Category: Hydrofest Timeline

Last year Guntersville hosted the Unlimited class as Guntersville Lake HydroFest – a summer boat race which ran seven years and brought millions in economic impact to the North Alabama community.

The race course at Guntersville was widened in the turns, creating one of the fastest courses in the world. At 2.5 miles, the course proved risky with a blow over in the first lap of the Southern Cup Championship taking out Andrew Tate in the Miss Goodman Real Estate U-91.

Guntersville hosted the famous APBA Gold Cup, a battle of endurance with hydroplane boats racing over 52 miles at top speeds. Corey Peabody took home the most coveted trophy in boat racing that year in Strong Racing’s Miss U-9.

Boat racing returns to Lake Guntersville with Unlimited hydroplane and Grand Prix classes racing for the Southern Cup. Under the new name Guntersville Lake HydroFest, the event that began in 1939 is reborn and more than 10,000 line the banks to watch as the Unlimiteds, fired by 3,000-horsepower engines, top speeds of 200 MPH.

The last year for the regatta

Coverage of the Dixie Cup Regatta made the sports section of the New York Times. The regatta was the first race for the famed Unlimiteds who would take 10 competitive boats to 8 races across the country. The Miss Budweiser boat, driven by Bill Sterett from Owensboro, Kentucky, won the Dixie Cup Regatta with an average race speed of 102 MPH. This...

In June, Lee Taylor driving the “Hustler” broke the world water speed record on Lake Guntersville, averaging 285.21 with one lap run being 299.18 MPH. Just one month later during the annual regatta, tragedy would strike the fastest water in the south, with one racer killed and another seriously injured.

The first year for the Dixie Cup Regatta, boasting an estimated crowd of 40,000 watching from the shoreline. The winner of the race was Bill Muncey who drove the U-7 Notre Dame boat. Muncey was nicknamed “Mr. Unlimited” and he won 62 races during his career, the most victories in the sport. That record held until 2011. He raced from 1949 to...

Lake Guntersville hosts the Unlimited class of boats for the very first time. These boats used engines from WW2 airplanes and were the fastest boats in the world at the time. That June, teams competed in Guntersville for the “Alabama Governors Cup” and the winner was Ron Musson, driving the Miss Bardahl U-40.  

Boat race driver Roy Duby set the world straightaway speed record in the Miss US-1 boat on Lake Guntersville at 200.419 mph. This record still stands today for piston powered boats.