Hydroplanes / Seafair -- Back From The Depths Of Despair, Villwock Goes To Head Of Class -- Making It Look Easy

Security guards looked the other way when Paul Villwock sneaked beer into his brother's room at Harborview Medical Center last year. They knew it would be almost impossible for the driver of the Miss Budweiser hydroplane to watch the race that means most to him from a hospital bed. And they were right.

Dave Villwock bottomed out on Seafair Sunday last season. The room was too hot. The pain in his right hand, which had just had its ring and pinkie fingers amputated, was approaching unbearable. And he couldn't do anything when his boat was knocked out of the race in a freak accident.

"That was the lowest of lows," Villwock said. "I got out my briefcase and called everybody I could find (in the Miss Budweiser camp). If they had a cell phone, it was ringing. I wanted the boat to run, but there was nothing I could do to help the team."

The beer tasted much better yesterday in the air-conditioned back of one of his team's bright red trucks, which soon will have a new sticker to commemorate Villwock's victory in the Seafair Texaco Cup.

Villwock again buried any doubts that he has fully recovered from the near-fatal flip at Tri-Cities last July. He dominated Seafair's nine-boat field all weekend. And he finished it off with a quarter-lap victory over Mark Evans and the Pico American Dream, the team he watched take the title on TV last year.

The people who comforted him then were celebrating with him now. The cell phone his crew once wanted to destroy was nowhere in sight.

This is the way Villwock envisioned it when he left Pico to take control of the sport's best team two years ago.

"I was hired to win the national championship," Villwock said. "Everybody said that we made it look easy. But we tried real hard to make it look easy."

They have almost all season. The victory was Villwock's fifth in six races. Only last Sunday in Kelowna, B.C., did Villwock fail to cross the finish line far ahead of everybody else.

But Villwock is a perfectionist. So are his crew members. And that loss was on their minds all week. Mitch Evans was disqualified from that race for pinching too soon and washing out the Miss Budweiser. It allowed Evans' brother, Mark, to win the race, and they didn't want to allow the scenario to repeat itself.

No conspiracy was planned, in Kelowna or Seattle, to beat Villwock. Teaming up is almost impossible at 200 mph. But that didn't stop Mark Evans from hoping his brother, who was disqualified again yesterday for cutting over too soon in the Appian Jeronimo, might get close enough to Villwock to knock him out again.

"I was going, `Pinch him. Pinch him. Come on,' " said Mark Evans, who was inside Villwock in Lane 1. "Boy, I'll bet the old sandwich routine was on (Villwock's) mind."

That was the only chance Evans had of defending his championship. He knew it. So did Bernie Little. The owner of the Miss Budweiser knew the first corner was the crucial point of the race. If Villwock survived, he would win. "We went in there second and I thought, `Oh no. That's not the right place to be,' " Little said. "When I saw us passing (Mark Evans), I can't tell you how happy that made me."

In the end, Villwock had too much boat speed for the competition. He was back to his normal self. It wasn't a perfect day because he finished second in a heat for a clock-start violation. But it was better than the one he suffered through last year.

Hydroplanes are much more comfortable than hospital beds, he said. And the view is much better from the cockpit than it is on television.

SEAFAIR TEXACO CUP FINAL RESULTS

At Lake Washington

Heat 1A - U-1 Miss Budweiser, Dave Villwock, 136.882 (400 points); U-9 Graham Trucking, Mike Weber, 131.721 (300); U-14 Tveten's RV Mart, Ken Muscatel, 129.392 (225); U-2 Freddie's Club, Steve David, 125.829 (169); U-19 Easter Seals, Jerry Hale, did not start (0)

Heat 1B - U-20 Appian Jeronimo, Mitch Evans, 140.558 (400); U-8 Llumar Window Film, Nate Brown, 136.036 (300); U-16 Miss E-Lam Plus, Jimmy King, 134.340 (225); U-100 Pico American Dream, Mark Evans, 131.283 (169).

Heat 2A - U-19 Easter Seals, Jerry Hale, 123.841 (400 total points); U-1 Miss Budweiser, Dave Villwock, NA, (700); U-14 Tveten's RV Mart, Ken Muscatel, NA (450); U-16 Miss E-Lam Plus, Jimmy King, NA, (394); U-9 Graham Trucking, Mike Weber, did not start, (300).

Heat 2B - U-20 Appian Jeronimo, Mitch Evans, 138.496 (800); U-2 Freddie's Club, Steve David, 133.679 (469); U-8 Llumar Window Film, Nate Brown, 120.251 (525); U-100 Pico American Dream, Mark Evans, 117.044 (338).

Heat 3A - U-1 Miss Budweiser, Dave Villwock, 138.200 (1,100); U-16 Miss E-Lam Plus, Jimmy King, 135.197 (694); U-14 Tveten's RV Mart, Ken Muscatel, 133.579 (675); U-19 Easter Seals, Jerry Hale, 122.197 (569); U-9 Graham Trucking, Mike Weber, did not start (300).

Heat 3B - U-20 Appian Jeronimo, Mitch Evans, 141.716 (1,200); U-100 Pico American Dream, Mark Evans, 138.083 (638); U-8 Llumar Windo Film, Nate Brown, 124.466 (750); U-2 Freddie's Club, Steve David, did not start (469).

Seafair Texaco Cup Championship - U-1 Miss Budweiser, Dave Villwock, 135.715 (1,500); U-100 Pico American Dream, Mark Evans, 130.095 (938); U-8 Llumar Window Film, Nate Brown, 125.233 (975); U-14 Tveten's RV Mart, Ken Muscatel, 122.224 (844); U-19 Easter Seals, Jerry Hale, 118.066 (696); U-16 Miss E-Lam Plus, Jimmy King, 103.293 (789); U-20 Appian Jeronimo, Mitch Evans, disqualified.

-----------------------------------------------------------.

. CRASH COURSE .

Seattle is the most accident-prone site on the hydroplane circuit this decade. But the drivers involved eventually returned to racing.

. YR. DRIVER BOAT .

. 1992 Chip Hanauer Budweiser . 1993 Mark Tate Winston Eagle . 1993 Ken Dryden KISW Miss Rock . 1994 Chip Hanauer Budweiser . 1994 Ken Dryden E-Lam Plus # . 1996 Dave Villwock Pico American Dream . 1996 Rick Christensen Spring Air Mattress . 1997 Mark Evans Pico American Dream . 1998 Mark Weber Budweiser .

Jimmy King E-Lam Plus (same crash) . 1998 Lindsey Emmons Sammamish Lake Watch . 1998 Steve David Freddie's Club .

.

# only serious injury. Returned to racing the next year.