30th Annual Suncoast Super Boat Grand Prix Festival, 7/ 3-7/6, 2014

[Serious News]

2014 Sarasota Schedule


Event - 30th Annual Suncoast Super Boat Grand Prix Festival
Dry Pits - Centennial Park
Location - 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34236


Thursday • July 3, 2014
5:00pm - Staging of Parade – Centennial Park
7:00pm - Festival Parade of Boats – Main St. Downtown
7:00pm - 11:00pm Downtown Block Party-Main St. Downtown


Friday • July 4, 2014
9:00am - 5:00pm Registration: US Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla Bldg – Centennial Park
9:00am - 5:00pm Inspection: Centennial Park


Saturday • July 5, 2014
8:00 am - 5:00pm Fueling: Centennial Park on Sarasota Bay
8:30 am Mandatory Drivers Meeting: Hyatt Regency Sarasota
10:00am - 5:00pm Registration: US Coast Guard Auiliary Flotilla Bldg / Centennial Park
10:00am - 5:00pm Inspections: Centennial Park
11:00am - 7:00pm Powerboats by the Bay: Centennial Park-Food-Vendors-Live Music- “Miss Suncoast Festival” Contest
10:30am - 12:00pm Meet & Greet Who’s in the Driver’s Seat: Hyatt Regency Sarasota Ballroom
12:00pm - 4:00pm Dunk Test – YMCA Selby Aquatic Center, 8301 Potter Park Dr. Sarasota, FL
12:00pm - 4:00pm Launching: Centennial Park on Sarasota Bay
12:00pm - 4:00pm Testing: As per the SBIP Rulebook


Sunday • July 6, 2014 – Race Day

7:30am - 8:30am Physicals: Hyatt Regency Sarasota
8:00am - 12:00pm Fueling: Centennial Park
8:00am - 5:00pm Launch & Recovery: Centennial Park
8:30am Mandatory Drivers Meeting: Hyatt Regency Sarasota
10:00am FAA pilots meeting: Jones Aviation
10:30am Boats of 1st Race: Parade to Mill Area
11:00am Start of 1st Race: Lido Beach
12:30pm Boats of 2nd Race: Parade to Mill Area
1:00pm Start of 2nd Race: Lido Beach
5:00pm Race Awards Ceremony: Hyatt Regency Ballroom

[Serious News]

http://youtu.be/gFLCPZ1tS-A

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Race Course

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[Serious News]

Sarasota Offshore Grand Prix Preview

The July event promises hotly contested battles in several classes.

14th June 2014.
By Matt Trulio

Next to its annual Offshore World Championship in Key West, Fla., Super Boat International’s Sarasota (Fla.) Suncoast Super Boat Grand Prix is SBI’s biggest race in any given season.

Thanks to its long history—this year’s race will mark the event’s 30th anniversary—and a number of offshore powerboat racers who call Sarasota home, the race typically attracts a larger field than the popular and still-growing SBI Nationals in nearby Clearwater, Fla., in September.

Scheduled for July 3-6, the 2014 Sarasota Grand Prix isn’t just shaping up to have another big turnout, but to offer excellent battles in several offshore racing classes. Here are four categories that are looking hot and worth watching.

Superboat Unlimited: If current plans hold, Miss GEICO and Gasse will be the most likely teams to finish first and second in this piston-engine-powered catamaran class. Both boats are running twin 1,650-hp engines from Mercury Racing. Both have first-place finishes to their credit this season—Gasse took the season-opener in Charlotte Harbor, Fla., while Miss GEICO claimed victory at the next race in Cocoa Beach.

Superboat Stock: Based in the Sarasota/Bradenton area, The Hulk/Redline Oil and SOS Venezuela will be on a mission to come away with a win in front of their hometown crowd. As it happens, both boats are 32-foot outboard-powered Doug Wright catamarans. In the flat-water Port Charlotte event, The Hullk/Redline Oil team prevailed. But in the nasty waters off Cocoa Beach, SOS Venezuela claimed victory. The potential wild card in this class is the Dubai-based Fazza team, the reigning X-Cat Series world champion that reportedly will make Sarasota its stateside debut.

Superboat: With either five or six catamarans with twin 750-hp engines likely to show up in this class, the hands-down favorite to take the victory in Sarasota has to be Stihl, which took first place in the first two races of the season. The new-for-2014 cockpit duo of owner/driver J.R. Noble and Mark Kowalski has jelled—in a hurry—in the cat, and while the Superboat class has several teams capable of taking the checkered flag, Stihl goes in as the odds-on favorite to do it.

Superboat Vee: Snowy Mountain River took first place in SBI’s season opner—and got handed parity restrictions for the rest of the season moving forward. No one other than the boat’s owner/driver Michael Janssen knows if Snowy will rejoin the single-engine canopied Superboat Vee-class field this year, but the boat was out for the next race and Sun Print, which had always been the closest competition for Janssen’s undefeated V-bottom, claimed victory in the second race of the season. Assuming Snowy stays on the sidelines for Sarasota, Sun Print is well positioned to win its second race in a row this year.

In A Class Of Its Own: For the first races of its 2014 season, the Spirit of Qatar team’s Al Adaa’am 96 turbine-powered catamaran likely won’t have any direct competition in the Turbine class. But that doesn’t matter much to the boat’s driver and the Qatar team’s leader, Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani. Finishing ahead of archrival Miss GEICO would suit him just fine. “As everyone knows, my primary target is Miss GEICO 113 and [driver] Marc Granet in particular,” he said.

http://features.boats.com/boat-content/2014/06/sarasota-offshore-grand-prix-preview/

[Serious News]

http://youtu.be/fEet02iF2eY

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http://youtu.be/5fhRv2NdFR8

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http://youtu.be/VHxNO-RNbqY

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MTI Catamarans Prepping For Highly Anticipated Sarasota Race

MTI | June 23, 2014

DSC_7413The festivities surrounding the 30th Annual Suncoast Super Boat Grand Prix will be underway this week, as teams prep for one of the most highly anticipated races of the season!

It’s rumored that the CMS Offshore Race Team will be battling it out in Sarasota, alongside Team Warpaint, Broadco CAT 5 Offshore Race Team, and the AutoNation/Racing For Cancer offshore race teams. There’s only one way to find out which MTI Catamarans will be hitting the water for the Suncoast Super Boat Grand Prix — by watching the race! Make sure to keep an eye out for the MTI fleet on Sunday, July 6!! If you can’t make it down to Florida for the race weekend, you can keep up with all of the action as it happens via the official Super Boat International Livestream, here.

http://marinetechnologyinc.com/2014/06/mti-catamarans-prepping-highly-anticipated-sarasota-race/

[Serious News]

http://youtu.be/bDaiWbiCE7U

[Serious News]

Suncoast boat racer a fixture at Sarasota races

SARASOTA, Fla. -- If you heard a roar and saw a flash on Sarasota Bay Friday, it was probably super boat racer Steve Kildahl and his son getting ready for next week's grand prix race. Kildahl is the defending champion. He won last year's class and he hopes to do the same this year. He's competed every year of the 30-year-old Suncoast Super Boat Grand Prix, and he's crossed that finish line first a lot of times. He's living his dream. "It was a childhood dream when we could afford to do it. That happened to be back in 1985 when they had the first race, and I've been doing it ever since."

He's Sarasota born and bred, graduated from Sarasota High School, went to work for a marina in town, and in 1980 he opened his own business Central Marine Service. And these days the races are more fun than ever. "Now I have my son racing with me. He's been with me 6 years; he's the driver of the boat, and we're an awesome team."

Kildahl's life revolves around boats. "We work on the boat in the off-season. The World Championships are usually the 2nd week in November in Key West, and that's the end of our season. The season starts up again in April so in the off-time we're working on the boat, making changes, and getting ready for the next season."

Now of course they're right in the middle of the season. "We run the Super Boat International Circuit. The first race of the season we were 4th, in Port Charlotte 3 weeks ago we were 2nd." He hopes to hit speeds up to 94 miles an hour in this race. Things happen lightning-fast at that speed. They 've had some close calls. "Two years ago at the World Championship we were running 2nd, and in some pretty rough seas (we) hit a weird wave, took a flier, and spun and knock on wood we did not end up upside down. We ended up right side up."

And neither of them was hurt.

And he says now that offshore racing is closer to shore and you can see all the action from the beach, it's more exciting than ever for the spectators. And Steve says for him the thrill is still there. "After the orange smoke goes off, the adrenaline starts pumping, and it's a mad dash to the first turn."

He'll have a lot of competition out there. 40 boats have pre-registered, and each team will be pushing their boat to the limit.

You can see Steve race on Sunday, July 6th. He's in the 1st race. Just look for boat #2. It says Sarasota Ford on the side.

http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/local/suncoast-boat-racer-a-fixture-at-sarasota-races/article_550406f4-fe40-11e3-b43f-0017a43b2370.html

[lucky devil]

Lookin' forward to the races this weekend. My favorite course of the year, love the dog leg layout on the front stretch.Will be floating offshore to watch the entry to southern turn.

[Ratickle]

On the outside of D?

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[lucky devil]

closer to C, so T2 can be seen. that's where Phantom's problems started during last year's race.

[Ratickle]

Grand finale for the Grand Prix


SARASOTA

Trying to talk in a powerboat as you skim the top of waves at speeds in excess of 100 mph can be a futile exercise.

Driver and throttleman need something close to clairvoyance to be successful. That's why experience racing with each other can make all the difference.

Experience paid off in the form of checkered flags for at least a pair of the two-man crews that took to offshore waters Sunday at the 30th annual Suncoast Super Boat Grand Prix.

The 44-foot, neon-green Miss Geico, driven by Marc Granet and throttled by Scott Begovich, destroyed the rest of the field to win the Superboat Unlimited Division by what amounted to a country mile.

Miss Geico's fastest lap was 119.4 mph, with an average speed of 107.16 mph, almost 20 mph quicker than Lucas Oil Silverhook in second place.

Driver Robert Nunziato of Dania Beach, and Sarasota throttleman Dan Lawrence teamed up to capture the Superboat Stock Division with an average speed of 84.56 mph. The two were aboard The Hulk, a 32-foot vessel owned by Doug Kelly.

Granet and Begovich, both of Riviera Beach, have been tearing up the water all around the world together for more than eight years now.

“We're like twins, except we're exact opposites,” Granet said. “It takes two guys in the boat. We're constantly communicating inside the boat.”

The driver is behind the wheel while the throttleman controls the speed of the boat.

“It takes a while to jell and run the boat like one person,” Nunziato said. “You have to get to the point where it doesn't take a whole lot of conversation. It's a definite advantage to have a lot of sea time together.”

The teamwork goes well beyond the two men on the water, starting with a crew chief to help keep everything in one piece. Burgess Haussermann fills that role well for The Hulk.

“A good crew chief and motor maintenance are critical,” Nunziato said as he worked on the boat following the race. “The three of us spend a lot of time taking care of our baby here. The race is actually 50 hours of work and 45 minutes of fun.”

Granet added, “You can have a lot technical issues when you travel at very high speeds. Sometimes, you have some overheating and other issues. The Miss Geico crew performed wonderfully getting the boat together.”

Driver John Stanch of Westmont, N.Y., steered the 40-foot Instigator to victory in the Superboat Extreme Division, averaging 80.96 mph, just slightly ahead of Twisted Metal, which finished second at an average speed of 80.87 mph.

Robert Noble Jr. of Orlando was behind the wheel of the 38-foot Stihl boat that roared through the Gulf of Mexico at an average speed of 102.63 to win the highly competitive Superboat Division. Stihl's quickest single lap was 107.6 mph.

Sun Print, driven by Gary DeCiuicies of New Port Richey, edged out the local Sarasota Ford boat to win Superboat Vee Division, averaging 76.65 mph, compared to 76.01 mph.

The Sarasota Ford boat is owned and throttled by Steve Kildahl. His son, Stephen Kildahl, drives the boat.

Also on Sunday, Karl Steger of Fenton, Mo., drove the Second Amendment to victory in the P3 Division, while owner and driver Daniel Racz captured the P4 Division.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20140706/ARTICLE/140709803?p=1&tc=pg