Chip’s Off the Block : Hydroplane Driver Hanauer Struggles, Fueling Talk of Impending Retirement

When Bill Doner became commissioner of unlimited hydroplane racing last March, he promised change. Change in the number and quality of boats, change in the number of race courses and the number of sponsors.

One change he didn’t anticipate was the decline of Chip Hanauer, the sport’s premier driver for more than a decade.

Hanauer, 40, hasn’t exactly faded away. He has won three of the four races he has run, but for the first time since 1982, the veteran driver from Seattle will not win either the Gold Cup, hydroplane’s Super Bowl, or the driver’s championship.

During that period--he took a year off in 1991 to try automobile racing--Hanauer won nine Gold Cups and seven championships.

“When you win as much as we have, the public sets high expectations,” Hanauer said. “It only takes one loss and people start saying maybe you’re over the hill.”

Mark Tate, who won both the Gold Cup and the driver’s championship the year Hanauer sat out, is close to repeating his feat this season. He won the Gold Cup last June on the Detroit River and needs only to finish today’s Bayfair ’94 race to clinch the championship.

“Winning my first championship was very meaningful and satisfying,” Tate said. “But if we can win the boat championship, it will be even better. It will mean more to me.”

In 1991, when he won the driver’s championship, the team title went to Miss Budweiser because Tate earned his points driving two boats.

Tate, who drives Smokin’ Joe’s for Steve Woomer of Kent, Wash., trails Hanauer, in Bernie Little’s Miss Budweiser, by 66 points, which in unlimited hydroplane racing is almost like a dead heat.

The winner of each heat earns 400 points, so with three heats and a final Sunday, it is possible to get 1,600 points. And that many more when the season ends Oct. 16 in Honolulu.

“The boat championship, that’s what keeps me going,” Hanauer said. “This has been the worst year I’ve ever had, physically and emotionally, but winning another title for the Bud boat would make up for a lot.”

There have been rumors that Hanauer, at the end of a three-year contract with Little, will retire after this season, but he says he has made no such decision.

“I’ve thought about it, only because people keep bringing it up, but I wouldn’t want to make a decision before these last two races,” he said. “If I said I was retiring, I might be too aggressive trying to go out with a bang. On the other hand, it might make me more conservative to keep out of trouble. I want to stay focused on here and Honolulu.”

What makes this season so difficult for Hanauer to swallow is that when it started, he had never been more confident or enthusiastic .

“We had tested well and when we got to Detroit (for the Gold Cup opening race), we were fast right off the trailer. We were fast qualifier and then, in the first heat, it looked like my season was over. It was devastating.”

Hanauer was jockeying for starting position, going about 130 m.p.h., when the escape hatch on Miss Budweiser blew open and a wall of water slammed into the cockpit. Hanauer suffered lower back and groin injuries that kept him out of two races.

“After the first three minutes of the season, I woke up in the emergency room, where they told me I would be out at least 12 weeks,” he said. “The pain--even today--takes the joy out of racing.

“It’s hard to maintain the enthusiasm you need to race at this level when you’re hurting. One of the worst things is that I can’t train the way I should.”

Hanauer had another bad accident last month in Seattle when his boat blew over while practicing on Lake Washington. The boat was damaged beyond repair, but two hours later Hanauer was in a backup boat and set a qualifying record.

Asked what it’s like to blow over in a 30-foot long, 6,000-pound boat at close to 200 m.p.h., Hanauer said:

“It’s kind of like hosting your very own personal train wreck.

“That boat has put me in the hospital four times. It’s back in Seattle locked in the warehouse. I don’t think I ever want to see it again.”

In its place this weekend, Hanauer is driving a 1987 version of Miss Budweiser.

“It’s not nearly as fast as the ’89 boat (the one that crashed), but it is more forgiving. In the next two days, we hope we can make enough changes to get it up to speed. Considering the number of changes we’ve made, I’m pleased with where we are.”

Hanauer was second fastest at 165.247 m.p.h. during Friday’s first day of qualifying. Dave Villwock, in Von’s American Dream, showed that his victory in Seattle was no fluke by posting the fastest lap around the 2 1/2-mile Bill Muncey Memorial Course at 166.027 m.p.h.

Villwock won the San Diego race two years ago in Coors Dry.

Tate, mired in fifth position after being able to coax only 159.011 from Smokin’ Joe’s, said the boat had an internal systems problem that the crew was working on. Also, his boat hit something during one run, “maybe a fish,” that tore up the front sponson.

Another round of time trials today will set the field for Sunday’s three heats and a five-lap final.