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 hydroplane is a thrill only few can experience but many more can enjoy watching safely from the shore. there s such an unexpected
protective canopy, ripping off his oxygen mask and submerging him in the water. i was unconscious under water. the safety team got there right away, got me onto the bottom of the boat. they cleared the airway and got the water out. amazingly, dave survives. his hand is crushed by the flying metal. he ends up losing two fingers on his right hand. it s the type of crash that might deter another driver from racing altogether but dave is no quitter. i just felt i had things to prove to myself and give to the sport. dave and the team rebuild miss budweiser redesigning the capsule to make it safer. luckily to date since we ve done that, nobody has been killed or hurt significantly inside that capsule. years later, dave will have good reason to be thankful for
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, conservatively dressed dave might look more like a banker than a daredevil. but this champion driver has been racing hydroplanes for years and has 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 engines. an unlimited hydroplane is a celebration of excess. everything about it is bigger and badder and more extensive than you could possibly ever imagine.
dave says imagine driving your car at 200 miles an hour over two or three-foot speed bumps 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 flies over the water. the truth is the boat is actually is beating the snot of the 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 flat-bottom boats, managed to set a lot of world records and win a lot of championships. from there, of course, it was a natural step to racing hydroplanes. dave soon breaking almost every record in the book. in 2004, he decides to see just
break the world record. but the burst of speed also breaks the boat s rudder. okay, everybody, the race is on hold. the bud has got a hole in it. we need to get him off the course. luckily dave isn t hurt in this record stunt. broke the rudder bracket, smacked the propeller around then cleared the propeller and strut off the boat. but it s a very different story seven years earlier. dave was at the columbia cup championship in washington state, ready to claim the record for the most consecutive race wins. this would be his 20th win in a row. but as he bursts out of the gate, almost instantly the boat has hit two waves in a row. at top speed, the force is too much and the hydroplane blows over. the top of the boat crashes onto the water, exploding the