Breakdown Leaves Hanauer One Short

It took failure for Chip Hanauer to fully realize what he has accomplished.

His hopes of winning an eighth consecutive American Power Boat Assn. Gold Cup exploded just before he reached the first turn of Sunday’s unlimited hydroplane final at Mission Bay. The hot end of the turbine engine in his Circus Circus lost power, making room for Tom D’Eath of Fairhaven, Mich., to nurse Miss Budweiser through a six-lap average of 124.593 m.p.h. on the 2 1/2-mile oval course for his first Gold Cup victory since 1976.

While D’Eath completed the first three laps, Hanauer attempted to restart Circus Circus until his battery indicated to him that enough was enough. Then, he watched.

In a strange way, it was peaceful. Hanauer, a Seattle driver with 29 unlimited victories, has a history of worrying himself through race weekends, so he had never really taken the time to pat himself on the back for nearly equaling Bill Muncey’s record of eight consecutive Gold Cup victories.

As he was towed back to the pits by a patrol boat traveling 185 m.p.h. slower than an unlimited hydroplane, he finally thought to himself: “Hey Chip, nice going.”

“I felt it was wrong to look back, because yesterday’s home run is no good to anybody,” Hanauer said. “The last 15 minutes is the first time I’ve allowed myself to look back and say ‘That’s pretty neat looking.’ I think we left a pretty high mark for everybody else.”

After the race, D’Eath took a moment to clasp his hands in prayer position and look toward the sky before climbing from Miss Budweiser to the open arms of his ecstatic crew. When Miss Budweiser ran low on fuel at the end of the fourth lap and lost speed, it appeared George Woods Jr. of Seattle would, as he did last year, crawl through the back door for his second consecutive victory at Mission Bay.

Woods, running his noisy piston-powered Oh Boy! Oberto at a distant second, took a slim lead for several hundred yards at the beginning of the fifth lap, but D’Eath was able to regain enough power to finish, and Woods began to fade after running low on fuel himself. Woods finished second with a 123.983 average, ahead of Holset/Miss Madison (121.032), Mr. Pringle’s (119.584) and Miss Easter Seal (96.619).

“God won this race for me,” D’Eath said. “(The boat) just took off. I have no idea why.”

Simple explanation. Turbine boats tend to do that, which is why Woods and his crew are planning to order one for next season.

“That Budweiser’s fast,” Woods said. “You can go by it about 50 miles per hour faster and blink and he’s going by you.”

Certainly, racing piston boats against turbines is not completely fair, though Mission Bay’s saltwater tends to be the great equalizer. The turbines have had a history of making record-breaking qualifying runs and then running out of steam in the final.

So this was an especially nice victory for Bernie Little, Miss Budweiser’s owner. He cracked open a can of the beverage made by his sponsor and said with a hearty smile: “This Bud’s for me.”

But the real credit for this victory should probably be given to the Budweiser crew, who installed a rear-facing water filter, thus preventing engine failures that have stuck a thorn in the side of this team for years at Mission Bay.

D’Eath, who has won two of four races since replacing Jim Kropfeld midway through the season, wasn’t exactly bursting with confidence as he entered the final lap. Perhaps memories of last year’s race were still swirling in his head.

“I could feel it slipping through my fingers,” he said. “I knew I had it once I got close enough to the finish line where I knew I could coast across.”

Hanauer’s early exit probably saved Miss Budweiser. D’Eath took the course a minute earlier than the other boats to make sure he was running smoothly by the start. The extra time caused him to run low on fuel. If Circus Circus had been around to push the pace, D’Eath said he would have probably run out of gas.

“Made for a great finish,” Hanauer said. “Wish I would have been a part of it.”

Hanauer wasn’t frowning. At this time last year, he was extremely close to making a retirement announcement because he felt the Miller High Life team, owned by Fran Muncey, was sliding backward and not making the effort to climb back up. What Sunday’s regatta indicated to Hanauer is that he now has a crew that makes it worth sticking around the unlimited circuit a while longer.

For example. Twenty minutes before Sunday’s final, the Circus Circus crew scrambled to replace the engine Hanauer used to run his record lap Saturday. There was an oil pressure problem. Hanauer said it was replaced perfectly, and the engine failure was just a fluke.

“Everybody gave everything they had,” he said. “We came here with our best punch. How could you be angry?”