Two speedboat racers are lucky to be alive after a terrifying crash at Lake Havasu in Arizona on Saturday in which their vessel went flipping and flying through the air before slamming back onto the surface of the water.
The frightening scene was captured on video as the speedboat was attempting to break a 206-mph speed record on the lake. It happened during an event called Desert Storm Shugrue’s Shootout.
In the video, the white 10,000-horsepower boat was seen cruising at a high speed on the lake’s surface while being followed by a helicopter with a camera attached to the bottom.
The vessel appeared to be skipping like a stone when the front of it tilted just enough for the wind to pick it up, causing the boat to backflip completely.
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But the wild ride did not end there. In fact, the boat remained in the air and turned nearly 360 degrees horizontally before the front corner caught the water as it began to flip vertically once more.
Spectators could be heard on the original video swearing in disbelief at what they had just seen.
FOX 10 in Phoenix reported that both racers on board, who are with Freedom One Racing and go by the aliases John Wayne and Clint Eastwood to hide their identities, walked away from the crash.
The station spoke with Ray Lee of Speedboat Magazine, who said the racing team was hoping to make history over the weekend.
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“It’s a 388 skater and it’s estimated at about 10,000 horsepower,” Lee said. “So, they came to Lake Havasu earlier in the week intending to break the record here for the Desert Storm shootout. That was their first pass of the day and when they went over, the radar picked them up at 200.1 mph.”
Fellow racers told the station that the men on board owe their lives to those who built the boat.
“The last thing you ever want to see is a crash and especially something as horrendous as that,” shootout competitor Jeff Clark said, explaining that going as fast as the men were going can take away a driver’s ability to react. “At that speed, it doesn’t take much, you know, those tunnel holes are built to pack air, so the boat rides on top of the water. You know it’s like on a rail and if you pack up too much and that nose gets too high it’ll just – at that speed – take you airborne.”
He added that his heart dropped when he saw Eastwood and Wayne’s boat go airborne.
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“It’s never something you want to look at when you’re out having fun as a driver, for sure,” Clark said.
Both Lee and Clark said windy conditions may have been a factor in the crash but also may have helped the two men onboard.
Lee told the station that when the boat cut the wind, it caused the vessel to remain airborne longer than if there had not been any substantial wind.
“You hold your breath, and you hold it until you see both racers emerge from the cockpit,” he said. “For the most part, uninjured.”
Since 1963, there have been 11 fatal racing crashes on Lake Havasu, Motorsport Memorial reported, with the deadliest occurring in 2018 when three people died when a boat named “Lickety Split” crashed.
Clark credited safety improvements for keeping the racers inside the vessel safe.
“Those guys are alive for one reason and one reason only: That boat was built not to come apart,” he said. “So, when they were sitting in that cockpit and when you look at pictures of the boats, it’s totally destroyed but the cockpit is in perfect condition. I tip my hat to Skater and the crew that built that boat because it saved that guy’s life, it saved both of their lives, there’s no doubt about it.”