HYDROPLANES / AT SAN DIEGO : Tate Gets Patchwork Victory, Clinches Title
After his Smokin’ Joe’s crew frantically repaired a hole the size of a basketball in the bottom of his unlimited hydroplane Sunday, Mark Tate came back to win the Bayfair Muncey Cup and clinch his third driver’s championship.
Chip Hanauer, who had dominated the day with three heat victories and seemed on his way to a fifth victory on the Bill Muncey course in Mission Bay, had a spectacular crash during the first lap of the five-lap main event, which disintegrated the three-ton Miss Budweiser.
After the red boat knifed into the water at 170 m.p.h. and catapulted through the air at the south end of the 2.5-mile course, the boat lay upside down in the water. After what seemed an eternity, Hanauer’s head appeared in the water and he climbed on what was left of the hull and waved to the crowd.
Miraculously, he was uninjured, having escaped through the emergency hatch in the capsule cockpit.
“It was a goofy accident,” Hanauer said. “I’ve been in accidents before, but usually where the boat flies through the air in a blowover. This was totally different. When the left sponson caught a roll, it upset the stability and the right sponson dug in the water and snapped off. Then it twisted violently and we started cartwheeling.”
Hanauer, 41, and the victim of several recent accidents, said Sunday’s scare would not hasten his thoughts of retirement.
“Things like that are part of racing,” he said. “I accept that as part of what I’m doing. I’ll be ready for Honolulu. I just hope the boat will be.”
The race was stopped while safety crews cleared the water of debris, mostly pieces of fiberglass from the huge boat.
When it was restarted, Smokin’ Joe’s was an easy winner although there was apprehension in their pits for the five laps because of the condition of the hastily patched-up hull.
With one race remaining, Oct. 15 in Honolulu, Tate was assured of the championship when Dave Villwock, his nearest competitor in PICO, failed to start the final heat. Tate has 12,213 points to 9,879 for Villwock, last year’s San Diego winner.
In the points race for owners, Steve Woomer of Smokin’ Joe’s heads for Pearl Harbor with a narrow 39-point margin over Bernie Little, owner of Miss Budweiser.
“I can’t say enough for the way the crew got the boat ready to race after such a violent explosion,” said Smokin’ Joe’s crew chief Jim Lucero, who also designed and built the boat. “The propeller twisted off, shearing the shaft and when the engine exploded, it ripped a hole in the bottom of the hull and another one through the deck. All the fuel lines were snapped or tangled and because there was fuel leaking from the hole, it made it very difficult to patch.
“I never had any doubts the crew would get the job done. Everybody knows the routine. They just kicked it up a notch. Even Mark was up on top trying to give us a hand, but you know all drivers are the same. When they think there’s a big crowd around, they get in the act.”
Tate, 35, laughed when told of Lucero’s comment.
“We struggled all week, never seeming to get the boat right, but Jim’s guys never let up.” Tate said. “Right through the heats today, they were working toward our two goals--to win the race and get the driver’s title. Even after the motor grenaded, there was never a letup.”
Tate was the nearest boat to Hanauer when Miss Budweiser flipped, but he said his view was obscured by 40-foot high roostertails.
“I was running just off his right side, a little behind him, when he started to turn. I was turning too, and when you’re nearing the apex, you lose sight of the other boats. My crew radioed me that Chip went over and I shut [the engine] down.
“It’s not the greatest way to win, but we’ll take it.”
Charlie Fegan of Albuquerque, N.M.,. won the top fuel hydro final in the International Hot Boat Assn. competition at Crown Point Shores, defeating Walt Ott of Manteca, Calif.
Tim Seebold of Osage Beach, Mo., was the Formula One winner as Scott Gillman, a former Orange County off-road racing veteran now living in Basalt, Colo., won the series championship for the tunnel boats.
But the biggest winner may have been Jim Kidrick, executive director of Thunderboats Unlimited, which conducts Bayfair festivities. After assessing what appeared to be the largest crowd ever at Mission Bay, Kidrick said, “I’m ecstatic.” San Diego police estimated the crowd at “more than 75,000.”