A ghost was talking yesterday in the twilight’s eerie gloom,

As dancing shadows played like spooks in the dimly-lighted room.

It came from the hull of a hydroplane whose racing days are o’er,

A voice reflecting joy and pain, the ghost of the SLO-MO IV…

“The world was gay as I took the turns in a cloud of spray and foam;

‘A Backyard Job’ Detroiters said, but we brought the Gold Cup home.

My heads-up pit crew knew their stuff, my drivers were the best —

Stan Sayres and Taggart, Dollar, Jones, Lou Fageol and all the rest.

Then came the day misfortune struck like lightning from the blue;

They picked me up in pieces and my racing days were through.

So here I rest in my ivory tower, an empty, hollow shell,

Dreaming away each day and hour — but maybe it’s just as well.

Old friends I knew in my racing prime will visit me once again,

As swiftly moves the march of time, they’ll say –‘I knew her when.'”

And thus she spoke her last, sad note, like a script at the final page.

I stood alone with a lifeless boat, a bird in a gilded cage.

But what’s that distant sound we hear from the lake in the dead of night?

And now we catch it, low but clear, like a thunder-bolt in flight!

The rumble’s growing louder, men, it’s the old familiar roar…

The phantom hydro rides again, the ghost of the SLO-MO IV.