Ron P

The next race is in three weeks. Join the mailing list at www.njoffshore.com for all the details.

OPA is a P class only racing series. Only 5 classes so more boats per class. For a little local race, we get a lot of coverage.

I can't wait to see this Freeze Frame video.

May 31 - June 1 Brick NJ
June 21 - 22 Seaside Heights NJ
July 19 - 20 Atlantic City NJ
Aug 14 - 15 Point Pleasant Beach NJ
Sept 6 - 7 Liberty State Park NJ
Sept 27 - 28 Chesepeake Challenge

BRUCE SEROFF

Thanks guys..it was a hell of a day. the water was big and the Pantera handled it well. Still some adjustments to be made with some added weight forward in the rough. But overall, we had a great ride.

Ryan Beckley

I am not sure but I think Wild Card is a 25 PowerPlay and it's FASSST!

Fast Shafts

Ryan,
I thought it was a Power Play also, however after speaking with Wil Ross, he said it is a 26 Corsa, but it has a wind fairing/dash and engine hatch off a Power Play.

Ryan Beckley

Oh ok that's why I guess I thought it was, a few years ago turmell raced a 25 Powerplay that looked just like it and I thought that it was that boat.

SHARKEY-IMAGES

It doesn't look from the photos that the waters were as rough as to be expected considering the weather reports. But to get some great shots such as those, the New Jersey typical Ground Swell looks like it was definately present. Great show! That is what I think most of the spectators come to see. Not so much the speed, but how high people can get off a wave....

Ron P

Ryan, it was amazingly fast. He came in second to Coen's Superboat so what does that tell ya. He just looked the fastest because he flew the highest. 10 - 12 feet up at times and landed smoothly. It's a Corsa. Step bottoms didn't mean much today.

1HYPER1

Ron ,
Unfortunatley ran into some problems while testing on Thursday in the Chesapeake bay,so we did not make it to the race,SORRY.What happened to the rest of the boats that were planning on attending,hopefully they just got scared of the wheather reports,I think what you guys are doing is great,and we look foreward to seeing you at the next event.We are going to bring up HYPERACTIVE to SKATERFEST next weekend for some fun,hope to see you there.

Lucididee

Congrats Bruce!!!

Ron P

Hello Race Fans,

What do you do when the cards are stacked against you? You improvise as best you can and hope for the best. That’s the kind of day today was for the first OPA race of the season.

The weatherman had been predicting rain for this weekend for the last 7 days. Early in the week they predicted sprinkles on Sunday, then it went to rain, then it went to rain and thunderstorms, finally on Saturday night, they predicted, rain, and high winds with gusts to 60mph, clearing by late afternoon of course.

At 7am on race morning it was dead calm and not a drop of rain. Amazing. I left for the wet pits to find things in full swing with boats being craned into the water and racers going through their physicals plus getting a quick chiropractic adjustment to loosen things up a bit. It was a normal busy morning at the wet pits.

My buddy Paul and I headed out in a 26’ open fishing boat to set up the racecourse markers. As we got half way to the inlet and the rain started to come down pretty hard. No wind, just rain. It almost looked like we might not need to set up the racecourse at all, but we did anyway. We put our matching yellow rain gear on and in our best Gorton’s Fisherman’s impersonation, proceeded with our mission.

The ocean was nice and smooth at 9am, the wind was mild and from the west, while the gentle rain seemed to flatten out any chop that was on top of the waves so other than the rain, it was very pleasant in the ocean.

An hour later we got back to the Wharfside and dried ourselves off as the patrol boats, turn boats, medical boats and dive boats arrived on time and as planed. You really gotta admire guys that love this sport so much that they come out on this kind of a day to help out and keep our racers safe. Over 35 support boats were on the racecourse to keep an eye on these guys as they tested their mettle against the elements. Words cannot express the gratitude I hold for this group of dedicated volunteers.

I got a call on the cell phone from Pace Boat 1, No Discipline. They went to Atlantic City on Saturday with the NJPPC poker run and couldn’t make it back to Point Pleasant as the conditions in A/C were horrible. Additionally, Pace Boat 2, a brand new 42 Outerlimits called All Fired Up broke down during the same poker run and wouldn’t be available either. So we needed to call on our other volunteers. John De Ray’s 41 Apache called Afton Express became my ride for the day as Pace Boat 1 and our long standing VIP boat, Tony Presti’s 48’ Sunseeker called My Affair became Pace Boat 2. Tony’s boat comes complete with triple 502s, a/c, leather interior, bow thruster and full canvas. The ultimate pace boat for a day like today except that when he left the dock at the Wharfside he must have ingested something into one of the sea strainers because one engine had no water pressure and the alarms were ringing. Not a good time to break down, but he still had two good engines so…

The Pace Boats dropped in behind the Police escort boat as the race boats cleared the railroad bridge just short of the inlet. Then at 12:50 as planned, the boats came out the inlet at full throttle to the delight of hundreds of people who lined the inlet with umbrellas in hand. The Police boat pealed off and our big Apache had the lead as we came to the mouth of the inlet. It’s amazing how the ocean can change so quickly, only a few hours ago the ocean was nice and smooth, now it had a real nice roll to it. We hit the first roller at the end of the inlet and the 14,000 pound Apache took flight with the Sunseeker in the air on two engines next to us. The rest of the fleet pounded their way through the entrance to the ocean and we broke into two mills, near turns 3 and 4, the two northern turns on this rectangular course.

At 1pm on the dot, the smoke flare was lit and while it started to drizzle we counted down the three minutes to the start. At this point, I’d say that the swell was not that big, maybe 3 to 5 feet, but there wasn’t much of a chop so the conditions were actually rather smooth, which allows the boats to run faster, until they launch off a wave.

We changed from a red to a yellow flag and dragged the first start down the beach in rather quick fashion because we then needed to pick up the second start before the first group came around the short four-mile track. Tony’s boat was in no condition to run down the beach as originally planned so as soon as the boats went by, we took a hard left and cut across the infield, around turn 3 and in front of the second group of boats. They caught on real quick when the official on the Sunseeker dropped his yellow flag and pointed to us going by with the yellow flag raised. Again we rounded turn 4 and proceeded down the beach with the P4 and P5 boats in tow. Once the boats were in line off our hip, we switched to the green flag and the race was on.

As expected, the P2 boat Firewater, a 41 Apache driven by Bob Oliver and throttled by Herb Stottler, with 1000hp Stottler blower motors took to the early lead with the P1 boat Brioschi throttled by Jay Muller and driven by SuperCat world Champion Billy Mauff running about 100 yards back. The other P1 boat Relentless, driven and throttled by the team of Ernie Tretola Sr and Jr, was third overall after the first lap. Lightning Jacks, a 36 Skater pulled an all nighter to swap both motors but failed to make the start.

In P3 class, Wazzup talked a lot of trash prior to the race and needed to prove their point to the other P3 teams, Bad Boy driven by Tony Pacheco and throttled by Kurt Berger, Gecko Tequila, driven by Dave Edelstein and throttled by Val Fiorillo, and Xtremely Dangerous, throttled by Vinny Lazzara and driven by Marty “The Pen” Coyle. Marty’s pen must have run out of ink because the boyz never made it off the trailer. But it looked really good sitting there. Maybe next time fellas. Another new team, Fair Warning never made the start either.

P4 had the best racing of the day as the big 38 Scarab The Delicate Sound of Thunder, driven and throttled by Augie Pensa “The Godfather of OPA” and Kevin Hans as navigator took on, the Coen’s in SuperBoat, Mad Dog and Hollywood in Typhoon and the absolutely insane team of Wild Card.

Rounding out the field in P5 we had a new team called Sonic Boom in a 28’ Sonic, Dr Evil and Mini Me in Simply Awesome, and Team Panther in a 30’ Scarab Panther.

Many more boats had intended on making this race but the lousy weather forecast kept them from making the trip from several hundred miles away. That’s OK because these dozen or so boat put on a great show of aerial acrobatics for the fans that came out and braved the elements.

Firewater never missed a beat on their way to the overall win. They had it trimmed way under and landed nose first most of the time but this old war horse was dialed in and the boyz know how to run it in big water. Brioschi made an attempt to close the gap a few times but Jay and Billy could never come close to Firewater. However they held on to take Relentless to the end. Relentless spent way too much time in the air and not enough in the water to keep up with Brioschi. It was nice to see the P2 class V do it’s thing in rough water and beat on the P1 cats that are 20 miles per hours faster in calm water. It was Firewater’s day to rule the seas. It must have been a horrible day to be a cat. After the race, Billy Mauff was herd saying that he had fun but asked Jay Muller to not to call him to race in Point Pleasant again in these types of conditions unless Jay brought out his big 40’ motion cat. The little cats really take a betting.

The P3 class had a battle of the mishaps. These are all close friends racing against each other, which of course means that the friendship ends once the green flag flies. Apparently Wazzup ran it so hard down the front straightaway that his navigator’s back went out and they needed to stop racing. Now, image the scenario. You’ve been waiting for this day, all winter long. The boat has been gone through over and over to make sure it will endure 40 miles of sheer torture without failure and now, your day is over. After just a half lap of racing and the engines are still running fine. Well if your anything like the father and son team of Eddie and Anthony Smith, you drive your race boat close to a medical patrol boat and throw your navigator out of the boat so you can go back to racing. Well, they didn’t actually throw Kevin into the water, they waited for the boat to come over and helped Kevin out of the boat but that put them out of the hunt for good. Gecko and Bad Boys had a side-by-side race going until the Bad Boy had an engine related failure that stopped their race. Gecko was in their own element and the 36 Cig Gladiator ran like a champ through the big waves. It flew like a piano and near the end of the race landed the wrong way, which snapped a gimble ring. Smitty was the last one standing and still running around in circles when the rain really started to come down, destroying visibility to the point were race control had no choice but red flag the race with 2 of 14 laps to go. Had the race gone to the end, Wazzup would have won, but since Gecko was in the lead at the time of the red flag, they were awarded the win.

John Coen loves the water at Point Pleasant and he’s proven over and over that he builds a boat designed to run in big water like we had today. John builds SuperBoats in Long Island NY and today was their day as John and his son took on all comers. Typhoon was ruling the seas in the beginning of the race, but after a wire harness failed it was clear they would rule nothing more than sponges later at the pits. The Delicate Sound of Thunder had the race won except their kill switch leads kept falling off which of course shuts the engines off. Not a good thing when you’re racing. They raced to the end but ended up in third behind SuperBoat and Wild Card who ran an incredibly competitive race. Typhoon came in last. Dead last. Not even a podium spot. In fact, out of all the teams that crossed the starting line, the dogs from the pound where the only ones to NOT receive a trophy today. The only thing awarded to Mad Dog and Hollywood today was a pair of sponges so they could wash all the other winners boats. Woof woof. Don’t worry, they’ll be back with a vengeance in a few weeks. It’s very infrequent that theses guys don’t win so I’ll take my jabs while I can.J

Sonic Boom a new team to join the OPA ranks this year ran a great race right to the end. But it was the high flying Panther and the even higher-flying Pantera, Simply Awesome that took home the checkered flag. Bruce and Paul really earned this one. It was nice to see them finish in such good form and to stay in the boat for a change.

Unfortunately the race was called a bit early under a dark rain cloud, but the wind never came and there was no lightning in sight. When others less daring souls may have looked at the forecast last night and said “Wadda u nuts” we went racing and had fun doing it.

We had two professional photographers on the course today. Jeff in the chopper and Jim on the water. You can see photos of the race at www.njsportpics.com, look under online ordering. You can purchase these photos if you wish. Jim was stationed on the Sunseeker Pace Boat for the race. Most of the photos were taken on the southern in shore leg or between turns 1 and 2 at the south end.

Look under photos at www.njoffshore.com for some photos I took from Pace Boat 1, but if you really want to see the action, stop by www.freezeframevideo.net and order a DVD of the event for your personal viewing pleasure. Jeff’s stuff is always top notch and when I talked to him after the race he said this was the best rough water footage he’s taken in years.

I hope you enjoy these race recaps as much as I enjoy writing them. What you’ve just read will be a part of the story that I need to submit in the next few days to Extreme Boats magazine about this race. Sign up for a subscription at www.extremeboatsmag.com to read the whole story. I believe they still have the 3-month free trial offer going.

So at the end of a very long and moist day, on half of The Board of Directors New Jersey Offshore Powerboat Racing Association and the Offshore Performance Association. I’d like to thank you for being such brave souls in this very unpredictable weather. It turned out to be a great day of safe racing. Hopefully Kevin Day will mend quickly.

Congratulations to all who raced. Your skill as true offshore racers showed!

Thank you, Mayor Scarpelli and the Township of Brick for opening your town to us, Crabby's, Jenkinson's, Corona Extra (and Corona girls), Coke, Oldies 100.1 and the many other devoted sponsors that make these races happen, thank you for your continued support and sponsorship.

None of these races would ever happen without the loyal support of all our dedicated volunteers, thank you so very much, you always seem to do more than is ever expected of you.

See ya in three weeks for the Seaside Heights race on Sunday June 22nd. This next race will start at Jenkinsons, just like today, but then the boats will race 10 miles south along the beach to Seaside Heights where the racecourse awaits them.

See ya at the races,

Ron