Sarasota in the News
07-02-2007, 07:53 AM
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Sarasota in the News
How to not finish and win
SARASOTA
It was a sight that might have brought a small smile to the faces of all the other competitors racing in Sunday's Superboat Unlimited class of the Suncoast Offshore Grand Prix.
Um, make that single. Competitor.
A strange sight at that. The Budweiser Select boat, the bully of the class in that the checkered flag always seems to wind up in the hands of owner/driver Dave Scott, being towed into the wet pits.
A problem with a pulley critical to the engine's supercharger. Ten laps scheduled, only nine completed.
Bud light.
"What more can you say?'' said Scott. "I think we made a bold statement.''
The boat, a 50-foot Mystic, was making its debut run Sunday. On Saturday, during practice, an emergency hatch blew open, then came Sunday's pulley pickle.
The question seemed harmless enough: Should a new boat cause so many headaches?
It appeared to give Scott one.
"Do you know how much is going on in a boat like this?'' he asked.
Ah, Dave, Mr. Scott, not really.
"You have to put it in perspective,'' he said. "It's a brand new boat, and most brand new boats don't even finish.''
Well, then, there you go.
But wait a minute. Not far from Scott, another darned checkered flag. His. One of powerboat racing's funky workings.
You don't have to finish a race to earn a victor's handshake. You merely have to complete more laps than your competitors.
Um, make that single. Competitor.
That would have been Cintron, a 40-footer and Select's chief rival.
Except in the one area that matters most in offshore powerboat racing. Financing.
"Chasing beer money,'' said driver Herb Stotler. "It's hard to chase that beer money.''
Anyway, Citron didn't suffer any major mechanical woes. But Stotler said his craft just wasn't running well.
"So we kinda got frustrated and pulled in,'' he said. "(Select) had a lap on us, so we said the heck with it and pulled in.''
Averaging 92.29 mph and running for 31 minutes, Cintron shut it down after lap eight. Bud Select, averaging 111.86 mph and operational for 29 minutes, won it by completing nine.
Unlimited my eye.
"He did break down,'' said Stotler, "so we could have won it, if we'd kept going. But we didn't want to win that way.''
Cintron, named after a line of energy drinks, has its own way of keeping up with Select's beer money.
"To keep up,'' explained Stotler. "The technology is always changing. If you want to be at the top of the field, you've got to change with it.''
Or risk chasing the rooster tail of Bud Select until the cows come home.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...42/1006/SPORTS
SARASOTA
It was a sight that might have brought a small smile to the faces of all the other competitors racing in Sunday's Superboat Unlimited class of the Suncoast Offshore Grand Prix.
Um, make that single. Competitor.
A strange sight at that. The Budweiser Select boat, the bully of the class in that the checkered flag always seems to wind up in the hands of owner/driver Dave Scott, being towed into the wet pits.
A problem with a pulley critical to the engine's supercharger. Ten laps scheduled, only nine completed.
Bud light.
"What more can you say?'' said Scott. "I think we made a bold statement.''
The boat, a 50-foot Mystic, was making its debut run Sunday. On Saturday, during practice, an emergency hatch blew open, then came Sunday's pulley pickle.
The question seemed harmless enough: Should a new boat cause so many headaches?
It appeared to give Scott one.
"Do you know how much is going on in a boat like this?'' he asked.
Ah, Dave, Mr. Scott, not really.
"You have to put it in perspective,'' he said. "It's a brand new boat, and most brand new boats don't even finish.''
Well, then, there you go.
But wait a minute. Not far from Scott, another darned checkered flag. His. One of powerboat racing's funky workings.
You don't have to finish a race to earn a victor's handshake. You merely have to complete more laps than your competitors.
Um, make that single. Competitor.
That would have been Cintron, a 40-footer and Select's chief rival.
Except in the one area that matters most in offshore powerboat racing. Financing.
"Chasing beer money,'' said driver Herb Stotler. "It's hard to chase that beer money.''
Anyway, Citron didn't suffer any major mechanical woes. But Stotler said his craft just wasn't running well.
"So we kinda got frustrated and pulled in,'' he said. "(Select) had a lap on us, so we said the heck with it and pulled in.''
Averaging 92.29 mph and running for 31 minutes, Cintron shut it down after lap eight. Bud Select, averaging 111.86 mph and operational for 29 minutes, won it by completing nine.
Unlimited my eye.
"He did break down,'' said Stotler, "so we could have won it, if we'd kept going. But we didn't want to win that way.''
Cintron, named after a line of energy drinks, has its own way of keeping up with Select's beer money.
"To keep up,'' explained Stotler. "The technology is always changing. If you want to be at the top of the field, you've got to change with it.''
Or risk chasing the rooster tail of Bud Select until the cows come home.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...42/1006/SPORTS
07-02-2007, 07:54 AM
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Thread Starter
Sarasota teams are victorious at Grand Prix
By TOM BALOG
[email protected]
SARASOTA -- Dave Branch and the Kildahl father-and-son team mastered the name of the game in Sunday's Suncoast Offshore Grand Prix.
The two Sarasota teams won their respective classes with the same tried-and-true race strategy -- get out front and stay there.
Branch's P2-50 Love Muscle, a 38-foot Fountain, captured the Manufacturer Production 2 title while Steve Kildahl and 16-year-old son, Stephen, won the Manufacturer Production 5 championship -- their first APBA victory together -- in their 28-foot Velocity off Lido Beach.
"We blew right out of the gate and we were in first place the entire race," Branch said, claiming a sixth victory in 13 appearances in his hometown race. "Nobody was within a quarter-mile of us."
Branch's average speed was 85 mph over the 42-mile course, with the near-perfect conditions of 2-foot seas.
The Kildahls ran a classic neck-and-neck race with friends and Velocity rivals, Sarasota's V & M Motorsports. But the younger Kildahl, in the driver's seat for only the third time in his fifth professional race, made a bold critical move to keep Team Velocity ahead.
He steered the 28-foot Velocity to the inside lane ahead of the first turn and never allowed V & M to take it from him over the 6.4-mile course.
"Winning this race with Stephen, it's one of the greatest days of my life," said Steve Kildahl, who has run all 23 Suncoast Offshore Grand Prix races.
"I dreamed about winning this race all my life," said Stephen Kildahl, a Cardinal Mooney High sophomore who as an infant attended the race in a stroller. "All the faster class boats took off and I dove to the inside lane for the first turn. I kept looking over my shoulder to see where the competition was."
His father kept instructing him through their helmets' intercom, not to let V & M get inside of them.
"I told (Stephen) today that he can get in a boat with me anytime he wants," said Chris Volosin, the owner-throttleman of V & M. "His dad should be proud of him."
Volosin and driver David Murphy were once teammates of Steve Kildahl, winning two APBA Offshore 'A' world championships together.
"Two hometown guys going head-to-head racing, it doesn't get much better than that," Volosin said.
The Reliable Carriers team was the only double winner of the day. Tom Abrams' superboat won its class over CMS, BTM Marine and JD Byrider. Reliable Carriers also won the Super Cat class over Let's Play Again, Team Amsoil and All Jack'd Up.
Abrams' 39-foot MTI superboat won the hard way, working its way from the back to the front.
"We were 15, 20 boat lengths behind (at the start)," Abrams said.
Most of the racers experienced the "car wash" effect that Bill McComb did in his P-2 Patron, which switched classes from Super Vee and finished runner-up to the Love Muscle and his friend, Branch.
The Sarasota chiropractor, the throttleman of the Sarasota Marine Performance 39-foot Skater driven by Chivas James, was playing catch-up all afternoon.
"The 'Cats' are going 130 mph and we're going 100 mph. They take the inside line, turn wide and blow their 'prop' wash all over you and you can't see," McComb said.
Englewood's Randy Knapp in the P1-8 Team Raven 42-foot Fountain had no competition, with no other entries in his class.
The other Team Raven, the P4 29-foot Wellcraft, driven by Englewood's Ed Tamberino, finished second To Pump It, a 29-foot Warlock.
Seventeen of the 42 entrants did not finish, including the two unlimited super boats, Budweiser Select and Cintron. Two others, Shogun and Sarasota's Doug Sutherland and Nokomis' Charlie Graf in the P5-71 Velocity Don't Blink, did not start.
Sarasota's JSJ Extreme Motor Sports P-2 39-foot Bad Boy, with Jon Weiner and Cory Shantry aboard, took third place behind the Love Muscle and Patron.
Sarasota's JP Motorsports, with Don Metcalf and Pat Mumper aboard, settled for third in the P4 class.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...ORTS/707020324
By TOM BALOG
[email protected]
SARASOTA -- Dave Branch and the Kildahl father-and-son team mastered the name of the game in Sunday's Suncoast Offshore Grand Prix.
The two Sarasota teams won their respective classes with the same tried-and-true race strategy -- get out front and stay there.
Branch's P2-50 Love Muscle, a 38-foot Fountain, captured the Manufacturer Production 2 title while Steve Kildahl and 16-year-old son, Stephen, won the Manufacturer Production 5 championship -- their first APBA victory together -- in their 28-foot Velocity off Lido Beach.
"We blew right out of the gate and we were in first place the entire race," Branch said, claiming a sixth victory in 13 appearances in his hometown race. "Nobody was within a quarter-mile of us."
Branch's average speed was 85 mph over the 42-mile course, with the near-perfect conditions of 2-foot seas.
The Kildahls ran a classic neck-and-neck race with friends and Velocity rivals, Sarasota's V & M Motorsports. But the younger Kildahl, in the driver's seat for only the third time in his fifth professional race, made a bold critical move to keep Team Velocity ahead.
He steered the 28-foot Velocity to the inside lane ahead of the first turn and never allowed V & M to take it from him over the 6.4-mile course.
"Winning this race with Stephen, it's one of the greatest days of my life," said Steve Kildahl, who has run all 23 Suncoast Offshore Grand Prix races.
"I dreamed about winning this race all my life," said Stephen Kildahl, a Cardinal Mooney High sophomore who as an infant attended the race in a stroller. "All the faster class boats took off and I dove to the inside lane for the first turn. I kept looking over my shoulder to see where the competition was."
His father kept instructing him through their helmets' intercom, not to let V & M get inside of them.
"I told (Stephen) today that he can get in a boat with me anytime he wants," said Chris Volosin, the owner-throttleman of V & M. "His dad should be proud of him."
Volosin and driver David Murphy were once teammates of Steve Kildahl, winning two APBA Offshore 'A' world championships together.
"Two hometown guys going head-to-head racing, it doesn't get much better than that," Volosin said.
The Reliable Carriers team was the only double winner of the day. Tom Abrams' superboat won its class over CMS, BTM Marine and JD Byrider. Reliable Carriers also won the Super Cat class over Let's Play Again, Team Amsoil and All Jack'd Up.
Abrams' 39-foot MTI superboat won the hard way, working its way from the back to the front.
"We were 15, 20 boat lengths behind (at the start)," Abrams said.
Most of the racers experienced the "car wash" effect that Bill McComb did in his P-2 Patron, which switched classes from Super Vee and finished runner-up to the Love Muscle and his friend, Branch.
The Sarasota chiropractor, the throttleman of the Sarasota Marine Performance 39-foot Skater driven by Chivas James, was playing catch-up all afternoon.
"The 'Cats' are going 130 mph and we're going 100 mph. They take the inside line, turn wide and blow their 'prop' wash all over you and you can't see," McComb said.
Englewood's Randy Knapp in the P1-8 Team Raven 42-foot Fountain had no competition, with no other entries in his class.
The other Team Raven, the P4 29-foot Wellcraft, driven by Englewood's Ed Tamberino, finished second To Pump It, a 29-foot Warlock.
Seventeen of the 42 entrants did not finish, including the two unlimited super boats, Budweiser Select and Cintron. Two others, Shogun and Sarasota's Doug Sutherland and Nokomis' Charlie Graf in the P5-71 Velocity Don't Blink, did not start.
Sarasota's JSJ Extreme Motor Sports P-2 39-foot Bad Boy, with Jon Weiner and Cory Shantry aboard, took third place behind the Love Muscle and Patron.
Sarasota's JP Motorsports, with Don Metcalf and Pat Mumper aboard, settled for third in the P4 class.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article...ORTS/707020324
