1988 Budweiser's Thunder on the Ohio APBA Gold Cup
Hanauer lives High Life for 7th straight year
By Marty Klinkenberg, Miami News Reporter
Now that he has his seventh unlimited hydroplane Gold Cup safely in hand. Chip Hanauer is looking beyond his career as a boat racer.
The former special education teacher is now pointing toward a new career as a substance abuse counselor.
Hanauer, a 34-year-old native of Seattle, won his sport's most prestigious race for the seventh consecutive year when he piloted the Miss Circus Circus to victory yesterday in the American Power Boat Association-sanctioned Budweiser Thunder on the Ohio.
Hanauer, who usually drives the Miller High Life, was in the cockpit because his beer-sponsored boat sustained damage in a preliminary heat accident yesterday. The Miller High Life and Miss Circus Circus share the same ownership, so Hanauer was chosen by team owner Fran Muncey to drive in the six-boat championship heat, unseating previous Circus Circus driver John Prevost.
Hanauer averaged 128.4 mph in the six-lap race, easily outdistancing Mike Hanson in the Sutphen/Miss Budweiser. Scott Pierce was third in the Jif Presents Mr. Pringle's, with Fort Lauderdale's Steve David fourth in the ARC Construction.
Hanauer, driving a turbine that Miller campaigned a year ago, put on quite a show for the estimated 80,000 spectators who watched the Ohio River race through downtown Evansville, Ind.
"It was one of the most rewarding victories I've ever experienced because of the total involvement of both teams," Hanauer said of the Miller and Circus Circus crews. "At one point before the final heat, I looked down at the crews working on the boat and there were people I didn't even recognize contributing.
"That's just the way today went. Some days in motorsports are meant to be yours and some aren't. Today was, but only through the dedication and hard work of the two teams involved."
Hanauer, who broke the legendary Gar Wood's Gold Cup record with a sixth straight victory a year ago, said it is difficult to compare the consecutive Gold Cup triumphs.
"You can't relate a significance to each of them." Hanauer said, "because all were independent of each other. But the seventh means a lot to me."
It could even possibly mean that Hanauer, who has been driving unlimited hydroplanes since 1979, will move on to something else at the end of this season.
A former special education teacher who graduated cum laude from Washington State University, Hanauer was talking recently about returning to that field.
"I feel a need to begin to lay the foundation for life after boat racing, emotionally, financially and psychologically," said Hanauer, whose 27 career victories are the second most in unlimited hydroplane racing history and the most among active drivers. "My responsible side is telling me that I need to prepare for life after this. I wouldn't want to be stuck in the sport.
"I wouldn't necessarily want to go back to the classroom, but I would like to go back to education."
Hanauer, who has three unlimited hydroplane national championships to his credit, previously worked with wards of the state in a self-contained classroom within a Washington high school. The students were convicted teenage felons with behavioral disorders.
"I gave it up because it was too dangerous." Hanauer said. "It was absolutely exhausting. It was one of the most emotionally draining and nerve-wracking things I've ever done.
"My first month of teaching was the hardest of my life. I'd get up for work at 4:30 in the morning, get home at five in the afternoon and fall asleep on the couch until the next day.
"I kept thinking I couldn't go through a whole year with the kids. It was a battle of manipulation all day long. It was a matter of who was controlling who.
"The kids that I was dealing with had lived a life of violence. Most had come from dysfunctional families and backgrounds where they had been abused, neglected or sexually assaulted. For most kids of their age, life had been like Disneyland. But theirs had been a nightmare."
As hard as it was, Hanauer learned to love his pupils.
"I found out it was OK to hate the behavior but you had to love the kids," Hanauer said. "In most cases, it was as if they'd had a blueprint laid for them. They'd been dealt a bad hand. I decided to make the best of it and in the long run I enjoyed the kids."
Hanauer enjoyed the challenge so much that he is pointing toward a similarly difficult educational field.
"I'd like to work in substance abuse and counseling," Hanauer said. "A lot of that stems from my special ed days. I saw the way drug addiction and alcohol had such a horrible affect on families, particularly the kids."
With nothing left to achieve in boat racing, that may be Chip Hanauer's next challenge.
(Reprinted from the Miami News, June 27, 1988)