Hanauer Over And Out -- Miss Budweiser Driver Injured As Hydroplane Does Flip At 200 Mph

For nearly five, creeping, silent minutes yesterday, Chip Hanauer remained inside the submerged cockpit of his hydroplane while the wake settled and pieces of his boat floated as far as 100 yards away.

"Hurry up, get him out of there," said an agitated Bonnie Kropfeld, who had seen the whole thing and had been through it before.

"Get him out of there!"

She had watched as the Miss Budweiser, making the morning's first qualifying run, entered the first turn of the Lake Washington race course at 200 mph - then suddenly lifted, flipped straight back and slammed, upside down, onto the surface. Where it then lay still.

Hanauer, the Seattle native who is the sport's most winning active driver, was pulled through the cockpit floor's escape hatch and treated on the rescue boat before being taken ashore and then to Harborview Medical Center.

"He was more worried about the boat than himself," said paramedic Mike Remington, who was one of the first rescuers to reach Hanauer. "He was very calm, maybe a little confused. But I think his calmness helped us settle down."

Hanauer, 37, who was conscious when pulled out of the boat, suffered a concussion and three broken ribs in the wreck, his third blow-over in more than 15 years in racing.

Everything behind the engine and most of the left sponson was ripped off. The engine was thrown through the boat to the bottom of the lake. All that remained fully intact was the driver's cockpit and right sponson.

By last night, Hanauer's condition had improved enough that he was talking about getting in the team's backup boat and racing today if the team needed him. But Hanauer's spirit appeared more willing than his body as he grew faint and wan during a brief evening news conference at Harborview.

Bernie Little, Miss Budweiser team owner, said Hanauer's offer to drive was appreciated but unnecessary. Former Miss Bud driver Scott Pierce will replace Hanauer, Little said.

Hanauer said he felt as much disappointment last night as discomfort. The boat had been performing superbly. When it went airborne, he was amazed. He watched helplessly from the cockpit as his view of the lake was replaced by one of the sky.

"I was just starting to sit it into the corner when everything went bad," Hanauer recalled. "I was confused. I was just thoroughly confused how it could get from being really stable to where it was."

The Miss Bud crew later determined that the boat's propeller had fallen off, precipitating the crash.

"It's just bad luck," Hanauer said, adding that bad luck was part of the business. "You have to know you're juggling dynamite."

"It brought back a bad, bad memory," said Bonnie Kropfeld, whose husband, Jim, was the last driver to flip in an unlimited hydroplane on Lake Washington. He flipped in the Miss Budweiser in spring testing in 1987.

Kropfeld suffered another blow-over in Detroit in 1989 and almost drowned when the cockpit filled with water as rescue workers struggled with a stuck hatch.

"I was just hoping it wasn't a repeat where they couldn't get the hatch open," Bonnie Kropfeld said. "It's the being upside down too long that sends chills up my spine."

The chills yesterday came in the violence of Hanauer's crash.

"It's awesome - I've never seen a boat go like that," said Little, in his 30th season as the Miss Budweiser owner.

Hydroplanes can cost several hundred thousand dollars to design and build.

Racing legends Bill Muncey and Dean Chenoweth were killed in less spectacular-looking blow-overs in the early 1980s - before the enclosed driver safety cell was made mandatory for all unlimited hydroplanes in 1986.

"Thank goodness for the enclosed capsule," said Dr. Keith Peterson, medical director for the Seafair race. "It saved another person's life."

The violence of the wreck initially sent fear through the Budweiser camp. "Chip's grandma was crying. She was really scared," said Lynnwood's Coreyanne Provencher, who was in the Bud pit during the accident.

Little's crew determined that the blow-over occurred when the propeller broke, causing the back end of the boat to dip. Already gusting southerly winds then caught the boat's right sponson and did the rest.

"It was certainly not Chip's fault at all in any way shape or form," Little said.

If anything, the team's decision to try to get more speed out of the boat under the ideal, cool, driving conditions might have contributed.

"We had it tuned up real good for that run," Bud crew chief Ron Brown said. "We wanted to increase our record a little bit."

Hanauer broke the course record in the boat Friday with a lap of 158.730 mph - before going 158.905 mph in the team's other boat later in the morning. In morning practice yesterday, he had run a lap of more than 159 mph in the boat that flipped.

Hanauer, who has won all five races this season, was first on the course for 10 a.m. qualifying yesterday and ran one lap before the accident.

Given the chance to change the morning strategy, Brown said the team wouldn't.

"I think it's always in our game plan to push hard, and Bernie Little's a real hard competitor," the crew chief said. "We always expect it to flip once or twice a year with these things as finely tuned as they are."

The Miss Bud hadn't suffered so much as a broken part this season until losing a rudder in Friday afternoon qualifying. The boat not only had won all the races this year, but it had been fastest qualifier, with course records, at every race.

Hanauer had not suffered a blow-over since 1989 in Syracuse, where he drove the Miss Circus Circus. His first blow-over came in the Miss Squire Shop during testing in San Diego in 1981. He wasn't hurt in either flip.

The last time a major accident occurred on the Lake Washington course during Seafair weekend was in 1982 when Miss Pay 'N Pak driver Jim Walters suffered serious injuries in a three-boat collision.