HYDROPLANE RACING : Villwock Picks Up the Pieces, Wins Final

Dave Villwock overcame a blown engine, a swimmer in his racing lane and the fastest unlimited hydroplane racers in the world to win the Bayfair ’94 before an estimated crowd of 60,000 on a sunny Sunday at Mission Bay.

It was the second victory in San Diego for the lanky former crew chief for Chip Hanauer who became a racer two years when he drove Coors Light to victory in his first unlimited race. It was also Villwock’s second consecutive victory after winning the Texaco Cup last month in Seattle.

Villwock almost didn’t make the five-lap final after “blowing my engine into a million bits and pieces” during the third and final heat.

“This was an incredible team effort,” Villwock said. “We were in a deep, deep hole and they pulled me out. We had a steering problem (in the heat) and that led to the engine exploding.

“I entered a turn at a bad angle and when the boat hit a big wake it bounced up and the propeller got out of the water. The engine revved to the moon.”

The explosion ripped holes in the side of the boat and wing, splintered the bottom and damaged the engine beyond repair. One metal piece flew nearly a quarter of a mile, across adjacent Ingraham Boulevard into a parking area where it hit a car and punched a hole through the door and shattered a window.

“In the final, we had good speed at the beginning and once we got the lead from Miss Budweiser, we motored away,” Villwock said. “I was in the center (of the course) at the start and was just trying to hold my line because I was trapped between two white walls of water.”

Although Villwock is not as well known as Hanauer or Mark Tate, the victory was not a big surprise.

The Von’s American Dream was the fastest qualifier with a lap of 166.027 m.p.h. on Friday and the boat has won seven of its last eight heats--here and Seattle--losing only the one in which the engine exploded.

Villwock averaged a course-record 149.330 m.p.h. in the final.

Hanauer, in Miss Budweiser, was running a solid second until the third lap when the rear wing broke off his boat and Tate moved Smokin’ Joe’s up to finish second behind Von’s American Dream.

“Considering the way the day started out, we’re pretty happy to finish second and move closer to the (driver’s) championship,” Tate said.

In the day’s first heat, Tate was leading after half a lap when the throttle cable broke, leaving the boat dead in the water.

Tate has a 1,484-point lead over Nate Brown, driver of The Tide, with one race remaining, Oct. 16 in Honolulu, where the maximum point total available is 1,600. In the boat championship, Miss Budweiser leads Smokin’ Joe’s by 404 points.

The program was delayed nearly an hour during the third heat when Veronica Lynn Morrison, 25, of La Mesa, was spotted swimming in the middle of the racing lanes as four 6,000-pound boats were circling the course for the start.

Steve David, in Miss T-Plus, spotted her on his first staging lap and radioed his crew, who informed racing officials. A helicopter hovered over her as the boats were told to shut down.

“I saw the helicopter down close to the water and then I saw her,” Tate said. “My first thought was she fell out of the helicopter.”

She was directly in the middle of Tate’s lane, forcing him to make an abrupt turn to the right to miss her. Because the boats were sitting in the salt water so long, they were brought back to the pits and lifted from the water and restarted nearly an hour later. The woman was charged with obstructing navigation on Mission Bay.