Boilermaker: The Name

As Earle Reed planned thirty-five years ago the Boilermaker starts on Culver Avenue the former home of Utica Radiator and ends at the F.X. Matt Brewery on Court Street. Those starting and finishing lines are the inspiration behind the name. "There were a couple of fits to the term Boilermaker because there's the idea of manufacturing a boiler which is really where the start line was. But then there's the other idea of the Boilermaker which is a shot and a beer, so it kind of ends at the brewer so there was this kind of strange double entendre." Some believe the name is fitting because the time of year the race is run. "You're finishing at a brewery; you're finishing on a hot day. The Boilermaker used to start at 10:30 and so you were running directly into the heat, now we start thank god at 8 o'clock in the morning and everybody is off the course by 10ish and it makes it a lot easier on a hot Sunday in Utica." The connection of Utica boilers and the brewery is beyond just the nine point three miles that separate them. "The idea was to always talk about the idea of that we were manufactures of boilers, yet there was always this idea of the boilermaker the drink which was the connection we had in regards to the brewery. The 35th is a big anniversary for us, it's interesting to talk about this because we are going to be doing a lot to look back on the previous 34 years of this race."