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Dollar Bill & $ BILL |
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By Fred Farley - ABRA Unlimited Historian |
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DOLLAR BILL (the horse) and $ BILL (the Unlimited hydroplane) have a lot in common. Their names are similar and both competed unsuccessfully for the premier trophy in their respective sports: the Kentucky Derby and the APBA Gold Cup. DOLLAR BILL, despite impressive odds (6-1), wound up 15th in a 17-horse field in the 2000 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. $ BILL finished as high as fourth in a Gold Cup race. That was in 1966 at Detroit with co-drivers Norm Evans and Warner Gardner. Laurence ("Bill") Schuyler of Lompoc, California, owned the $ BILL racing team, which raced in the Unlimited Class from 1959 to 1967. A 266 Cubic Inch Class version of $ BILL won the 1954 Seafair Trophy on Seattle's Lake Washington. (This was in the days when the Seafair Trophy was a Limited race run in between heats of the Gold Cup.) Two Unlimited boats raced as $ BILL. The first was a Fred Wickens hull, nicknamed "The Tennis Shoe," and widely regarded as the ugliest Unlimited of all time. The original $ BILL was also one of the roughest riding boats in Unlimited history. (Three drivers--Red Loomis, Bob Larsen, and Bob Gilliam--tried and gave up on it at the 1961 Reno Gold Cup.) The second $ BILL, designed and built by Les Staudacher, debuted in 1962 and was a considerable improvement over her predecessor. The boat's best showing was a second-place in the 1966 British Columbia Cup at Kelowna with Bill Muncey (who was on loan from the MISS U.S, team) at the wheel. Bill Schuyler was a man of considerable means but regarded racing as strictly a hobby. Some of the drivers who spent time in $ BILL's cockpit included Ray Crawford (1959-60), Rex Manchester (1962), Billy Schumacher (1963-64), Rex Bixby (1965), and Chuck Hickling (1966). In mid-season 1967, Schuyler retired from the sport and sold his boat to Dave Heerensperger, who renamed it MISS EAGLE ELECTRIC. In 1968, the 6-year-old former $ BILL came alive and was the scourge of the Unlimited Class with Warner Gardner driving. "The Screaming Eagle" won the Dixie Cup at Guntersville (Alabama), the Atomic Cup at the Tri-Cities (Washington), and the President's Cup at Washington, D.C. MISS EAGLE ELECTRIC's career ended in tragedy, however. While contending for high position at the 1968 Gold Cup in Detroit, she was involved in an accident. The boat was destroyed and Gardner was fatally injured |
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