Cary's Miami Beach facility. After campaigning his boat "The Cigarette" around the world with mechanic Norris "Knocky" House as his cockpit companion, he won his second World Championship in three years, and third consecutive United States Championship while becoming only the 2nd American in history to win the UIM Gold Medal of Honor (Gar Wood was America's first UIM champion). Once Aronow was able to formally open his new company, he started Cigarette Racing Team using his own designs in 1970. Having sold Cigarette for the last time in 1982 (after having sold it and purchasing it back in the late 1970s while merging it with his own Squadron Marine), he formed USA Racing Team and built the Blue Thunders, 39-foot catamarans used by the United States Customs Service to patrol U.S. waters and run down illegal offshore activities, especially drug smuggling. Aronow's close friend at the time, Vice President George Bush, was a former Cigarette owner and was involved in testing out the 39-foot cats prior to government approval. Aronow's boats won over 350 offshore races and he was a two-time world champion and three-time U.S. champion. He has been elected to every powerboating Hall of Fame in existence and as stated above, he and Gar Wood were the only two Americans to have ever received the UIM Gold Medal of Honor. Murder The great speed of Cigarette boats also made them a popular choice among cocaine smugglers. On February 3, 1987, Aronow was murdered in his car at the end of 188th Street in North Miami Beach where his boat companies operated. Aronow had just left a meeting with Bob Saccenti, part owner of Apache Power Boats together with partner Ben Kramer. Witnesses said a powder blue Lincoln pulled up next to Aronow's car from the opposite direction, and when Aronow rolled down its window the driver opened fire. Another witness tried to follow the Lincoln as it fled but could not catch the killer(s). The Lincoln drove over the grass to get away. Nearly a decade later, two men pleaded no contest to charges related to Aronow's killing. In 1995, career criminal Bobby Young admitted to shooting Aronow and pleaded no contest to second degree murder, eventually providing a full confession in 2009 shortly before his death. Ben Kramer, winner of the 1986 American Power Boat Association Offshore Championship, pleaded no contest to manslaughter in 1996. Kramer