Offshoreonly.com - Reggieville Newspaper Article

Monday, August 7, 2006

Faulty oil canister crushes Roses’ run

By Lawrence Keech, Staff Writer

It wasn’t quite what Team Fountain wanted, far from it actually, but Fountain Powerboats President David Knight still had excitement in his voice, despite a breaking on the first lap and finishing second in the touted Super-Vee Unlimited class, during Sunday’s fifth annual Fountain Powerboats Grand Prix.

Knight’s boat featured new adiabatic engines, which nearly doubled all output levels, and, at the start of the race, proved his claims of how fast it would go. The Rio Roses shot out to more than a half-mile lead over all the other boats, but a small problem, external of the engine, caused early retirement.

“I thought the weekend was successful because of what we learned,” Knight said. “The first lap we were going away from everybody and had a half-mile lead, and I wasn’t even running it hard. I was cruising for the first few laps and wasn’t planning to throw the hammer down until about lap 10 to show what this boat was truly capable of.”

As it turned out, however, Knight said an oil canister came off the engine on the back stretch of the first lap and drained all the lubrication causing them to pull up and ended their chances.

“We are using new technology with these engines and it’s going to take some time to fine tune it,” Knight said. “With any thing there is a weak link and it’s matter of taking the time to find it. We’ve found it, and we know what to fix for next time.

And, despite limping back to the start/finish line to complete the first lap, the boat averaged 101 mile per hour — five mph faster than any other on the day.

“On that first lap, we were running between 160 and 170 and I was taking it easy,” Knight said. “We can take the world record at any moment we wish now. We are extremely happy, and the first lap proved what we can do now.”

Not to be overshadowed by Knight’s speed, was Cintron, which was the only Super-Vee Unlimited boat to finish the race, with an average speed of 79.84 miles per hour. BTM Marine ran unchallenged in Superboat, as did Platinum, Relentless, and Crazy Chicken in their races.

Lucas Oil claimed the Super Vee title with Learning to Race winning Super Cat. Catattack narrowed out Miccosukee Indian Gaming in the Superboat Stock race.

Team Extreme won Factory 1; Plantation won Production 3 and D&M won Production 4.