Ft Myers Race in the News
05-19-2006, 02:33 PM
#4
VIP Member
VIP Member
Re: Ft Myers Race in the News
Be safe!
__________________
P4-13 Team THE JERSEY BOYZ OFFSHORE POWERBOAT RACING, OPA/ SBI/APBA/UIM. PRESIDENT: THE JERSEY BOYZ , VICE-PRESIDENT: OPA RACING, THE GREAT SOUTH BAY RACING ASSOCIATION. WAZZUP RACING ENGINES
P4-13 Team THE JERSEY BOYZ OFFSHORE POWERBOAT RACING, OPA/ SBI/APBA/UIM. PRESIDENT: THE JERSEY BOYZ , VICE-PRESIDENT: OPA RACING, THE GREAT SOUTH BAY RACING ASSOCIATION. WAZZUP RACING ENGINES
05-20-2006, 12:56 AM
#6
OSO Content Provider
Commercial Member
Re: Ft Myers Race in the News
Photo Album is now started: OSS Photos 
Anyone that would like to contribute their photos to the album just give me the ok to use them.
Thanks!
Safe racing for all !
Anyone that would like to contribute their photos to the album just give me the ok to use them.
Thanks!
Safe racing for all !
05-22-2006, 07:25 AM
#7
Registered
Thread Starter
Re: Ft Myers Race in the News
Offshore races yield lots of thrills
New course dogleg provides excitement
By Betsy Clayton
Originally posted on May 22, 2006
After all the sky-high roostertails and fat wakes were gone, the race team with the checkered flag created just a little bit more whitewater.
Brothers Scott and Ron Roman took their silver-bullet-of-a-catamaran called Motley Crew and made a big rumble and a big donut 50 feet off Fort Myers Beach at Sunday's conclusion of the annual offshore powerboat races.
Scott Roman waved the black-and-white symbol of victory while Ron Roman flogged his throttles — one forward, one backward — and the crowd cheered along the beach outside Diamondhead.
Motley Crew was among 35 high-performance powerboats that competed in the weekend Offshore Super Series-sanctioned races on a five-mile course, which this year included a new dogleg that thrilled fans.
Thousands of them watched the boats scream by along the straight stretch.
Then drivers and throttlemen cut into a treacherous turn only to face another turn just 150 yards later. Next, the boats looked as if they were heading straight at the beach spectators, a thunderous roar at the sterns. Think souped-up Harley Davidsons on steroids. They sounded loud. Really loud.
"It wasn't easy — that was a war out there," Scott Roman said in a voice so hoarse that he joked that he and his brother had yelled at each other constantly during the hour-long race. "Every time I looked, someone else was in my mirror.
"Look. My hands are still shaking," he said, stepping onto the dock at Salty Sam's Marina post-race.
The Romans were one of seven class winners — four of which were unofficial — in the $50,000-purse event, which raised a yet-to-be-determined amount for hurricane relief efforts. The event was organized by Cape Coral racer Steve Page, who placed third behind Motley Crew in his boat named Hooters Hotel & Casino.
"I liked the course — it was a driver's course. We got wrecked almost 20 times," said Page's throttleman Joey Gratton. The dogleg "makes it so you've got to be a lot smarter than the next guy."
Spectators could sense that.
Races in some years looked more like high-speed parades — boats strung out immediately after the start.
These races were tighter.
"There's a lot of strategy going on out there," observed Martin Sandborn, who provided race commentary for the spectators and talkoffshore.com.
There also was a lot of speed — such as the up to 115 mph average for some classes Sunday.
So, boats flipped.
In Sunday's final race, the lead boat — Twisted Metal/Pier 57 — capsized on turn six in the first lap. The yellow boat floated hull up — its driver and throttleman quickly emerging — while other drivers ran under caution for two laps.
Two boats flipped in Sunday's first race. One flipped Saturday afternoon. No one was injured.
"It was a nut show out there," said racer Steve Delaney of the Fury team. "We had some bumpy water."
The chop may have been rough at high speeds, but the weather for the spectators was chamber-of-commerce worthy.
Some 400 boats anchored up to watch. Fans on the beach looked like ants at picnics from a view atop Diamondhead.
They enjoyed a relatively delay-free event, save for a manatee that showed up on the course just before the noon start Sunday, pushing back races until 12:30 p.m.
"When the manatees are swimming, boats aren't racing," Sandborn told the crowd.
Link to article
New course dogleg provides excitement
By Betsy Clayton
Originally posted on May 22, 2006
After all the sky-high roostertails and fat wakes were gone, the race team with the checkered flag created just a little bit more whitewater.
Brothers Scott and Ron Roman took their silver-bullet-of-a-catamaran called Motley Crew and made a big rumble and a big donut 50 feet off Fort Myers Beach at Sunday's conclusion of the annual offshore powerboat races.
Scott Roman waved the black-and-white symbol of victory while Ron Roman flogged his throttles — one forward, one backward — and the crowd cheered along the beach outside Diamondhead.
Motley Crew was among 35 high-performance powerboats that competed in the weekend Offshore Super Series-sanctioned races on a five-mile course, which this year included a new dogleg that thrilled fans.
Thousands of them watched the boats scream by along the straight stretch.
Then drivers and throttlemen cut into a treacherous turn only to face another turn just 150 yards later. Next, the boats looked as if they were heading straight at the beach spectators, a thunderous roar at the sterns. Think souped-up Harley Davidsons on steroids. They sounded loud. Really loud.
"It wasn't easy — that was a war out there," Scott Roman said in a voice so hoarse that he joked that he and his brother had yelled at each other constantly during the hour-long race. "Every time I looked, someone else was in my mirror.
"Look. My hands are still shaking," he said, stepping onto the dock at Salty Sam's Marina post-race.
The Romans were one of seven class winners — four of which were unofficial — in the $50,000-purse event, which raised a yet-to-be-determined amount for hurricane relief efforts. The event was organized by Cape Coral racer Steve Page, who placed third behind Motley Crew in his boat named Hooters Hotel & Casino.
"I liked the course — it was a driver's course. We got wrecked almost 20 times," said Page's throttleman Joey Gratton. The dogleg "makes it so you've got to be a lot smarter than the next guy."
Spectators could sense that.
Races in some years looked more like high-speed parades — boats strung out immediately after the start.
These races were tighter.
"There's a lot of strategy going on out there," observed Martin Sandborn, who provided race commentary for the spectators and talkoffshore.com.
There also was a lot of speed — such as the up to 115 mph average for some classes Sunday.
So, boats flipped.
In Sunday's final race, the lead boat — Twisted Metal/Pier 57 — capsized on turn six in the first lap. The yellow boat floated hull up — its driver and throttleman quickly emerging — while other drivers ran under caution for two laps.
Two boats flipped in Sunday's first race. One flipped Saturday afternoon. No one was injured.
"It was a nut show out there," said racer Steve Delaney of the Fury team. "We had some bumpy water."
The chop may have been rough at high speeds, but the weather for the spectators was chamber-of-commerce worthy.
Some 400 boats anchored up to watch. Fans on the beach looked like ants at picnics from a view atop Diamondhead.
They enjoyed a relatively delay-free event, save for a manatee that showed up on the course just before the noon start Sunday, pushing back races until 12:30 p.m.
"When the manatees are swimming, boats aren't racing," Sandborn told the crowd.
Link to article
05-22-2006, 07:31 AM
#8
Registered
Thread Starter
Re: Ft Myers Race in the News
naplesnews.com
Roman brothers take offshore powerboat race
By Scott Hotard
Monday, May 22, 2006
Ron and Scott Roman, New Jersey boys who grew up racing freaks, were born two years apart, but Scott tried like crazy to close the gap.
On a dirt bike.
Or a skateboard.
Or, for goodness sake, anything else that rolls.
They were like two tigers fighting over a piece of meat in the jungle, scraping and clawing to reach whatever goal — whatever finish line — happened to sit at the end of the road that day.
Turn the page a couple of decades. The Roman brothers still have the same bottomless appetite for victory. Only now they are teammates, forever two years apart but inseparable in every other aspect.
They were at it again Sunday afternoon off Fort Myers Beach, ripping through the Gulf of Mexico to win the Cat Lite division of the Edison Oil Offshore Race for Recovery. They finished the 75-mile event in 57 minutes, 39 seconds, meaning their average speed during the race was 79.61 mph.
The key to victory?
There are subtle things that make the difference in a close race — Motley Crew, the boat raced by the Roman brothers, won the Offshore Super Series run by six seconds — but blood usually triumphs when mixed with water.
There was a time when Ron, 37, and Scott, 35, hated to see the other win. Now they will do whatever they can to make sure it happens. They were bitter rivals, to be sure, but they make even better teammates.
"We'll die for one another out there," Ron said, about an hour after Motley Crew had won again, scoring its second victory in as many races this season.
All the way around, though, the weekend's six races were hotly contested. Between the two heats held Sunday afternoon, 16 boats began with hopes of winning. Six of them, however, didn't even finish. The Gulf was rough on the racers, who had to watch their speed — or risk being flipped right out of contention.
Just ask the Wazzup team. Eddie and Anthony Smith celebrated Father's Day early, but only after three rival boats lost their way. The turning point was when Love Muscle, which led for much of the race, spun out on the final turn of Lap 7, barely missing the pier as it fell out of the race.
Wazzup took advantage. Eddie and Anthony, his son, were ahead of the pack by the start of Lap 9 and pulled away after that. Their finish (1:01.17) was nearly a minute better than Fury, which placed second in the Vee division averaging 73.80 mph.
"You stay in the game and maintain the boat," Eddie said. "We were a little conservative today. We kept the boat down a little tighter. We just set it down in the water and tried to survive."
The event itself, unlike last year, did more than survive. The first Recovery race, on the heels of Tropical Storm Arlene, was tough on the racers and the fans, who waited hours in the rain as races were delayed. The field was small, too, with only 29 boats, about 20 fewer than this weekend's turnout.
No such trouble this time. There was a Fourth of July-like atmosphere on the beach — the event was a spectacle as much as anything — beginning with the MetroPCS Air Show and ending with the final races.
"It reminded me of the good old days," said Cape Coral racer Steve Page, whose Hooters Casino boat finished third in the Cat Lite division. "It was the best competition this county's ever seen."
How it ended, though, was pretty predictable. Each of Sunday's final two winners were here again — collecting checkered flags — after securing victory in Tennessee two weeks ago, opening the 10-race season with the Pickwick Challenge. They have the early edge in the season standings.
"It's huge when you start fast in the points standings," Scott Roman said, "but there's still so much season left to go."
He and his brother, nonetheless, are clear favorites. They won the two biggest events of the 0SS series in 2005 — their first season as Motley Crew teammates — following their national championship with a world championship.
It's been fun.
More fun, even, than being rivals.
"It gets dangerous sometimes," Scott said, "if we're trying to beat each other."
Roman brothers take offshore powerboat race
By Scott Hotard
Monday, May 22, 2006
Ron and Scott Roman, New Jersey boys who grew up racing freaks, were born two years apart, but Scott tried like crazy to close the gap.
On a dirt bike.
Or a skateboard.
Or, for goodness sake, anything else that rolls.
They were like two tigers fighting over a piece of meat in the jungle, scraping and clawing to reach whatever goal — whatever finish line — happened to sit at the end of the road that day.
Turn the page a couple of decades. The Roman brothers still have the same bottomless appetite for victory. Only now they are teammates, forever two years apart but inseparable in every other aspect.
They were at it again Sunday afternoon off Fort Myers Beach, ripping through the Gulf of Mexico to win the Cat Lite division of the Edison Oil Offshore Race for Recovery. They finished the 75-mile event in 57 minutes, 39 seconds, meaning their average speed during the race was 79.61 mph.
The key to victory?
There are subtle things that make the difference in a close race — Motley Crew, the boat raced by the Roman brothers, won the Offshore Super Series run by six seconds — but blood usually triumphs when mixed with water.
There was a time when Ron, 37, and Scott, 35, hated to see the other win. Now they will do whatever they can to make sure it happens. They were bitter rivals, to be sure, but they make even better teammates.
"We'll die for one another out there," Ron said, about an hour after Motley Crew had won again, scoring its second victory in as many races this season.
All the way around, though, the weekend's six races were hotly contested. Between the two heats held Sunday afternoon, 16 boats began with hopes of winning. Six of them, however, didn't even finish. The Gulf was rough on the racers, who had to watch their speed — or risk being flipped right out of contention.
Just ask the Wazzup team. Eddie and Anthony Smith celebrated Father's Day early, but only after three rival boats lost their way. The turning point was when Love Muscle, which led for much of the race, spun out on the final turn of Lap 7, barely missing the pier as it fell out of the race.
Wazzup took advantage. Eddie and Anthony, his son, were ahead of the pack by the start of Lap 9 and pulled away after that. Their finish (1:01.17) was nearly a minute better than Fury, which placed second in the Vee division averaging 73.80 mph.
"You stay in the game and maintain the boat," Eddie said. "We were a little conservative today. We kept the boat down a little tighter. We just set it down in the water and tried to survive."
The event itself, unlike last year, did more than survive. The first Recovery race, on the heels of Tropical Storm Arlene, was tough on the racers and the fans, who waited hours in the rain as races were delayed. The field was small, too, with only 29 boats, about 20 fewer than this weekend's turnout.
No such trouble this time. There was a Fourth of July-like atmosphere on the beach — the event was a spectacle as much as anything — beginning with the MetroPCS Air Show and ending with the final races.
"It reminded me of the good old days," said Cape Coral racer Steve Page, whose Hooters Casino boat finished third in the Cat Lite division. "It was the best competition this county's ever seen."
How it ended, though, was pretty predictable. Each of Sunday's final two winners were here again — collecting checkered flags — after securing victory in Tennessee two weeks ago, opening the 10-race season with the Pickwick Challenge. They have the early edge in the season standings.
"It's huge when you start fast in the points standings," Scott Roman said, "but there's still so much season left to go."
He and his brother, nonetheless, are clear favorites. They won the two biggest events of the 0SS series in 2005 — their first season as Motley Crew teammates — following their national championship with a world championship.
It's been fun.
More fun, even, than being rivals.
"It gets dangerous sometimes," Scott said, "if we're trying to beat each other."
