Ron P

They are a new team from Virginia I believe. Take a look at Jim's photos of them from the Brick race. Use the same line I gave before. Just scroll down.

Ted G

They are some guys from down here on the Chesapeake. They have had a great series of articles in the local boating magazine which is sponsoring them. They are new this year to OPA. It is apparently Ritchie Sutphen's old boat.

cig28

what happen to p4-11 buckshot

Ron P

Buckshot bent a valve while testing last week, while getting ready for A/C.

What happened to making Smitty your biotch?

Ron P

Hello Race Fans,

After watching the deteriorating weather forecast all week, I was thrill to enjoy an early morning drive on a clear and dry Garden State Parkway in route to Atlantic City this morning. We all knew the rain was coming, the only question was when.

The weather for Sunday was predicted to be raining all day with seas to five feet, building to eight feet in the afternoon accompanied by heavy rain. Considering the impending weather, I found it impressive that 21 boats made the trip from as far away as Massachusetts and Virginia to participate in the 2nd Annual Atlantic City Offshore Grand Prix. With the teams ready to race, the crane rented, and the volunteers in place, no one wanted to see the race cancelled, so everything happened as usual, except it took place in the rain.

The rain started to come down, heavy at times during the 9am drivers meeting and continued to fall as the boats craned into the water as if nothing was wrong. OPA decided that if the race would take place at all, it would be on a shortened storm course, so most classes would only run about 30 miles. Working closely with local and state officials that had access to all sorts of weather data, we were apprized of a one-hour window of opportunity heading our way, so it was time to rolled the dice

At 11:15 we pulled out of Trumps Marina in full rain gear with a very soggy group of racers behind us. As we rounded the corner to enter the inlet, as if on queue, the rain stopped, without hesitation, we throttled up and used the two pace boats to lead the race boats out of the storm tossed inlet. The inlet had some huge swells and rollers, which caused our 41’ Avanti Pace boat to fly, bounce and take some serious punishment as we hammered our way into the ocean.

Today was the kind of day that separates the men from the Boyz. I’m talking about Jersey Boyz of course, and today was their kind of day. Wet, wild and full of surprises. Since the ocean was so snotty it was highly doubtful anyone would be able to exceed their speed brackets. Regardless, OPA had GPS units installed on the bow rail over every boat, just to make sure everyone was playing by the rules. This GPS placement seemed to solve the issues we saw in Brick just a few weeks ago.

Once in the ocean, race control gave the approval to light the smoke flare which then set the race into motion. Pace Boat One took the bigger boats down the chute for the green flag and Pace Boat Two followed just one minute behind with the P4 and P5 boats in tow.

Out of the gate, it was Team Obsession/TKO in the big Outerlimits that immediately jumped to the lead and looked like they might be able to take the overall win had they not broken a transmission at the start of the second lap. (Look for crash boxes in Obsession for the next race.) With Obsession out of the way, it left the JEM SuperCat that was running in P1 Class to fight it out with Lightening Jack, Relentless and Stylin for the lead. The only problem was that it was Firewater’s™ kind of water, big and nasty, just like this 3900HP 47’ Apache running in P2 class. The fight was on but was short lived as Relentless went down with a weak motor and a faulty fuel pump took JEM out of contention shortly thereafter.

Ron P

The Cigarette Super V called Wanted was running in P2 class and was never far out of the hunt as they continued to stalk Firewater and the other cats at the front of the pack. However, one unusually hard hit cause an injury to Wanted’s driver, forcing the boat to retire and its driver taken to the hospital. Upon inspection, he’ll be fine after a few weeks of rest.

This left Firewater™ to take the overall win with Lightening Jacks taking the win in P1 class. Stylin held on to the end to come in second.

As far as I was concerned, the real battle of the day was between the two P3 boats. Last year’s National Champion, Wazzup faced off against last years P3 World Champion, Bad Boy Powerboats in a dual for bragging rights. This was a side-by-side battle for all seven laps. These guys really hung it out today, leaping side by side, passing one another on the straights and in the turns. It was a great battle until the end as Wazzup got caught in traffic and the Bad Boy slipped passed them as they crossed the finish line. The margin of victory was only four seconds. These two will be back to do battle again in Point Pleasant so stay tuned.

In P4, it always seems like everyone chases Augie and Kevin in the Nesquik flying condo. This boat is dialed in and running strong. Even though there were five boats in the P4 class, only the crazy Cuban’s driving the single engine 32’ Bad Boy could keep up with Team Nesquik. In fact, the Cubans driving the Bay Boy had the lead for most of the first lap but once the big Nesquik bunny got around them, it was all over. They could run down the bunny on the straightaway but in the turns, the condo corners like it was on roller coaster tracks. Hocus Pocus never really got started as they had their set up all wrong for rough water and Steelin Time spent more time out of the water than in it. However, CMS Racing put up a good fight but this was not their type of water. At the flag, it was Nesquik, Bad Boy and CMS in that order.

P5 class usually has the most boats and incredibly competitive racing and today was no different. Seven boats entered this class but two set the pace. Once the green flag went up, it was Simply Awesome that lead the way to the first turn, right next to them was the new entry of Boffa Deezz. I don’t know what that means, who these guys are or where they came from, but man can they run a boat. It appeared that these two boats were being pushed to the breaking point and for once it wasn’t Simply Awesome that broke. With Boffa Deezz at rest in the infield, it was Revolution Marine’s turn to take a shot at catching Simply Awesome. Pop Pop and Qball, raced like the wind to catch the all-bald crew in front of them but try as they might, it just wasn’t enough in these rough waters. At the wire it was Simply Awesome, Revolution Marine and Carrabba’s Team Blythe that would stand on the podium today.

Back at the docks, everyone was wearing ear-to-ear smiles as these boyz look forward to these types of rough water races off the Jersey Shore.
Jim O’Conner was on hand today to cover the action, you can see his photos at
www.njsportpics.com by clicking on “Recent Events”. For this race, Jim was on the Ocean One Pier and in a chopper for part of the race. Feel free to purchase some of Jim’s photos, he does a wonderful job for OPA by following the Boyz wherever they go.

Additionally, you’ll be able to see some of Jim’s photos in an article about this race in a future issue of Extreme Boats Magazine, so subscribe now! www.extremeboatsmag.com

The battle continues…..the next race will take place on Friday August 13th in Point Pleasant New Jersey. Be there……

See ya at the races, hopefully a little dryer next time.

Ron

AugiePensa

All I can say is WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some water yesterday. Thanks to all the people that were out there keeping an eye on us, just knowing that makes me feel a little safer. Smitty, Sticks...Killer Motors, Thank You! Kevin, without you I'm lost and to all the crews that came out, GREAT SHOW! Augie

MIAMIBOYZ

Way to go Augie, you deserve alot more for being out their with a
broken ankle. Congrats to all who raced in the storm, and to BRUCE
WAZZZUUUUPPPP.

BODYSHOT1

Another great, but wet, weekend...awesome job by all!

AugiePensa

Jimmy, Thank God you posted here, I just called off "The Hit" on you for not showing up. Hey Bro, hope all is well and We'll see you in Point Pleasant. Augie