Piston Boats Just Keep Chugging Along : Faster Turbines’ Edge Diminished in Saltwater

SAN DIEGO â€”  Since the arrival of turbine power, the plan for drivers of piston engine unlimited hydroplane speedboats hasn’t been to blow everybody away with dazzling qualifying speeds that widen owners’ smiles and swell their heads.

Rather, they simply stick around all day, like a pesky little brother, waiting for their opportunities. And they pine for salt water.

The APBA Gold Cup at Mission Bay is just perfect, one of two saltwater courses on the 10-race unlimited schedule. Piston boats perform. Turbines choke.

Two Seattle guys who sit in front of piston engines had a good old time Friday on the broad, 2 1/2-mile Bill Muncey Memorial Course. It was the first day of qualifying for Sunday’s Gold Cup final, and Mike Hanson, driver of Holset/Miss Madison, clocked a record piston lap at 141.777 m.p.h. and averaged 140.165 for the day. That put him third behind Miss Budweiser (152.039) and Winston Eagle (146.032), both turbines. Defending champ George Woods Jr. finished fourth in his piston-powered Oh Boy! Oberto, averaging 138.889.

“We’ve been chasing (the piston record) all summer long,� Hanson said. “It was a matter of waiting until we got on this big course.�

It’s always a matter of waiting for piston drivers. At times, it gets a bit frustrating. These boats can’t compete head-to-head. If the turbines don’t fail, the pistons don’t win.

“It’s just the law of the jungle,� said Winston Eagle driver Larry Lauterbach of Portsmouth, Va. “If you want to keep up, you’ve got to go turbine. The piston boats can’t compete with the turbine boats, and they know that.�

Sure. Just check Friday’s standings. This was a fairly mediocre day for turbine drivers, but they still hold the top two spots. Miss Budweiser had the day’s fastest lap, 153.165, nearly three m.p.h. slower than on the first day last year. When driver Tom D’Eath of Fair Haven, Mich., ran the Miss Budweiser, compression coughs echoed over the bay. On his third and final run, Miss Budweiser broke a blade in its engine.

Then there was Chip Hanauer of Seattle, attempting to win his eighth consecutive Gold Cup aboard the Circus Circus. His problems were hauntingly similar to last year’s, when his boat stalled repeatedly. It looked like this: Pull out of the dock, pick up speed and poof, no more power.

All that was left for him to say after his second run was, “Same old salt water.� But on his last run, a cockpit fire indicated his boat might be suffering from faulty wiring rather than salt problems. The Circus Circus crew had to furiously rebuild this boat after it was totaled in a “blowover� crash at Syracuse, N.Y.

So the distinction of the day’s smoothest run went to the Winston Eagle, which ran trouble-free on its first and only run. Lauterbach decided he might as well quit while he was ahead of the salt problems, skipping thoughts of record laps and glorious speeds. He’d just as soon save a little for Sunday.

“We didn’t see any reason to go out and show our hand,� Lauterbach said. “We can go faster, I just didn’t show it.�

The piston guys have their hands on the table. Hey, these guys aren’t kidding themselves, or anybody else for that matter. Woods says it’s about as equitable as Volkswagens racing Porsches. Still, Woods clipped along at a pedestrian pace at last year’s regatta, waited for the final turbine to blow up and crossed the finish line first.

It doesn’t bother him.

“If we should win like we did last year,� he says, “when everybody pulls over and lets us by, we’ll take it.�

Besides, patience is something you learn when you’ve spent your life hanging around the water, driving any boat you can get your hands on. Woods grew up in a small town in Washington and spent his summers “living on the lake.�

His dad would give him a small outboard and say, “Go out and play.�

“Then I was out of his hair,� Woods said. “And then I was out there trying to start that thing for three hours.�

Always waiting around for something to happen. Sounds awfully similar to what he does now. With the victories few and far between, he and his crew have their share of down moments.

“It’s frustrating to the whole team,� Woods said. “We knew from the beginning what we were going to have to do. Just be there every day. Day after day.�

Which is possibly why this team has decided to order a turbine engine. Next year, when the Oh Boy! Oberto takes to the water, it will do so with a high tech jet engine, not an old automobile engine. But this team is planning to keep the old boat on the shelf. Never can tell when it might come in handy in one of these saltwater races.

Hydroplane Notes

Chip Hanauer said the rebuilt Circus Circus isn’t handling the way it did before the Syracuse crash. The Circus Circus team has a backup boat, the same one Hanauer used two years ago when he overcame the salt and won at Mission Bay. . . . A broken engine rod cut short George Woods Jr.’s last run of the day in the Oh Boy! Oberto. Unusual, said Woods, but not completely unexpected. “This . . . has been around longer than me,� he said, patting the engine. . . . Larry Lauterbach has the distinction of being the only turbine driver on the circuit who hasn’t blown his boat over. Probably contributing to this, along with his 26 years of driving experience, is the hull of the Winston Eagle, which is approximately a foot narrower than those on the other turbine boats. That takes away speed on the turns but prevents the boat from riding too high on the water and making it susceptible to a blowover.