Lee Edward "Chip" Hanauer (born July 1, 1954 in Seattle) is the third most successful Unlimited Hydroplane racer in history. He has won the APBA Gold Cup a record 12 times and was the driver of one of the most famous boats in APBA history, the Miss Budweiser, in the early to mid 1990's. He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1995 as their youngest inductee. In 2005, he was inducted into the International Motorized Vehicles Hall of Fame. In 1991, he temporarily left the waters for auto racing only to return a season later.
He was born on July 1, 1954 in Seattle. Hanauer grew up with a poster of the international Grand Prix auto racing star Jim Clark of Scotland on the wall of his boyhood bedroom. But finances and his home in Seattle, Washington -- a major center of boat racing -- dictated that he start in small hydroplanes. By age 22, he had graduated to unlimited hydroplanes. The team owner of the Toyota-sponsored auto racing team for which Hanauer briefly drove in 1991 commented later that Hanauer would certainly have been successful in automobile racing had he pursued that career progression.
In the early 1990s, Hanauer suffered a series of severe injuries in high-speed unlimited hydroplane accidents. Those accidents eventually pushed him to make the decision to retire. One of those accidents triggered a serious condition in which he lost his voice -- only to regain it several years later after learning of a treatment in which Botox is injected directly into the throat. He continues to volunteer his time at a home for disadvantaged children in Seattle. He also volunteers as a transporter for Disabled American Veterans: he picks up disabled veterans from their homes and drives them to appointments at the VA Medical Center in Seattle.