Unlimited Hydroplanes Safer, but Danger Still an Inch Away

As he sat strapped upside down in the cockpit of his turbine-powered speedboat--straining to get his nose above water and hyperventilating from the trauma of a crash in which the boat had taken off like an airplane and landed on its top--you would think Jim Kropfeld might have questioned his choice of professions.

He didn’t.

That crash in May was one of many. By June, Kropfeld was back at the wheel, driving the Miss Budweiser in another unlimited hydroplane race, the Budweiser Regatta in Miami. Again he crashed, this time breaking his neck. If not for the F-16 jet plane canopy now used on many boats as a safety precaution, Kropfeld probably would have died.

He spent 14 weeks wearing an assortment of body braces, still uses a neck brace and isn’t sure when he’ll compete again. Today, when drivers of 14 of the world’s fastest boats make qualifying runs for the three-day Miller High Life Thunderboat Regatta at Mission Bay, Kropfeld will watch. But when he does climb back in the cockpit, he’ll do it without fear.

“You can’t go out there and be afraid,” he said. “If you’re worried about getting hurt, you’re not going to be a very good driver.”

But knowing the risks is essential. Chip Hanauer, 34, set a world qualifying record of 155.979 while winning last year’s regatta at Mission Bay. He has been racing since he was 9 years old and was made aware of the dangers right from the start.

“My father sat me down when I started and said that he would support racing and help me but that I had to accept any consequences that came from it,” he said. “So you became a bit hardened. You knew that severe injuries were part of racing. You had to accept it and go on.”

Acceptance included dealing with the deaths of friends and fellow racers. Before safety features were improved on the unlimited boats, those associated with racing assumed the worst when a crash occurred. Survival was the exception, not the rule.

In 1981, Bill Muncey, the all-time leading unlimited hydroplane racer with 62 victories, was killed in a crash in Acapulco. A year later, Dean Chenoweth, the national champion in 1970, ‘71, ’80 and ‘81, was killed. From the tragedies, drivers learned stoicism and ultimately detached themselves from personal sadness.

“You have to kind of insulate yourself a little bit,” said Tom D’Eath, who has taken Kropfeld’s place in the Miss Budweiser. “That’s pretty common in boat racing. You have friends, but you can’t really let yourself get too close to them because if you do, and the ultimate disaster happens, then you really feel bad. Sometimes it seems pretty cold and callous to do that, but that’s part of the game too. The bad part.”

There’s a fine line between the good and the bad. It is said about many sports that winning and losing is often determined by inches. In speedboat racing, inches can make the difference between life and death.

Thirty days before Muncey died, Hanauer was in a similar accident in which his boat flipped upside down. But Hanauer had good fortune; he was thrown clear before the boat hit the water. Muncey’s boat landed on top of him.

“Really,” Hanauer said, “that was just the grace of God that I was spared.”

Drivers during that period had no protection. They drove in open cockpits with parachutes on their backs. It was thought the driver would have a better chance of escaping if he was not enclosed.

During the past five years, things have changed. Cockpits of hydroplane race boats are somewhat of a cross between those in a dragster and a fighter plane. They’re designed to prevent the driver from being crushed by the force of the water impact during a high-speed crash. The cockpit has two padded roll bars and honeycomb-shaped aluminum siding. The driver has an air mask similar to a pilot’s, allowing him to breath if he is trapped underwater. A trap door is built into the boat’s bottom for quick escape.

Because boats reach speeds of 195 m.p.h., Hanauer said crashes are even more frequent today. And the improved safety features don’t make accidents less harrowing.

D’Eath, 44, came out of retirement to take Kropfeld’s place in Miss Budweiser. During a long career, which included winning the Gar Wood Trophy in 1975 and the American Power Boat Assn. Gold Cup in 1976, D’Eath never crashed. But in June at the Budweiser Gold Cup in Evansville, Ind., D’Eath’s second race in Miss Budweiser, the boat flipped and skidded backwards at about 100 m.p.h. D’Eath remembers only bits and pieces of the crash.

“You kind of gray out,” he said. “It’s not like you’re unconscious, but you just can’t remember.”

When the boat stopped, D’Eath was completely disoriented.

“I didn’t know if I was upside down, right side up or sideways,” he said. “It happened so fast I didn’t have time to get scared.”

Afterward, he had plenty of time. He spent several days wondering what he was doing driving speedboats again.

“Here I got out of the sport with all my arms and limbs, and I’m not limping and I’m not dingy,” he said. “I talked to (Miss Budweiser owner) Bernie Little and told him I’d have to do some serious thinking about continuing. I came so close to not doing it it’s not even funny.”

What made him stay? Basically, his sense of commitment. A few days after the crash, he talked to another driver who had similar concerns but had decided to stay because he had signed for the season. That hit home with D’Eath, who figured he should stick with it to regain his shaken confidence.

Entering today’s competition, D’Eath has won three consecutive races.