By Tom Green, UPI Sports Writer, August 10, 1982
SEATTLE -- Dave Heerensperger, owner of the Pay 'N Pak unlimited hydroplane and one of the key figures in the sport, announced he was pulling out of racing Tuesday just two days after his driver was critically injured.
Heerensperger's decision casts further doubt on the future of the hydroplane racing, which has been plagued by the deaths of its two best-known drivers in less than a year.
Pay 'N Pak driver John Walters nearly became the third hydro-racing fatality in 10 months when his boat was involved in a three-boat, high-speed collision in the Emerald Cup race on Lake Washington Sunday.
He suffered a fractured elbow, broken leg, compression fracture of three vertebrae, concussion, collapsed and bruised lung and facial injuries around his left eye.
"The feeling I had in my stomach when I saw the accident, I felt that I had enough," said Heerensperger. "I hope the fans of the Pay 'N Pak and the public understand."
Three boats -- the Pay 'N Pak, Squire Shop and Executone -- were too severely damaged to continue racing, with the Executone sinking to the bottom of the lake.
Heerensperger, who was one of the best-heeled and most enthusiastic owners in hydroplane racing, cited the danger inherent in the sport for his decision to withdraw. The powerful boats, which barely touch the water when running full tilt, travel at speeds approaching 200 mph.
The Pay 'N Pak also was involved in a spectacular flip during a qualifying run on the Columbia River in 1980.
"Although it is a very exciting sport, after two accidents involving Pay 'N Pak in the last three years I just do not want to continue," said Heerensperger. "I am sure that my feelings will be understood by the public and by those connected with boat racing."
Walters' accident occurred only eight days after the death of veteran driver Dean Chenoweth in the Miss Budweiser on the Columbia River. Chenoweth was killed July 31 while attempting to qualify his boat for the Columbia Cup race near Pasco, Wash.
Last October, the most successful and charismatic driver in the history of the sport, Bill Muncey, was killed during a race in Acapulco, Mexico.
Hydroplane driving has always been dangerous, but the recent series of accidents constitutes the worst period the sport has faced since 1966 when three drivers were killed in one race and a fourth died later in the season.
Heerensperger, 45, is chairman of the board of Pay 'N Pak, a Kent, Wash.-based chain of plumbing and electrical discount stores. He had been one of the top innovators in the sport, being credited with introducing stabilizer tailfins, rear mounted engines, trimaran hulls and, most recently, a turbine-powered engine.
For more than 30 years, an unlimited hydroplane race on Lake Washington has been a fixture of Seattle's annual Seafair summer festival. Many of the owners and drivers, like Heerensperger, are based in the Seattle area. Seattle and Detroit have been the historic centers of the sport.
But in the aftermath of the accident in Sunday's Emerald Cup, one Seattle newspaper questioned the city's continued involvement in the dangerous sport.
In an editorial, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said the hydroplane race is not only a life-threatening endeavor, but one that costs the city a lot financially -- up to $80,000 to stage this year.
"There is something unseemly about the expenditure of public funds on what is essentially a commercial event -- involving boats garishly decorated with the names of corporate sponsors -- that carries a risk to the lives and limbs of its participants," the newspaper said.
