Offshoreonly.com - Manhasset Bay PR pics

Immediate Release
August 22, 2004

Tom Abraham’s 45 Cigarette Maximus captures the
MANHASSET BAY GOLD CUP TROPHY at 130+ MPH!

At the 11th annual running of the MANHASSET BAY GOLD CUP POKER RUN on Sunday, August 22, 2004, hosted by LaMotta’s Restaurant in Port Washington, NY, Tom Abraham came out of the gate and never looked back as the fleet chased him around the 75 mile course over choppy seas on Long Island Sound. Initially starting out as a duel between last year’s winner, John O’Loughlin and his 42 Outerlimits GTX named “All Fired Up”, and Ed LaGuardia’s 37 Outerlimits, Abraham’s Cigarette with Richie Zul powerplants was able to establish a half-a-boat lead until his engine hatch cover blew off…an interesting tactic to gain more speed!
As the mechanical gremlins got busy on O’Loughlins’ boat causing a power steering belt to fry, Art Damast in his 46 Skater, “Red Wind” was the next closest competitor with Ozzie Castellnau’s “Wizard of Oz” in close pursuit. One of the fastest boats in the mix was Vinny Rifice’s 36 Skater, ”Color Me Bad”, but the seas were too rough for Vinny to maintain his 160 mph bursts.
Guy LaMotta, Jr. in his Cigarette “Competition 39” was maintaining a 90+ mph clip to and was the 3rd V-bottom at the Bridgeport, Connecticut checkpoint. Chasing him was Ted Lambert in his 94+ mph 42 Fountain, “VaVoom” and lucky Tom Fancher in his 37 Outerlimits, the real winner of the day when he pulled an all club flush and won the $5,000.00 Grand Prize in the Poker Run portion of the event.
Greg Katz was running good in his 35 Fountain, “Ligtning Strikes”, but impressed the crowd with his crew’s uniforms and won the BEST LOOKING CREW TROPHY. John Buscema entered his 1st poker run with his new 38 Cigarette Top Gun, “Loose Canon”, supplied by Ocean Performance of Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and won the BEST LOOKING BOAT TROPHY.
THE KING OF THE CATS TROPHY went to Art Damast and crew in his magnificent 46 Skater, “Red Wind”. Just a few positions behind was George Magnifico of FASTBOATS, Inc., in his 36’ Eliminator Cat, the northeast distributor for Eliminator Powerboats.
This was a great event for all of the newcomers and veterans of the sport.
We hope to see you all on September 18th for the GLEN COVE HI-STAKES POKER AND RADAR RUN, back on Long Island Sound…
…where all of the Kings and Queens Play!
www.nationalpowerboat.com