Stamp to honour Miss Supertest, Bob Hayward
Great news
today.
The Stamp
Selection Committee of Canada Post has seen fit to honour
According
to a release, the 20 stamp issues and two commemorative envelopes approved
by the committee for 2011 feature a wide variety of topics and people. In
addition to Miss Supertest, baseball Hall of Fame member Ferguson Jenkins of
Chatham and the
The selection of Miss Supertest is due almost entirely to the efforts of John Lyons of Picton. John went to every newspaper, radio and television station he could to make the case that Supertest and her driver, the late Bob Hayward, were worthy of such a stamp.
And the timing was critical because 2011 would mark the 50th anniversary
of Supertest and Hayward's third and final glorious triumph - beating the Americans for the Harmsworth Trophy.
We sat down
for a chat in January and I wrote about him and the campaign in a Toronto Star
Wheels column in February. Said John when we were having coffee:
"The Stamp
Selection Committee of Canada Post and its chairperson, Robert Waite, must know
that Canadians are supportive of such a stamp. They get about 600 applications
a year and fewer than two dozen are approved. So it's really important for
people to get behind this."
I was amazed at
the response to that column. Many of the people who wrote or emailed Mr. Waite
copied me and I received dozens of pledges of support.
I can just
imagine the avalanche that descended on Ottawa because John convinced yacht clubs,
members of Parliament and even Mayor David Miller of
Jim Phillips,
Director of Stamp Services for Canada Post, made the formal announcement this
week and said that “Miss Supertest marks the glory of the Canadian hydroplane
racer, three-time winner of the Harmsworth Cup.”
For those of
you who aren't familiar with Miss Supertest, the boat, the man and
the story make up a wonderful slice of Canadiana.
First, a little
background. In 1902, the fellow who owned
Jim Thompson of
In 1959, Miss Supertest III was constructed and
this boat was a winner right out of the box. In August of that year, Supertest III, with Hayward
driving (Thompson did virtually all of the testing and development work on the
third boat but left the actual race-driving to Hayward) went up against the
American champion Maverick, which was defending the Harmsworth Trophy on the
Detroit River, and beat him.
The victory
caught Canadians by surprise but very quickly there was joy in the land. They
might be our friends, but there's nothing Canadians like to do better - be it
in hockey or the War of 1812 - than beating the Americans.
As dictated by
Alfred Harmsworth back in 1902, any challenge for the trophy had to take place
in the country of the Harmsworth holder and so, in August of 1960, the
Americans brought three boats - the maximum number of challengers under the
rules - to
By now, Miss Supertest was a Canadian icon: a
household name from one end of the country to the other. The excitement over
the showdown was unimaginable.
Prime minister
John Diefenbaker,
The boat and
the man were national heroes and were given a ticker-tape parade up
Miss Supertest III and
Thompson would
only allow Miss Supertest III to compete in the Harmsworth Trophy races;
Miss Supertest III and Bob Hayward are
members of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame; they, and Thompson, are inductees
of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame.
And the piece
of
Congratulations
to John Lyons and to the Stamp Selection Committee of Canada Post for this
wonderful day in the history of Canadian motorsport.
Mr. Norris,
Could you help me get in touch with Mr. John Lyons? I am trying to put together a Miss Supertest display at the Hydroplane & Raceboat Museum in Kent, Washington, USA. Looking for some
Supertest memorabilia to be used in the display.
Any Miss Supertest fans who have any ideas or suggestions,
please contact me.
Posted by: Skip Young | 04/30/2010 at 04:36 PM
Amazing how the stamps or seals eternalize stories.
I do stamps (carimbos) almost every day and am impressed with some stories.
Thanks!
Posted by: Gui | 07/03/2010 at 11:46 PM
Skip I'd love to see your display be as accessible to the public as possible. When I was a kid in Sarnia , we would go down to the government docks for fishing and / or swimming and sometimes one of the Miss Supertests would be moored just outside her shed and we'd be able to go directly alongside and be Wowed. The massive rumble when they fired it up and headed out for tests was something I remember to this day. What a thrill for us kids. Now days every thing unfortunately is cordoned off and somewhat removed. Anything you can do to make the display hands on or "dockside accessible to kids" would be great. Great idea and good luck. Dave King
Posted by: Dave King | 07/02/2011 at 10:12 PM