I'm certainly not happy that we had to miss this year's event, but sometimes stuff happens that has to take precedence. So, I'm relying on our friends and members to keep us updated as much as possible. My first musing:

The new class,

SUPERBOAT™
(Inboard Catamaran - Numbers only)

At the request of the SBIP members & equipment owners SUPERBOAT CLASS™ will be a consolidation of the SUPERBOAT 750, SUPERBOAT 850, and SUPER CAT CLASSES, and will be listed as one of SBIP National Series classes for the 2013 season. All rules and requirements listed in the Technical and General Competition rulebooks will govern the class. The SBIP rules which follow are safety and competition based. The formula endeavors to keep competition close and exciting, principally by monitoring technology changes and limiting the differences between racing equipment from team to team in order to ensure maximum excitement and enjoyment for racers and fans alike.

seems to be an incredible class, with major potential, based on the first event on Wednesday. Reports say there were four lead changes in the first four laps.

Update on the first race and the boats participating:

CLASS: SUPERBOAT
DIST: 41.7 miles
LAP-1 LAP-2 LAP-3 LAP-4 LAP-5 LAP-6 LAP-7 TOTAL AVG PEN ELAPSED
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13 STIHL
88.2 93.7 90.3 93.7 93.7 91.1 91.4 41.7 91.89 -- 00:27:16 1 250

5 WHM MOTORSPORTS
89.7 93.0 91.8 91.1 90.7 90.7 92.6 41.7 91.45 -- 00:27:24 2 225

45 JD BYRIDER
89.2 93.7 90.7 86.1 93.7 93.0 91.1 41.7 91.11 -- 00:27:30 3 202.5

15 MARITIMO
92.2 90.0 89.6 91.1 89.6 91.8 93.0 41.7 91.00 -- 00:27:32 4 182.5

7 TEAM CRC
79.3 82.3 82.9 85.5 84.5 83.9 83.2 41.7 83.24 -- 00:30:06 5 164.5

33 FASTBOATS MARINE GROUP
83.7 80.8 81.4 80.8 81.1 81.4 83.2 41.7 81.75 -- 00:30:39 6 148

38 WARPAINT ---------------------- 0.0 0.00 -- 00:00:00 7 133

That is quite a group of experienced teams, and they appear to be very evenly matched for the most part. I'm waiting to hear from Tim and Mike as to what happened with CRC, and the rumor is that Warpaint had some kind of fuel issue so had to head back in before the start of the race. But, the first four finishers, had less than a one mile per hour difference in their speed averages over the entire seven lap race. Impressive.....

More rumor, I heard Byrider spun out on the far outside corner, and that was why they had the one lap at 86 versus the 91 to 93 range of the other laps....

And a bit more rumor, Friday's water is looking to be a bit rougher yet. We'll see.......