was one week before The Chrysler Jeep APBA Gold Cup race, and they weren’t going to make it.

Well, at least that’s what everyone thought when surveying the damage done to the Jones’ Racing Team Unlimited Hydroplane at Madison, Indiana, just days before the prestigious Spirit of Detroit Thunderfest. The boat had suffered some major damage, and driver Michael Hanson gathered his crew for a “gut check” to

decide whether it would be worth it to spend the next four days and nights with little rest, repairing their hull.

Hanson had qualified as the fastest boat at the first HydroPROP event of the season in Evansville, Indiana, and again at Madison, so it was an easy decision for the team; they were going to do whatever they could to make it to the Gold Cup.

By Friday, July 13, the white boat of Jones Racing, sponsored for this event by Tub- by’s Subs, was freshly repaired and parked in the pit area at Detroit. Team owner Lori Jones told HOT BOAT, “The team worked 14 hours straight for

four solid days, and they

did it, they got us here.”

This would turn out to be a most fortuitous decision. Hanson, a 12-year Gold Cup competitor, fought hard the entire weekend, including a near disaster with the Belterra Casino Madison Regatta winner U-6 Oh Boy! Oberto Steve David in heat 1B, which resulted in a DNF for Tubby’s Subs. But this Herculean effort to get to Detroit paid off, because on Sunday, Hanson became the 2001 Chrysler Jeep APBA Gold Cup Champion.

The O’Doul’s High Point leader, Bernie Little’s U-i Miss Budweiser with the defending Gold Cup driver and four-time Gold Cup Champion Dave Vill

wock, came to Detroit hoping to add one more cup to his treasures. Villwock won Budweiser’s Thunder on the Ohio at Evansville just weeks before, the first event of Hydro-PROP’s 2001 Budweiser Unlimited Hydroplane Series Presented by Laughlin. The Madison event was spoiled for him, due to his miscalculations with the start clock, which resulted in jumping the gun along with a couple of others.

One of the other Madison gun jumpers was Michigan native and Hall of Champions driver Mark Weber, driving for USA Racing Partners. Weber, who finished as runner-up in last year’s Gold Cup, was