Lucas Oil Outerlimits Racing Team Wins Sprint Race in Belgium
LUCAS OIL OUTERLIMITS RACING TEAM WINS SPRINT RACE IN BELGIUM
Finally, a truly rough water race and the Mercury Racing-powered Lucas Oil Outerlimits Team dominated the Powerboat P1 Belgium Grand Prix of the Sea. A bit of neck-and-neck racing in lap one and two with the German SeaRex boat provided some early excitement for the Evolution Class. After that, it was all Mercury Racing and the Outerlimits’ SV-40 leading and lapping the field in the second, sprint portion of the Powerboat P1 race.
Zeebrugge, the race site for the 5th of 6 of the 2007 Powerboat P1 race series, is a port city on the North Sea, notorious for its choppy, unpredictable waves. As the winds blew in from the Northwest early on Sunday morning, racers prepared for even rougher waters than the Saturday endurance race provided. The Lucas Oil Outerlimits Racing Team knew it already had the perfect set-up, having nearly won the Saturday race, except for a fuel line problem that stopped the boat, which had led for over five laps, just before the finish line on lap 9 of the 10 lap race. Sorely disappointed by the loss of potential first-place points, Joe Sgro on the wheel and Nigel Hook on throttles, rebounded for the second race and soundly beat the competition in an impressive run, lapping third-place King of Shaves on the fourth lap.
The team never looked back—and probably for good reason as Sgro’s life jacket inexplicably inflated on the third lap, blocking his radio communication and his vision. “I could see the GPS out of the corner of my eye and I could hear Nigel talking to Mike [Fiore, president and owner of Outerlimits Powerboats] on the radio, so I knew everything was fine,” said Sgro, who always adds drama to the race.
For Hook, it was uplifting to take the checkered flag, which he had missed on his Cowes victory with Sgro, when the flag was erroneously awarded to another competitor at the race, before that team had been assessed penalties for breaking out of the P1 speed limit. “This victory was vindicating,” Hook commented, “It was earned and a sound beating of the competition.”
“It doesn’t ease the pain from yesterday,” said Sgro, “But it’s good to win. Giving the victory away yesterday probably cost us the World Championship, but this win proves without a doubt the superiority of the Outerlimits hull. We dominated this whole race!”
The resounding win earned the team third place in the Powerboat P1 Belgium Grand Prix of the Sea. The circuit closes the 2007 season in Portimao, Portugal, September 29-30. Stay tuned.
Perhaps you also can get a bit of brains so you do not give such reactions anymore.
Or better, get a nice boat and come racing in Europe and see for yourselve.
Of course they lapped us (king of shaves). We were running on one engine!!! We were only 3 mins a lap slower on one engine, on a 7 mile course!! not bad!!!
Hats off to Joe and Nigel for the weekend. Should be a good tv show as we played around for the first 2-3 laps we took the lead, let em by then took it back again etc...
All we had to do was make sure we finish all races. When I could hear the rev limiter popping on OL as they came alongside us I said lets let them go, it wont last.... I didnt!
Sunday we had a silly electrical problem, but waited for OL to come around to lap us so they finished the race and we could cross the line with 70% done.
Looking forward to portugal. Hopefully bring the Fountain Worldwide boat home with a world championship!
Key West might be in the books!!
Perhaps you also can get a bit of brains so you do not give such reactions anymore.
Or better, get a nice boat and come racing in Europe and see for yourselve.
i got my life we doin't take 130 mph boat's and slow them to 87 . if you would like to run with the big dogs come to where the real racing is not some cruize show . .other wise stay on the porch .
i got my life we doin't take 130 mph boat's and slow them to 87 . if you would like to run with the big dogs come to where the real racing is not some cruize show . .other wise stay on the porch .
Stay on the porch????? Why don't you bring your potatoe chip over seas next year and try to run in the "cruise show" with the real big boys. Last time I saw there weren't 6 meter sea's on any of the race courses that you run on. Let me translate that for you 6 meters = 18 - 20 foot sea's.
It takes a real set of b@lls to run through those conditions. Lucas Oil / Outerlimits had some minor setbacks this year as they got accustomed to the differnt style of racing over in Europe, but next year should prove to be a very exciting year, not to mention there is still a race this year. I can't wait to hear the excuses start flying from the Fountain camp when they get lapped AGAIN. Oh I forgot, they were on one motor when they got lapped, must have been broken in the first race, up until the OL had some fuel issues. They were close to getting lapped then as well.
Dude, Roll off your sister and step back into reality. If your version of Real racing is running in 2' chopp with 6 or 8 other fountains then you can keep it. Beacuse P1 deffinately seems more competitive and interesting to me then watching the Reggie Infomercials that SBI calls TV coverage.
It's people like you that give Fountain a bad name. Its not the boats, its the owners like yourself. It should be a great race between King of Shaves and the Outerlimits boat. It would also be really great to have both of them come back and race Key West!!
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