Supercat and 1100 Class One in Fort Meyers, As the Waterways Turn!!

Supercat was really an odd race today. It started out with the seven boats all lined up and ready to race. The boat in its first ever race, Dependable, with a driver/owner who had never raced any kind of boat in his entire life, was allowed to start out on the outside even with the others. I'm certain that was for two reasons, 1. The throttleman was Mark Kowalski, a very experienced championship throttleman in previous years , and 2. in OPA you have to hold your lane all the way through the first turn, and being in lane seven would put the rookie behind the other boats by 100 feet at least anyway.

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Boy, was that wrong.

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The favorites had to be: WHM who has won the last two races, Pro-Floors who is leading the overall points standings for the year and has also won two races, then M-Con and AMH with one win each.

So they get the start, make it through turn one, the dogleg of turn 2, and back to the north end to re-enter the front straight.

In first place, with Pro-Floors hot on their stern, AMH. Running strong.

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Followed by WHM, sounds reasonable, right? But,in fourth place on Billy's butt, the rookie Dependable. New boat, friver who has never raced a boat in his life, with a team-mate who has never raced a boat with him, in a new Skater that has never been in a race to be tweaked and dialed in. (It is an almost identical copy of the Performance Boat Center 4-Man Skater that won the last two National Championship's though).

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M-Con was right on their transom.

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So, it goes along with AMH in first, stretching their lead over Pro-Floors a bit every lap. Then WHM closing just a bit on Pro-Floors as the race went on. Followed by Dependable right on WHM's roostertail lap by lap.

But, then the rookie lost their power steering, and was done for the day. What a come-out though. I know they are disappointed, but they should be proud.

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Performance got by M-Con


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And lap by lap, AMH in front stretching out just a bit, Pro_Floors in second, WHM third, Performance 4th, M-Con fifth, and Graydel running sixth.

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Then, with maybe 2 laps to go on the 12 lap race, AMH pukes and pulls to the center of the course. Don't know what went wrong, but they had it won until then.

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So, unofficial of course, Pro-Floors first, WHM second, Performance third, M-Con fourth, Graydel fifth, AMH sixth, and Dependable not so Dependable.

Definitely not over till the Fat Lady sings.

And then along comes the 1100 boats!!:sifone:


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So, they get out and have the start for the big boys. The pace boat actually seemed to be too slow, and it looked as if every race boat passed the pace boat, they go down the front straight , and down the front straight, and still keep going with the yellow flag up. They do get a start, but then red flag the race for a restart because, I assume, they would have had to penalize every boat but one.

At the end of the first lap when they red-flag, 222 was in the lead with the two Victory boats trying to catch them.

After the red-flag and restart, the two Victory boats had the lead, but the Aussies were strong.

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What's a Friver ?:toetap05:

I believe that refers to a Fresh new dRIVER.

So, the race proceeds. The Aussies were in third but managed to get around the 33 boat into second place.

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And, they pushed the 3 boat lap after lap. Outside;

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Inside;

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All to no avail. Got alongside, cut back and forth through the roostertail multiple times, (brave, it's salt water!), but couldn't get by.

Then, the 3 boat hits the yellow dog-leg buoy. Depending on what page of the rules are applied, it's either a 30 second penalty, a yellow flag, or no penalty if there is no damage to the buoy. Don't know how they called it, I would assume from what I saw, the buoy had to be damaged some.

So, either the Victory 3 won, or the Aussie 222 won. I'm assuming there was a penalty and the Aussies won, but that is unofficial. I'll let you know when they get it all straightened out. I know there was at least one protest pending, not sure if it applied to this or not.

By the way, no penalty on Victory for hitting the buoy.

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