PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: motorboating

Richard Branson is a British entrepreneur and adventurer, head of Virgin Group Ltd., known for his publicity stunts and also for setting records in powerboat racing and hot-air ballooning. Branson, who...

Chip Hanauer is an American powerboat racer who dominated hydroplane racing in the 1980s and ’90s. As children, Hanauer and his friends would tow wooden planks behind their bicycles and pretend they were...

Sir Henry Segrave was an American-born English automobile and motorboat racer who set three world land speed records. Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, Segrave served with the Royal Air Force in World War...

Garfield Arthur Wood was a U.S. driver and builder of racing motorboats, also credited with devising the small, swift PT (patrol torpedo) boats of the U.S. Navy in World War II. Educated at Armour Institute...

Malcolm Campbell was a British automobile-racing driver who set world speed records on land and on water. A pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, Campbell became interested in automobile...

Donald Malcolm Campbell was a British motorboat and automobile driver who emulated his father, Sir Malcolm Campbell, in setting world’s speed records on land and on water. The first to complete an officially...

John Rhodes Cobb was an automobile and motorboat racer, first to reach a speed of 400 mph on land. On Sept. 16, 1947, at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, U.S., he set world speed records (not broken until...

Gary Gabelich was an American automobile-racing driver who set a world one-mile land-speed record of 622.407 miles per hour (1,001.67 km/h) on Oct. 23, 1970. Gabelich began racing hot-rod cars while he...