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Deter a driver. 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 driver's 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 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 ...

>> the speed to beat is 198 miles per hour. dave is buckled in and hits the gas. >> here he comes. >> 213.437 miles an hour. >> he's on record pace over the first leg. for the second leg, he gives it everything he's got. >> 225. >> 225. 30 -- >> he's out of it. >> it's more than fast enough to break the world record. but the burst of speed also breaks the boat's rudder. >> the race is on hold. we need to get him off the course. >> luckily dave isn't hurt in this record stunt. >> smashed the propeller and cleared the propeller and strut off the boat. >> but it's a very different story seven yea...

At top speed, the force is too much and the hydroplane blows over. the top of the boat crashes onto the water, exploding the 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 kind of trash that may deter a driver. >> i just felt i had things to prove to myself and give to the sport. >> ...

>> 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, dave might look more like a banker than a daredevil, but he's been racing hydroplanes for years and 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 engine. >> it's a celebration of...

>> it's a celebration of excess. everything about it is bigger and badder and more extensive than you could possibly imagine. >> dave says imagine driving your car at 200 miles an hour 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 flying over the water. the truth is the boat is actually beating the not out of 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-...