The Sanitary Cup Race

STT Memories, Chapter 2

Sometime in about 1975, I think at Fat City, a bunch of bar owners and other crazy people decided life on St Thomas just wasn’t exciting enough with all the perfect weather and water and all.  At the time, there were lots of races around STT like the Rolex and others sponsored b the SORC and ST Thomas Yacht club, but most of the “townies” weren’t part of all that.   The bar crowd, however, was never to be left out, and someone, I am not sure who, came up with the idea of an unlimited race that was more befitting the bar scene in STT. 

The rules were pretty simple:

1. Racers were issued a paper (sanitary) cup at the beginning of the race.  They had to finish the race with the same cup.
2. Racers had to get to each bar on the course, order a drink, pay for it and tip the bartender then drink it down in front of a judge who was there and who would then sign their bib number.
3. The bars could be anywhere on ST Thomas, Hassle or Water Island, and in fact were.  There were no rules as to how racers got to the bars.

That was about it.  It was an unlimited race with a lot of bragging rights on it.  The first year no one really knew what it would be like except that it was going to get crazy.

It got talked up a lot and someone printed up t-shirts.  Many of the local bartenders and their best customers signed up on a lark, but soon the strategies began to come out and so did the bets.  Then it got a bit more serious.  You see, the objective of the race was indeed to finish first, but it was also to make it around the course before the impact of all the drinks hit you.  A big part of it was figuring out whether to drink what you were used to drinking or go with something lighter.  If you drank beer you ran the risk of getting slowed down with bloat and having to … get rid of the beer.  If you drank mixed drinks you could get pretty cross-eyed drinking that much in a short time.  If shots…well you might get very drunk very quickly.

Considering that the first year race saw 10 bars with at least one on each of the three islands, getting around the course, the longer it took, was pretty darned difficult.  If you made it around quickly it meant you had drunk 10 drinks in a very short amount of time.  Realizing that this could impact the race, it was rumored that the race committee passed another rule that stopping to throw up on the course was not allowed.

As we got closer to the race, the real strategies began to come out of the closet.  There were no rules about how one got from bar to bar, so the contestants with access to fast boats were looking hard to beat.  But then all kinds of crazy other things began to come out.  My sister, who had entered and was favored in some of the pools, had a boy friend with a Triumph 650 motorcycle he was going to ride her around on the back of.  The idea was that he was not slowed down by the waterfront traffic and would get her out to Morning Star faster.  One fairly wealthy racer was rumored to have had hired a helicopter to hover him over to the bars on Hassle Island (Prince Rupert’s Dockyard) and Water Island (at the Water Island Hotel). 

As I recall the list of bars was: 

The Sand Box

Fat City

Joe Kennedy’s Bar (Tinkers II)

Drakes Inn,

SIBs,

The Quarter Deck,

Bar Normandy

Prince Rupert’s Dockyard

The Water Island Hotel Beach Bar

Morning Star Beach Bar

 Finally the day of the race arrived.  The race started at about 11:00 am at Fat City.  After that the racers were free to get around the course just about any way they wanted to.  I was waiting at Morningstar in my dad’s power boat to take my sister over to Hassle and Water Island.  She made it there at about 11:45 , bolted down a Mount Gay Coke and ran for the boat, getting thoroughly sandy and wet in the bargain.  We tore out over to Hassle Island, where the scene was total mayhem of drunks and boats coming and going way to quickly.  Water Island was much better because there was more room to get in and out of the beach.  We jetted back to Avery’s at Frenchtown to drop her at the Quarter Deck (the Q.D.) where her boy friend was waiting after having made the run back from Morning Star.  By now it was pushing 1:00 and she was getting pretty drunk.

I tucked in at the bar and ordered a greenie and she got on the bike and disappeared for Bar Normandy.  As the racers came and went, a few things became apparent.  First, the little sanitary cups were not doing very well.  By the time many of the racers got to the Q.D., they were drunk and their little paper cups were leaking or torn up.  Of course it was against the rules to get another, but many of the racers were tipping lavishly and buying the judges drinks or offering bribes of one kind or another to get them to look the other way while the bartender gave them another, not so beat up one.  The girl following my sister flashed the judge to distract him while the bartender gave her a new cup.  The next guy in was a gay guy who offered the same favor and was flatly turned down, having to buy a new cup instead.  On and on it went, to gales of laughter and general debauchery.   

We left after the first beer, heading for Fat City and the finish line.  It was about 2:00pm now and as we parked up Synagogue hill and walked down to the Sandbox, the first of the racers started to arrive.  Climbing the stairs into the Sandbox I was nearly knocked flat by a couple of the men’s racers going up and down at the same time, drunk out of their minds.  Up stairs, Big John was pouting the drinks and the owners, Trent Lawrence and Sammy O’Meara were at the bar (on the safe, far side) whooping it up and enjoying the scene.  I grabbed another beer and ran through “Muggers Alley” over to Fat City just after the men’s winner made it in, having made all ten bars in a little under three hours.  The party was going strong as the racers continued to stagger in.  My sister showed up at about three hours and twenty minutes, glassy eyed drunk and totally unruly.  From then on I don’t recall much except that the racers continued to trickle in, drunker and drunker.  The final arrivals were at near 5 hours after the start, having had their boat swamp in the harbor.  In true form they had taken the time to don fake crutches and bandages to limp across the finish line in.

The Sanitary Cup Race went on for a few years after that.  The first one was widely regarded as the best, though a few years later one of the contestants actually did use a helicopter to get around to the island bars.  It finally fell apart when the local authorities insisted that it be approved and permits be issued and blah blah blah…As I recall, the three owners at Fat City, finally gave up trying to organize it in the face of the island bureaucracy and waning interest by the bar crowd (the disco era had started and the gritty Backstreet bar scene had given way to the likes of Walter’s Living Room and the Safari Lounge).   Eventually the Timex Regatta, launched out of French Town, was organized, and it was a lot of fun too…but that’s another story.

All the best,