THE
SAGA OF MARION COOPER'S "MERCURY"
By Fred Farley - APBA Unlimited Historian
In the years before World War II, some
of the best boat racing in the United States was provided by the
popular 725 Cubic Inch Class-the forerunner of the modern Unlimited
Class-of inboard hydroplanes. The largely homebuilt 725s raced
mostly in the Mid-West on the old Mississippi Valley Power Boat
Association circuit.
One of the more distinguished examples
of a 725 Class competitor was the MERCURY, owned by Marion Cooper
of Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Cooper had previously campaigned the
510 Cubic Inch Class HERMES I and the 725 Class HERMES III in MVPBA
competition.
Built in 1939, the MERCURY was one of
the first boats to make successful use of sponsons (pontoon-like
running surfaces). In a 1973 interview with this writer, Cooper
remembered the craft as being rather large for its day.
"It was real
wide and most of the sponsons were built underneath. Only about
four or five inches of the sponsons
stuck out from the sides. MERCURY was similar to a Ventnor (design),
except that the Ventnor hulls had the sponsons all to the outside."
The MERCURY used
a 1914 vintage Hispano-Suiza ("Hisso") aircraft engine, which had eight dual Stromberg
carburetors. In Cooper's words, "Back in the pre-World War II days,
you didn't have such things as fuel pumps. You had to have someone
operate the hand pressure pump. The riding mechanic (Charlie Schott)
had to watch the gauge and keep the right amount of pressure in
the fuel tank to keep from flooding the thing. He had to keep the
pressure up to as much as five pounds and not over six.
"That went on
for years because the pumps that they had up to that time wouldn't
supply enough fuel.
Of course, in one sense of the word, it was a dangerous proposition
running pressure on the tank because it resulted in fires occasionally
on account of the pressure on the tank would sometimes break loose.
But we were always able to put it out before it got too bad."
All of the race boats of that era were
stern-draggers and had propellers that were completely submerged.
And there was considerably more wetted surface area, compared to
today. So, they didn't kick up very much in the way of a roostertail.
But the amazing thing about MERCURY was that it wanted to prop-ride.
This was unheard of at the time.
Because no one knew much about such
a radical concept as a semi-submerged propeller, the MERCURY crew
kept moving the weight back to try to keep the back end down. This
was the wrong thing to do. If they had shifted the weight forward,
MERCURY-not SLO-MO-SHUN IV-might have become the first successful
three-point prop-rider in the Thunderboat ranks. And this was ten
years before SLO-MO ever wet a sponson!
The 725 Class tour usually consisted
of from eight to ten races, wherein the boats ran clockwise rather
than counter-clockwise because their engines turned that way. Flag
starts without any blackout or digital clock were also the rule.
"The 725s rode rougher than your Unlimiteds
do today," Cooper recalled. "Of course, an Unlimited is about as
easy riding a boat of them all. Although, when you get a jolt in
an Unlimited, it's a good one."
MERCURY made her presence felt in races
against the generally more expensive and more exotic-looking Gold
Cup Class rigs of the American Power Boat Association. She took
an overall fourth at the 1939 APBA Gold Cup contest on the Detroit
River, running behind Guy Simmons in MY SIN, Dan Arena in NOTRE
DAME, and Harold Wilson in MISS CANADA III
The differences
between the 725 and Gold Cup Class contingents were often more
sociological than mechanical.
The boats themselves usually qualified under both codes. But the
APBA was more "yacht club" oriented, while the MVPBA was more of
a grassroots "blue collar" persuasion. At the 1939 Gold Cup, the
725s' pit area-actually a parking lot-was some distance from the
Gold Cuppers' pits. And the 725 Class participants' weren't even
accorded the courtesy of pit passes that allowed them to visit
the Gold Cup Class pit area.
The team of Cooper
and Schott won the Seagram Trophy at the 1940 Evansville Jaycees
Regatta on the Ohio
River at Evansville, Indiana. MERCURY rebounded from a First Heat
disqualification (for cutting a course marker) with a first-place
in the Second Heat. "Wild Bill" Cantrell's WHY WORRY-a Ventnor
three-pointer-won the initial heat, but flipped while trying to
catch Cooper on the last turn of Heat Two. MERCURY was declared
the victor on the basis of having turned a faster heat speed than
WHY WORRY.
For two hours, MERCURY was the fastest
boat in the world in its category, when she ran 98 miles per hour
on a mile straightaway at the 1940 President's Cup Regatta on the
Potomac River. Then, WHY WORRY went out and did 99 MPH.
In the race for the 1940 President's
Cup, MERCURY finished fourth behind Arena in NOTRE DAME, Simmons
in MY SIN, and Ed Hudson in MISS SYNDICATE.
Cooper and MERCURY took first-place
in the 1941 Ohio Valley Trophy at Cincinnati and the 1942 Springfield
Jaycees Regatta at Lake Springfield, Illinois. Second-place finishes
were recorded in the 1939 Calvert Trophy, the 1941 Webb Trophy,
and the 1942 Ohio Valley Trophy.
Before World War II lowered the curtain
on organized racing, MERCURY won the 1942 Emil Auerbach Memorial
Trophy Race on Biscayne Bay in Miami, which carried with it the
725 Cubic Inch Class National Championship.
MERCURY's major competition during the
pre-war years was Cantrell's WHY WORRY, which likewise used the
V-8 Hisso. Between the two of them, the MERCURY and the WHY WORRY
teams accounted for most of the major trophies on the MVPBA circuit.
Other contenders of that era included
the likes of Jim Anderson in WARNIE, Chuck Wilkinson in PIN BRAIN
IV, George Davis in HERMES IV, Noble Lanier in HERMES V, Bill Mennen
in WHO CARES, and J.S. Brown in KING STATEN.
After World War II, Cooper sold MERCURY
to Oliver Elam of Ashland, Kentucky, who re-powered her with an
enormous Curtiss Conqueror engine. But the craft generally did
not see good competition, on account of the 725 and Gold Cup Classes
being largely displaced by the Unlimited Class. MERCURY was obsolete
but did manage to take second-place in the 1947 Harwood's Trophy
Marathon around Manhattan Island with Elam at the wheel.
Elam later used the name MERCURY on
a Ventnor-designed 7-Litre hydroplane that was highly successful.
This craft won many races in the late 1940s and early 1950s using
a Fageol bus engine. The second MERCURY is still in circulation
today as part of the APBA's popular vintage category and currently
owned by Ike Kielgass of Seattle, Washington.
Marion Cooper, for the balance of his
career, concentrated on the 225, 266, 7-Litre, and Unlimited Classes
and built three Limited hulls. In 1946, he won the national 225
Cubic Inch crown with HORNET and, in 1959, set a pair of world
competition heat records of 81.008 and 81.670 with the 7-Litre
HORNET and the 266 Cubic Inch TENNESSEE KID respectively.
Cooper was a back-up driver for the
Stan Sayres-owned SLO-MO-SHUN IV and SLO-MO-SHUN V team and also
handled Austin Snell's MISS ROCKET in the 1957 Seattle Gold Cup.
In 1961 and 1962, Marion achieved fame
as the original pilot of the community-owned MISS MADISON. In 1961,
Cooper and MISS M won the second-division Seattle Trophy Race at
the Seafair World's Championship Regatta on Lake Washington.
Cooper's 23-year career span in the
APBA Gold Cup series is one of the longest in the history of that
storied event. He drove in his first Gold Cup in 1939 with MERCURY;
his last was in 1962 with MISS MADISON.
Other extraordinarily long Gold Cup
careers include: Horace Dodge, Jr., 26 years (1925-1951); Bill
Cantrell, 26 years (1939-1965); Bill Muncey, 26 years (1955-1981);
and Chip Hanauer, 22 years (1977-1999).
In comparing
the pre-war 725 Class to the post-war Unlimited Class, Cooper observed
in 1973, "Except
for the pickle-fork designs and the front-seat affairs, I haven't
seen too many changes in the boats themselves. The races are kind
of like they've always been. There has been quite a bit of improvement
in the rules and regulations since I was a driver. But a race now
is just about like a race back then."
Copyright © Fred Farley
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