The Dossins blamed high operating costs and press of personal business for the decision to quit the racing game.

"We've spent over $1,000,000 on the boat in the past five years," the Dossins explained. "And it's difficult to run a business and a racing campaign at the same time."

Miss Pepsi, which challenged Seattle's Slo-mo-shuns here the past two summers, is well remembered by the 200,000 spectators who saw last year's Gold Cup race on Lake Washington.

During the first heat of the 1952 race the cigar-shaped Detroit craft battled neck and neck with Slo-mo-shun V, until the latter conked out on the sixth lap. Miss Pepsi sped on to win that heat. In doing so she smashed the Gold Cup heat record set the year before by Slo-mo V.

Pepsi's average for the 30-mile heat was better than 101-miles an hour, almost 10 miles an hour faster than the previous record.

Miss Pepsi was built in 1950 by John Hacker. The boat is 36 feet long and her beam is 9 feet 3 inches. Her twin Allison engines developed 3,500 horsepower.

The boat's hull is V-shaped which enabled her to sweep close to course buoys on the turns.

Miss Pepsi won most of the unlimited trophies in the east during her short career. She failed, however, to win the Gold Cup. In fact, Miss Pepsi never has run the full 90 miles in a Gold Cup race.

Stan Sayres, owner of the Slo-mo-shuns, expressed his regret that the Miss Pepsi will be retired.

"She always was a tough competitor and we had hoped for another chance at her," Sayres said.

Miss Pepsi's retirement cuts the list of fairly definite starters for next summer's race on Lake Washington to the Slo-mos, Jack Schafer's new Such Crust [III (2)] and J. A. Schoenith's Gale II.

Rumors have it several boats are under construction in California and the east, but little has been heard to substantiate the reports.

[Seattle newspaper, 1953]

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