Take nothing away from the current Cat 300 team competitors such as Connor Langheim and Owen Buis and the crew at Lanier Custom Boats, who have shown up at offshore races this season and moved forward minus competition. You guys have shown genuine determination and grit.
Same goes for would-be Cat 300 teams that are—if you buy into the buzz—under construction and “almost ready.” Your ambition is admirable. Keep going.
But it’s time, even a little past time, for the Cat 300 class to show up. At present, exactly one team—the Jackhammer outfit owned by Langheim—is registered for next week’s upcoming Race World Offshore Key West World Championships.
Single-boat fleets have been the norm since the category, then new to the domestic offshore racing scene, was announced a few years ago. Heralded by perhaps overly exuberant proponents as an “entry-level” single-engine canopied spec-class that would lead racers into the Super Stock and Factory Stock classes, Cat 300 has yet to emerge as anything more than a curiosity.
And of the trio of teams that have carried the Cat 300 water so far? Two are selling their boats.
Hope springs eternal, at least for fans of the sport who continue to play Charlie Brown to Lucy Van Pelt (yes, I had to look it up) holding that ever-elusive football and daring poor Charlie to kick it. But whatever “promise” or “potential” the Cat 300 class actually has is overdue to arrive.
Clearly, unless by some act of the offshore racing gods a slew Cat 300 teams show up in Key West, that won’t happen this season. But it needs to happen next season or whatever fan interest that still exists will be gone. Cool as it would be to watch five—make that three—of these wicked little water-bugs consistently show up, the clock is ticking.
And time is almost up.