The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 115

FLORIDA The Tampa Tribune, Monday, July 10, 1989 Arfons respected risk in fast lane eatti on he wat er 1 'Will iiHJ "ft jttfrvh Jon Craig Arfons, 39, traveling at more than 350 mph Sunday on Lake Jackson in Sebring, deploys a parachute to slow down, top left, but his jet-powered hydroplane goes airborne Photographs by JOHN R. STANMEYER and flips, top right, then slams into the water and shatters, leaving a trail of spray 150 feet high. Arfons was pulled from the wreck but died later at a nearby hospital. three of his boat drivers killed in high-speed wrecks. Like many boats on the American Power Boat Association's unlimited circuit, Miss Budweiser now has an enclosed cockpit complete with an air supply and an ejection seat much like one on a fighter jet.

"There are nine drivers (on the unlimited circuit) that would not be alive today that were able to come away uninjured because of these new cockpits," said Little. "Our boat was upside-down two weeks ago in a race in Detroit, but Jim (Miss Bud driver Kropfield) wasn't hurt." Arfons' hydroplane did have an enclosed cockpit. He did not have an on-board air supply or an ejection seat, but no one could say whether those two features could have saved him. The greatest difficulty to boat drivers is the water itself. Unlike their land counterparts, they face a racing surface that can change dramatically at any second.

"It's like driving a car with steel tires on a bumpy road," Arfons said last week. But when Arfons made his ill-fated run Sunday as the sun rose above Lake Jackson, the water made only one-inch ripples, which he considered ideal for a record run. Arfons said his father, Walt, who has driven a car more than 400 mph in setting land speed records, was uncomfortable with him trying for the water record. "He's (Walt) made it clear to me that he doesn't like me going after the water record," Craig Arfons said Saturday morning. "I think it's the fact that if I wreck, he'll want to go in the water after me." But when Arfons wrecked Sunday, his father stayed oh shore.

Witnesses said he became upset, wanting to be taken to the hospital as quickly as possible to be with his son. By BOB O'LEARY Tribune Sports Writer SEBRING Jon Craig Arfons was no stranger to high speeds, especially those above 200 mph. A sign in his shop in Bradenton, where he built his jet-powered hydroplane, reads "Life begins at 200 mph." But Arfons also knew that high speeds and water were a volatile mixture. Of the last six men who had tried to set a water speed record, five had died trying. The only survivor is Australian Ken Warby, who set a new mark when he reached 317.6 mph in 1978.

"We've seen the mistakes they made," Arfons said last week of the unsuccessful attempts. "And we're going to try not to make them." Arfons, 39, on Sunday became the latest casualty in the quest for speed. He died from injuries sustained when his 26-foot jet-powered boat flipped in the air and crashed. He was rushed to Highlands Regional Medical Center, where he died at approximately 8:30 a.m. Although the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission and other agencies still are investigating the accident, no one knows exactly what caused Arfons' boat to become airborne and spin twice in the air.

The hydroplane was traveling in excess of 350 mph when the accident happened at about 7:07 a.m. Arfons drifted slightly off course Sunday, as he had Saturday during two practice runs. He abandoned the attempt Saturday because the water was too rough. "When you start going over 200 mph on water, it's hard to hold them on a straight line," said Bernie Little, a Lakeland beer distributor who owns the unlimited hydroplane Miss Budweiser. "Instead, the boat naturally veers off to one side." Little, who was attending a race Sunday in Evansville, has seen Arfons also chased land speed record scious when rescue crews pulled him from the cockpit, but he was not breathing on his own when he arrived at Highlands Regional Medical Center, said Dave McCormack, the hospital's assistant executive director.

"He was on life support when he got here," McCormack said. Three days before his death, Arfons had talked in an interview about the possibility of something going wrong during his quest for the record. "You can worry about only so much," he said. "I think we've done as much as we possibly can to make this as safe as possible." Arfons aborted two attempts to break the record Saturday because of rough water. "My father imprinted into me that if it doesn't feel right, shut it down," he said Saturday.

But at sunrise Sunday, the lake haOne-inch ripples with only a SebringJ Sebring (27) Dinnerr I 1 Area 0 detailed SJ I Planned path IV I of test run. f). WRotary -(634) 1 Boat goes off I course and flips. chhrinn 7 Cuban hero step away from the firing squad From Page 1A the hospital. He did not want to speak to reporters, a hospital spokesman said.

Arfons' 18-year-old son, Chad, also witnessed the accident from a boat. Crew members wept openly as they waited at the hospital and around their headquarters on the lake. "Everything seemed so perfect when we started out this morning. I Wish I had some answers," said Paul Martin, a spokesman for the crew. Sibley, 31, who grew up with Ar-fpns and shared a mutual interest in racing, said he lost a friend as well as a business partner.

He said Arfons knew the venture was risky and there was a chance he'd never live to break the record. "We both knew the risks and we talked about them all the time. But you're never really prepared when something like this happens," he said. Sibley, who helped design the 26-foot hydroplane, said he had no intention of continuing the quest for the water speed record. Arfons hit a tnn cnppH Arfons of more than 350 mph before the accident, Sibley noted.

"As far as we're concerned, he broke the water speed record today," Sibley said. "It may never go down in the record books, but we know he broke it." But because Arfons didn't maintain the speed for the distance specified by the American Power Boat ELdlLX Ochoa Martinez From Page 1A day to debate a reduction of the death sentences for Ochoa, senior Interior Ministry official Col. Antonio de la Guardia, secret police official Maj. Amado Padron, and Ochoa's military aide Capt. Jorge Martinez.

There was no word on the results of the meeting. Castro has commuted death sentences in the past and there is speculation he may once again show mercy and intercede on the former officers behalf. The officers were sentenced to death by firing squad Friday after more than three weeks of trial, first by a 48-member honorary military court and later by a three-general tribunal. The much-decorated Ochoa had fought in the popular uprising led by Castro that overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. The now disgraced general had also led Cuban troops in Angola, Ethiopia and Nicaragua.

Since June 12, the Cuban government has fired two Cabinet ministers and arrested the 14 officials of the army and Interior Ministry on charges of drug trafficking, em- Take a vacation this weekend. Bush hopes to 'mend old divisions' Tribune map the shores and docks of Lake Jackson to cheer Arfons fell silent as the tragedy unfolded in a span of a few seconds. "Everything was going line ana you figured he was going to break the record, and the next thing you know he was up in the air and landed upside down. It all happened so fast," said Mary Ann Kauffman, 36, of Bradenton. The hydroplane landed on its left front fork, went into a horizontal roll and made at least two full turns.

While the jet engine, fuel tanks and other parts broke off, the boat's enclosed cockpit stayed intact, officials said. Arfons was alive but unqon-. financial help for the reform drive. His aim is to keep the reform effort going and to urge other Eastern European nations to follow Poland's example by moving from commu-' nist systems to democratic societies with free-enterprise economies. The president told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Poland that he faced a "delicate" mission.

"I don't want to overprom-" ise, do too little or do too much," he said. He added that he intended to restate his hopes for a "Europe whole and free" even if that might offend Gorbachev. "But I'm not going to try to put him In a box by throwing strains on the Warsaw Pact." After concluding his visit to Poland Tuesday, Bush will become the first American president to visit Hungary, From Hungary, Bush travels to Paris to observe the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution and to attend the annual economic summit of the seven largest industrial democracies. Association, he will not be credited with the record. Arfons was most of the way through the measured kilometer, the area in which American Power Boat Association officials were timing to verify any record speed, when the accident occurred.

In order to set a new record, Arfons would have had to make two runs, each in opposite directions, at more than 318 mph. He flipped on his first pass. Arfons was attempting to break the record of 317.6 mph, set by Australian driver Ken Warby in 1978. Five men, including Arfons, have died trying to top Warby's feat The 1,000 spectators who lined peared prompted by his party's devastating setback in last month's election. Solidarity candidates won 99 of the 100 seats in a newly created Senate and defeated Communist candidates in all 161 seats they were allowed to contest in the lower house.

Bush will address the Polish Parliament, or Sejm, today following a meeting with Jaruzelski. On Tuesday, the president will travel to the seaport of Gdansk, where he will visit the home of Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and then speak at a Solidarity memorial outside the Lenin Shipyard, where the union movement was founded in 1970. White House aides said they expected huge crowds to greet Bush, noting that a large turnout would provide a public relations antidote for the cheering throngs that turned out to see Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev when he visited West Germany in June. Bush has come to Poland to provide both moral encouragement and pat Arfons and his crew con sidered Weal for a record run. Arfons was part of a famous family of jet dragster drivers from Ohio.

His father and his uncle, Art Arfons, pioneered jet-powered drag racing, with each holding the world land speed record at one time. Walt Arfons was the first family member to set it in 1963, reaching a speed of 413 mph in his "Green Monster" car. Art set his record in the mid-1960s, traveling 536.71 on the Bonneville, Utah, salt flats. Art Arfons is preparing for another try next month at Bonneville to top the current land speed record of 632 mph. Craig Arfons was current holder of the quarter-mile land speed record of 324 mph, which he set in Detroit in 1980.

He was the first in his family to attempt speed records on water. The summit leaders are expected to agree on a coordinated program of economic aid for Poland and Hungary TRIBUNE NEWS BAYLIFE BUSINESS FINANCE 272-7871 FLORIDA 272-7924 FOOD 272-7679 FRIDAY EXTRA! 272-7542 NATIONAL 272-7698 NEWS GRAPHICS 272-7648 PHOTOGRAPHY 272-7685 SPORTS 272-7655 STATE 272-7693 TAMPA BAY METRO 272-7505 (After 7 p.m.) 272-7684 TRAVEL 272-7618 WORLD 272-7698 THE TAMPA TRIBUNE (USPS 533-380) Published daily except Sunday by The Tribune Company. 202 So. Parker Tampa, Fl. 33606, an affiliate of Media General, Inc.

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to 11:00 a.m. From Page 1A prove an economy wracked by an inflation rate of more than 100 percent and a $39 billion foreign debt. Because of strong public resistance, the economic reforms have not kept pace with the political reforms. The president was met at the airport by Poland's Communist leader for the past eight years, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, who announced 10 days ago that he was stepping down.

"You are arriving in a country in which the process of basic changes is at work," Jaruzelski said. "You are going to see a Poland that is following with determination the path of profound social, political and economic reforms." The Polish leader said he hoped his talks with Bush would promote "a favorable climate in the relations between East and West." Jaruzelski's surprise decision not to seek the presidency under the new political arrangement ap bezzlement, abuse of office, corruption and "crimes against the country." U.S. drug enforcement agencies had issued repeated protests since 1982 against alleged involvement in narcotics smuggling by high-level Cuban officials. Castro had, until now, denied the U.S. charges and called them "slanderous." On Saturday, a U.S.

Customs official in Miami said agents watched a small plane drop a load of cocaine into a waiting boat just inside Cuban territorial waters, later seizing the boat and 1,584 pounds of cocaine when it ran aground off Florida. Two Soviet-made MiG jet fighters stood by to ensure the U.S. Customs plane did not enter Cuban airspace. Florida Marriott's Two for Breakfast Weekend. not per person Includes a complete breakfast for two.

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Armstrong was a "typical American (and) was like millions of others," Golovanov wrote, a "nice, upright provincial boy without any particular talents, but not untalented." i The Soviets tried to develop their own rockejpto launch missions to the moon but were unable togg their giant booster to operate. The booster was plaiihod, to rival the Saturn 5 that launched the Apollo missions. sent to bring back moon rocks, and its trajectory forced astronaut Frank Borman to contact the Soviets via the U.S.-Soviet hot line. Golovanov described how American reporters tried to unravel the Luna 15 mystery. "The most popular commentators in the country each tried to find something to foretell, something to hint at," he wrote.

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