Per longstanding tradition, the American Power Boat Association concluded its annual meeting last weekend—this year in New Orleans—with its Saturday night Hall of Champions induction ceremony and dinner celebration. Well-known offshore racing inductees of the past five years have included Myrick Coil and Tyler Miller of the M CON team, XINSURANCE-backed competitors Nick and Owen Buis and their XINSURANCE stable-mates Cameron and J.J. Turk and Brit Lilly and Kevin Smith of the LSB/Tug It Racing teams.
Super Stock racers Gary Ballough of the Raymarine team and Mike McColgan and Robert Bryant of the Bracket 500-class Tunnel Vision outfit received the prestigious honor. Both teams earned APBA High Points World and National Championships. Both paid years of dues in advance of that success. Both are model representatives in sport that—now and then—could use them.
For McColgan, last weekend’s Hall of Champions induction was his third. He was honored with the distinction in 2019 and 2021.
“This is the first year doing it with my own equipment, so this one means a little more to me in that regard,” he explained. “When you’re running someone else’s stuff you’re a part of it but not necessarily the reason. It also was nice being able to do it with Rob because we have such a storied past. We raced against each other in Class 5 when I first started racing, then battled each other in Class 6 for many years and basically were the top two boats for four seasons. During that time we raced against each other in Class 6, we also raced with each other in Super V Light in the Raven. So now to be back racing together in my boat in Class 5 is kind of full circle.
“Not that I am a big spotlight guy, but when I look at the list of offshore racers who have multiple Hall of Champions titles it is Johnny Tomlinson and Al Copeland with four and Myrick Coil and Betty Cook with three, like me,” he continued. “That’s a pretty solid crew to be associated with.”
Added Leibel of the Raymarine team, “It was awesome to be recognized and nice to be recognized after all the hard work Gary and I put in.”