Defending Champion Returns Minus Boat

Mike Hanson came from farther behind than any driver in unlimited hydroplane history to win the Texaco Star Cup race last year at San Diego, and in this year’s second event he won four races at Lewisville Lake in Texas to keep the Miss Budweiser boat in contention for its 15th national championship.

But when the boats line up this weekend at Mission Bay for the San Diego Bayfair unlimited race, Hanson, having lost his boat, will be working as a crewman on the Miss Exide boat, trying to help Mark Evans win his first race since 1991.

When Hanson won in San Diego last year, he was driving the Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes boat--owned by the 13,000 citizens of Madison, Ind.--and had to win a “last chance” heat to make the final, which he started as a trailer boat--five seconds behind the other starters. When three boats dropped out and the favored Miss Budweiser was penalized a lap, Hanson picked off what boats were left and became the first trailer boat to win an unlimited hydroplane race.

Hanson and the Kellogg’s boat finished second in the season standings, but when the sponsorship was withdrawn for 1994, the boat was parked.

“It was a terrible disappointment for everyone in Madison, but when you start spending your own dollars (to finance a hydroplane), there can be no end to it,” said Bob Hughes, president of the group that maintains and races the boat, usually known as Miss Madison. “We raised enough money to run it once, in our own race, the Indiana Governor’s Cup, in Madison, but that was all.”

Hanson, without a boat to drive, went to the opening race, the Gold Cup in Detroit, to help the Miss Exide team. When Chip Hanauer, driver of Miss Budweiser and a seven-time national champion, was injured during practice, boat owner Bernie Little asked Hanson to drive in hopes of picking up vital team points.

“It was a dream come true and a nightmare at the same time,” Hanson said. “Saturday was the worst day I ever spent in my life. The circumstances were monumental. I was in a boat I had always dreamed of driving, in Detroit, in the Gold Cup, but only because Chip was hurt. I was in the premier boat in the fleet, in the biggest race of the year, and I was miserable.”

Part of the reason was because Hanson is short and thickset and Hanauer is tall and thin.

“My feet wouldn’t touch the pedals,” Hanson said. “The Budweiser crew put foam in the seat to lift me up, but I could barely see over the deck, and then they had to screw quarter-inch bolts in the pedals to make them high enough so I could operate them.”

And Hanson had none of his own racing equipment.

“My helmet was back in the hotel, but because (Hanauer’s accident) happened between heats, there was no time to get it. I had to wear one of (former driver) Jim Kropfeld’s helmets that was in the Budweiser trailer and I wore a uniform they took off a fuel truck safety worker who was about my size.”

In Hanson’s first heat in a boat that had set a course record the day before--and with no practice time--he came around the tight first turn and nearly ran into a retaining wall in front of a grandstand full of spectators.

“I probably wasn’t as scared as much as everyone else,” Hanson recalled. “For one reason, I could barely see. When I hit a wake and the boat bounced, my borrowed face mask came down over my face and by the time I got it straightened out--it was probably only about a half-second, but when you travel 150 feet in that time, it’s scary--I was headed for the wall. When I saw where I was, I took evasive action but I didn’t have time to be scared--until later.”

A week later, with his own helmet, a newly constructed cockpit with reachable pedals and practice time in the boat, Hanson won all three heats and the final round in Texas. The 1,600 points he earned for Miss Budweiser went a long way toward the boat’s current total of 8,288, only 66 ahead of Smokin’ Joe’s boat driven by Mark Tate, with two races remaining.

“Bernie Little told me he was pleased with my performance, and I thought I’d drive the Bud boat in a couple more races because we all thought Chip would sit them out, but when he came back earlier than expected, I was out of a ride again.”

Hanson will be working with the propeller on Evans’ boat this weekend, but he will have his helmet at his side when qualifying starts today--just in case.

Motor Racing Notes

STOCK CARS--Saugus Speedway will hold its final NASCAR Winston Racing Series races Saturday night for Grand Am modifieds, pro stocks and mini stocks, plus four mechanics’ races. . . . Orange Show Speedway in San Bernardino will also hold its final points races for pro stocks, street stocks and Figure 8s on Saturday night.

The Mack Tools Sportsman Grand Prix for street bombers and pony stocks headlines the Saturday night program at Cajon Speedway. . . . Street stocks and IMCA modifieds will race tonight at Ventura Raceway. . . . Kern County Raceway will have daredevil stocks, street stocks and dwarf cars Saturday. . . . Final race of the Blythe-Las Vegas Challenge for sportsman cars will be run Saturday night at Blythe Speedway.

SPEEDWAY BIKES--Speedway USA will hold the junior national championships Sunday at the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds in Victorville. Favorites include defending champion Steven Downing of Apple Valley and Jimmy Fishback Jr. of Etiwanda.

MIDGETS--The United States Auto Club will continue its Western regional points races Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale with both full midget and three-quarter midget main events.

SPRINT CARS--After seven consecutive races on third- and quarter-mile ovals, the Sprint Car Racing Assn. drivers return Saturday night to the half-mile clay track at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix.

MOTOCROSS--Jeff Stanton, who won six national championships riding Hondas before retiring last month, was a visitor at the U.S. Grand Prix last week at Laguna Seca, and told friends that he will stay with Honda as an aide to team manager Dave Arnold.

MOTORCYCLES--The Southern California Trials Assn. will hold its 28th Big Bear trials on Saturday and Sunday at the Cactus Flats area in the San Bernardino National Forest. . . . Jamie James of Asheville, N. C., riding for the Vance & Hines team from Los Angeles, will try to score an AMA Superbike road-racing double on Sunday at Road Atlanta by winning both the 600 and 750 supersport championships on a Yamaha. James, who won the 600 at Pomona, has a big lead in that class and leads Australian Troy Corser by three points in the 750.

Ty Davis of Hesperia, on a Kawasaki, will ride on the U.S. World Trophy team in the first International Six Days Enduro on American soil since 1973. Also on the team, which will start competition Tuesday on the Zink Ranch outside Tulsa, Okla., are Suzuki riders Guy Cooper, former motocross champion from Stillwater, Okla., and Randy Hawkins, a four-time national enduro champion from Travelers Rest, S.C.