Key West Final Results!!
 

I found this on the Key West Newspapers site

Racing for the Checkered Flags
12 teams crowned champion on final day of action
By J.W. COOKE Citizen Staff Writer

KEY WEST --The calmest seas of the week graced the final day of racing at the 29th annual Key West World Championships on Sunday as 12 teams claimed titles after three days of action. With Sunday's heats counting for twice as many points, several teams made comebacks on Day 3 -- including Keys residents who operate the Rum Runner. All the squads went all out in front of fans who flocked to the Key West Harbor waterfront to watch the powerboats fly by at triple digit speeds.



"I couldn't have asked for anything better," said Larry Bleil, director of the Conch Republic Offshore Powerboat Racing Association (CROPRA). "It was wall to wall people, beautiful weather and just fantastic."



It was the Miss Geico boat that completed the sweep as the fastest on the water for the third straight day of racing, running at an average speed of 116 mph. That not only helped the team claim a World Championship in the Turbine class, but also garner the Top Gun title with the fastest average speed overall for the week at 111 mph.



"My crew has performed unbelievable all year long and this is the crowning achievement," said Marc Granet, who was behind the wheel for the final day of racing. "To win in Key West is sweeter than anything. When you have all the fantastic fans here, the great weather, the fast boats and all the excitement building up to this one event, it's great. It was a throttleman day out there, because we had to struggle with a broken power steering pump. The crew dug deep for four to five weeks to prepare this boat for this event and then worked hard all week to keep the boat ready to go. For human achievement it's tremendously challenging, but for the Geico team it's just par for the course, because these guys are just the best."



In the Superboat class, it was the consistency of the WHM Motorsports team, averaging 106 mph for the week, that was able to bring it a world championship. After finishing second in the first two days of racing, behind Cintron on Wednesday and CMS on Friday, the WHM squad rode to a first place on Sunday, thanks in part to a one-lap penalty to the CMS team, winning the title by 47.5 points.



Running along side the monster-sized boats in the final heat of the day, the Saratoga Stampede squad continued to push all week against the Panasonic team and in the end was able to leave Key West with the world title in the Superboat Vee Extreme class. After losing Wednesday's race by one second and unable to complete the course on Friday, the Stampede charged to a first place finish on Sunday. The teams ended the week tied with 950 total points, so the championship was determined by the boat that had a combined further distance through all three races. That category was won by Saratoga Stampede after the Panasonic team ran into problems on the final day.



"It's fantastic," team owner and driver Dr. Mike Janssen said of winning the title. "I came down here last year just to watch as a spectator and I was so energized I wanted to build a boat and compete for a world championship this year. In about six months, we built this boat, I practiced with my son who is in college for three races, but was for only one reason and it was to compete in the World Championship. It's fantastic and at the end of day we turned a dream of being a spectator to winning a world championship in less than one year."



Seminole Hard Rock was the wire-to-wire champion in the Superboat Vee Unlimited class, winning all three days, while the rest of its competition battled for second. Davis Motorsports was second for the week followed by the Fountain Worldwide and Rockstar Energy Drink teams.



Racing in the midday heats, the Superboat 850 class saw some of the closest racing of the week as the teams frequently swapped positions before Spirit of Qatar No. 96 boat ran past its counterpart, the No. 95 boat, Team CRC boat ran to a first on the other side of the class.



The Talkin Trash team was unable to obtain three firsts in the week, but a pair of top finishes and a second on Sunday were enough to bring the squad its first world title. The JD Byrider boat ran a solid race on the final day, averaging 104 mph, but it was not enough to reel in the championship in the Superboat 750 class,



"I feel way better than good, I feel fabulous," said Jimmy Winters, driver of Talkin Trash. "It's absolutely amazing and a long time coming. We've been coming to Key West for five years and somehow it always eluded us. We would have liked to get a first place today, but we didn't need to get one. We decided to race smart and do what we had to do to win a championship and that's what we did.



Team Amsoil ran alone in the Super Cat class to the world title, as its only competition,All Jack'd Up, was unable to run at all on Sunday.



The Production 1 class rounded out the midday races, as the Cleveland Construction team picked up its second win of the week to claim the title. The Miccosukee Indians Gaming boat was second with the Lucas Oil boat, which was second on Sunday, taking third in the class.



In the morning races, Miccosukee TNT overcame a Day 1 mishap to win the Superboat Stock class title, while the Stihl team took second and the Rollin Vengeance was third for the week.



The regulated speed Production classes had tight racing all week with no team in any of the four groups ever out of contention. In Production-2, Global Warmer came back from a third place finish on Day 1 to win the championship. In Production-4, Simmons Racing was only able to run to the checkered flag once during the week, but, combined with a pair of second places, it was good enough for the title. The Love Muscle team was second in the Production-2 class, followed by Pump It and Team SW1 Capital. Unleashed was second in the Production-4 class as Team Fastboats was third and Crazy Chicken took fourth.



The Rum Runners from Big Pine Key won its first world championship, since being crowned a decade ago, by winning on the final two days of action in the Production-5 class. The Shogun team helped assist to the title with a second place finish on Sunday after not completing the race on either of the first two days. The second place for Shogun was good for third in the week-long races and Team Velocity was second in the chase for the title, but it was Rum Runners' week as owner and throttle man Bob Kieber said he was proud keep the title in the Keys.



"The boat responded well to everything we did to it and I couldn't ask for anything better all week," said Kieber "For me, it's been 10 years of getting a lot of bridesmaid finishes. The boat just did just job. We didn't have to worry about breaking out and the motor was flawless. We did work until 10:30 (Saturday) night building a new out drive, but were able to put it all together and she held.



"Once we got the lead (Sunday) and we were a half lap up, I just kind of nursed the boat from then. We got real quiet with three laps to go and we all started hearing noises. We just figured that at any moment it was going to break down, but it's finally here and we brought the title back to the Keys for the little guys. It's a huge win."



Fifty boats entered the waters throughout the week, as the waters in Key West Harbor gave the drivers all they could handle. There were ing different conditions each day, but, In the end, no racers were lost and no teams suffered major damage to any of the high speed vessels



"Overall I thought last year was great, but this year was even better," said Bleil. "The racing was good as the battles were great. It was great to see all the international teams here. Part of me is tired and glad it's over, but, boy, what a wonderful week."



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TV anyone ?
 

Now that we have read all the above - lets try to figure out how CBS or any TV Production company is going to make sense of this to the General Public - I think there is a problem here ! Too confusing - Even if someone BUYS time and puts this on TV - it just wont make sense to the average viewer - and they wont come back to view round two.


Congratulations to ALL the "USA - World" Champions - as that is what it is !


now back to your regularly scheduled program ! I'm still working on paragraph 3 from the above !


Phil

In Production-4, Simmons Racing was only able to run to the checkered flag once during the week, but, combined with a pair of second places, it was good enough for the title.

The Talkin Trash team was unable to obtain three firsts in the week, but a pair of top finishes and a second on Sunday were enough to bring the squad its first world title.

I like both boats, way to go! The Long Island guys got the job done, and the 34' Phantom wins the championship, AGAIN!

It wont open for me.. When I select the 29th Key West Championships it comes up blank..

Same here....What's up???

Chris

LIKE SBI'S SLOGAN I GUESS YOU HAVE TO BE RICH AND FAMOUS TO FIND OUT HOW FAST CMS WAS GOING AS THEY RAN DOWN WHM:bsflag:

Never heard the end of the debate, but it appeared (standing on the mole) that WHM did not go through the finish line on their last lap. Not to mention on the radio broadcast they were talking about WHM being broken down out on the course, until I and a couple others told them to turn around and look across the harbor where WHM was already on the trailer..

As far as CMS, why was the extra lap assessed after they looped back around and caught the buoy they missed??

It Was A Great Race Would Like To Know,whm
Finished And Won I Think

I just remembered one thing.....Where is old boat FURY??? I know that I was told that old Fury boat will be at Key West....I wonder what's going on?

Anyone?

Chris