SBI Ft. Myers race Incredibly Competitive or Hollywood Magic?

While on another thread yesterday searching for info on the Ft. Myers racem, Boatgirl had made an interesting observation. She said that the Super Vee Muscle had lead for the very first lap of the race. From what I understood the seas had calmed somewhat and the racers were experiencing 2-3 foot chop or perfect cat waters. I, as a racer in a unlimited superboat cat can't remember the last time I was chasing a v bottom boat in any kind of weather much less in ideal "cat" conditions. Then another interesting observation was made 3 out of 4 Superboat unlimiteds finished within 7 seconds of one another finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd. When looking at their avg. lap speeds I also noticed that they were all within a 6/10's of a mile per hour after 27 miles of racing (that's when the race was stopped) finishing 91.87, 91.44, 91.27 respectively. The only other Superboat that was not within this range but was within a roostertail view was the old Planetman which was probably the fastest boat out there but had new owners racing and pacing it for the very first time under racing conditions (I did notice that every lap they picked up the pace a little bit). Now what are the chances that you could have a 42ft. Scism Cat, a 46 ft. Skater and a 48ft. Jaguar all with different drive set ups, different sized props, different yet unlimited horsepower and different weights all doing just about the same speed for so long? Isn't this what the APBA has been striving towards for so long yet after the first lap maybe two boats start to spread out and ability starts to take over? I'd like to get some different views here because this sounds like a little bit of "Hollywood" magic in the works and I'm starting to think that the only thing not predicted was the sudden end to the race because the helicopters were being forced down due to the bad weather.

[CigDaze]

NIT2WIN,

I would venture to guess that the results may have had something to do with the race being called early.

It's been my observation that most racers will feel out what the rest of the field is doing...In other words, in an effort to try not to blow something up, a little conservatism might come into play up until the final laps. After all, there's no sense in trying to blow away the competition only to break something early and have the others easily walk past a sitting duck.

I have to agree with NIT2. The racers had to see the bad weather coming,and knew a stoppage mite happen.I don't think they would be laying back.

I was at Ft. Myers, I tend to agree with BD, but I will say the visibility is what caused the race to be called, the ceiling just dropped, and I dont think anybody was expecting that...

[DanB]

Nothing magic or hollywood about it
I watched the race from the diamond head hotel...close to the south end of the course.
Muscle had a great start and led into the FIRST TURN only, comeing around the south end and heading north all the SC pulled ahead and P57 pulled into a small lead. Jaws and 902 ran hard and were dukin it out pretty good for 2nd. Planetman was nowere to bee seen for the entire race. I understand he just bought the boat the week before and was probably just taken it easy in his first race.
All the racers knew the race wouldnt last too long and ran hard out for the few laps they had.
After the race at the bridge resturant there was friendly exchanges between Dave B and Art L about him gettin the jump on the first turn. When you see it on TV youll see the north end of the course already had turned bad crappy and everyone knew the race was gonna be cut short. Some of the racers "S" class kept kept on racin even after the race was called.