Ron P

SKATERFEST 2002


Under a cold and gloomy sky with the threat of rain they came from around the country to converge on SKATERFEST. This was only the second year for this event hosted by Professional Marine Racing, but because of it's founders deep roots in the sport of Offshore Racing, he was able to call upon a few friends to bring the largest single gene pool of high performance knowledge to ever be assembled under one roof. This year, other groups came out to support the event such as NJPPC (New Jersey Performance Powerboat Club), Smitty's Marine, Lightning Jacks Marina, Sterling Engines and of course Skater Powerboats. This gathering has only been made possible by the connectivity that we all enjoy through the Internet. OSO (www.offshoreonly.com) serves as the portal that we all reach each other through. Long live OSO and Skaterfest.

These are the words found on the opening page of the Skaterfest web site. The site can be found on the web at www.darrensoffshorephotos.homestead.com. What makes this event truly unique is that no admission fees were charged nor were the vendors charged to display their products. There was no advertising other than word of mouth. This was “the” place to freely and openly share knowledge of high performance boating with some of the brightest and most well know people in the business of making boats go fast. It had no affiliation with any other organization or event. Skaterfest stands alone as an anomaly in today’s pay to play world of offshore boating.

So, who deserved to attend the event and take a free ride in one of the incredible machines on display? The answer is any member of OSO or anyone else who knew about the event and made the effort to attend the show. Can you attend next year? Absolutely, but you’ll only find out about the time and date for next year by reading OSO on a regular basis. OSO is a message board of some very comical characters that either own or want to own high performance boats. Some of the members are racers, while others are boat builders or other marine related vendors. On the message board, everyone is on equal footing and the banter can be either entertaining or informative, usually both, never neither. If you want to get an opinion of the difference between a Fountain an Active Thunder and an Outerlimits then you need to talk with the dedicated boaters on OSO. So far over 5000 members have joined the OSO board in search of knowledge and information. You can join too, it’s free just like Skaterfest.

Skaterfest was the brainchild of one man who was able to call in a few favors from the friends that he has made in the boating business over the last few decades. His name is T2x a.k.a. Rich Luhrs. His T2x handle comes from an experimental Mercury outboard engine project from the 80s. His incredible depth of high performance boating knowledge has helped many OSO members to understand the physics of high speed boating and to get the most out of their current setups. Rich was one of the founders of Shadow Racing Cats back in the 80s and has been the TV announcer for over 100 offshore races. For a reason only known to himself, (because it sure isn’t for the money or the fame) T2x has decided to call upon his friends to help in passing along this wealth of knowledge to the dedicated boaters that spent the weekend in Brick NJ at Skaterfest.

During the two day event, knowledge was passed around in open forum settings with guest speakers like Peter Hledin of Skater, Mike D'Anniballe of Sterling Engines and Dennis Cavanaugh, The Prop Doctor from Mercury’s high performance division. Where else could you hear from Pat Patel, World Champion SuperCat racer, how to trim a boat at race speeds? Where else could you talk with Doug Lewis, another championship winning throttleman and rigger, and George Linder to find out the best X dimension for your particular boat. For the people in attendance, this was the high performance candy store left wide open with the lights on and the candy manufacturers handing out samples of anything you wanted.

Did someone mention boat rides? Only at Skaterfest do you have a chance of taking a 150 mph+ ride in one of Skater’s awesome creations. From mild to wild, anything from a 28 Skater with twin 2.5s to a 40 footer with twin turbines. Taking a ride with your hair on fire at 180+ in Jet Set was reserved for only a few but just watching him leave the docks with flames shooting twenty feet in the air was worth the price of admission by itself. See the Skaterfest site for a short video clip of Jet Set.

So tune your computer to www.offshoreonly.com and watch for information about Skaterfest 2003, which should occur in the late spring of next year.

Photos and story by Ron Polli --- OSO member Ron P.

Uncle Toys

Good job Ron! Can't wait to get the magazine.

That's the umteenth time I have looked through the Skaterfest site, but the first time I noticed that Too Old lives in "Burgerville SC" LMAO

Steamin Rice

Toys,

I had one of these magazines in my goodie bag from the AHBA poker run..You might want to check yours if you still have it.....There's a pic of you in the mag, too!!