in the blink of an eye, a piece of equipment fails or a driver makes a mistake, they could be 50 feet up in the air. upside down and backwards. at first glance, dave might look more like a banker than a daredevil, but he s been racing hydroplanes for years and been in some pretty dramatic crashes. you re traveling at over a football field per second. so if you aren t anticipating what what s going to happen, you re likely to crash. they flip through the air as if they weigh nothing, but these boats are 30 feet long, 7,000 pounds with 4,000 horsepower engine. it s a celebration of excess. everything about it is bigger and badder and more extensive than you could possibly imagine. dave says imagine driving your car at 200 miles an hour
it s a celebration of excess. everything about it is bigger and badder and more extensive than you could possibly imagine. dave says imagine driving your car at 200 miles an hour without springs or shocks. that s what it feels like to ride this thing. the environment of looking from the outside of a hydroplane, it likes wonderful, graceful vehicle that flying over the water. the truth is the boat is actually beating the not out of driver that s inside. david fell in love with racing boats as a teenager. while most kids his age were out riding bicycles. i started out racing flat-bottom boats, because that s what my uncle had done. dave, good-bye. and it was a lot of fun, and it progressed into bigger
in the summer of 2009, he enters thunder on the ohio, a race he s won ten times before. in his first heat another driver loses control and hits dave s boat. dave flips over and smashes into the water. but dave s work redesigning the driver s capsule pays off. it stays in one piece, and he waits in safety for help to arrive. the only injury i got was a finger injury, where it broke a knuckle in the finger. as boat accidents go, i ll take that. that s a good one. after decades of speeding, crashing and tumbling through the air, dave says driving a hydroplane is a thrill few can experience. but many more can enjoy watching safely from the shore. there s such an unexpected and unanticipated and
done that, nobody has been killed or hurt significantly inside that capsule. years later, dave will have good reason to be thankful for that safer capsule. in the summer of 2009, he enters thunder on the ohio, a race he s won ten times before. in his first heat another driver loses control and hits dave s boat. dave flips over and smashes into the water. but dave s work redesigning the driver s capsule pays off. it stays in one piece, and he waits in safety for help to arrive. the only injury i got was a finger injury, where it broke a knuckle in the finger. as boat accidents go, i ll take that. that s a good one. after decades of speeding, crashing and tumbling through the air, dave says driving a
in the blink of an eye, a piece of equipment fails or a driver makes a mistake, they could be 50 feet up in the air. at first glance, dave might look more like a banker than a daredevil, but he s been racing hydroplanes for years and been in some pretty dramatic crashes. you re travels at over a football field per second. so if you aren t anticipating what what s going to happen, you re likely to crash. they flip through the air as if they weigh nothing, but these boats are 30 feet long, 7,000 pounds with 4,000 horsepower engine.