Commission Delays Ruling on Restoring Boat Racing

The Orange County Planning Commission on Monday postponed a decision on reinstating drag boat racing at Irvine Lake, site of three fatal accidents in the last three years, with the victims including a 9-year-old spectator who was hit by a careening speedboat last April.

Commission members delayed the hearing until Sept. 11 to allow the Irvine Boat and Tackle Co. time to supply more data about proposed safety precautions and other changes that the commission recommended be made when commissioners revoked the racing permit in June.

Company owners Douglas Elliott and Bill Andrews have proposed fencing the entire lake race course with 3/4-inch steel cable, among other improvements. The county planning staff has recommended reinstating the permit.

The Irvine Co., owner of the lakefront property leased to the tackle company, remains opposed to any resumption of drag boat racing following the company’s ban on the racing May 3. But Elliott and Andrews have said that if the Planning Commission reinstated the permit they would take their case back to the Irvine Co.

Supervisor Bruce Nestande, however, said he would oppose any resumption of drag boat racing.

“How many people have to die out there before people realize it is simply inappropriate to have racing on that lake?” Nestande said Monday. Reinstatement of the racing permit, first granted in 1982, does not require approval of the supervisors. But Nestande said Monday that if the commission reinstated the permit he would ask the board to review the matter.

On April 9, 1983, 36-year-old driver Barry Zenkova of Westminster died after his racing boat flipped in qualifying heats for the Coors Championship race. On June 24, 1984, driver James Hobbs, 41, of San Bernardino was killed when his hydroplane drag boat flipped at more than 180 m.p.h. and ejected him.

Last April 21, Brandy Branchflower, 9, of Burbank was killed when a hydroplane-style boat careened into a crowd of spectators at a Coors Championship race. The youngster had been sitting in a beach chair about 15 feet from shore. A steering failure in the boat, driven by James Lange of Simi Valley, was blamed for the accident.

The Branchflower family has filed a $30-million lawsuit against the Irvine Boat and Tackle Co. and race organizers, including the National Drag Boat Assn. and Coors Corp.