“When I raise my eye to the sky, I see earthly things as well.”—Tycho Brahe, 1588.
Last weekend was as good as it gets for the Super Stock-class GL Construction team of owner/driver Luis Martins and throttleman David Selley. The Bermuda-based cockpit duo bested 16 teams at Roar Offshore Fort Myers Beach in Southwest Florida to take the checkered flag in Sunday’s main event.
And they pulled into the lead on the final lap to do it.
The weekend was even better for Fort Myers Beach, which hasn’t hosted an offshore race since Hurricane Ian erased the community five years ago this month—and better still for event and Super Stock-class team owners Cole Leibel of Canada and local Shaun Torrente, who purchased the event from founders Tim and Cyndee Hill of Cape Coral, Fla., in early June.
Torrente, Leibel the team of volunteers that flocked to the Margaritaville Resort host-venue pulled it off in just a few months and earned strong reviews for weekend. They hadn’t even planned to do produce the event this season. But the implosion of the International Hot Rod Association’s four-race foray into the sport presented an opportunity of sorts.
And Torrente and Leibel seized it and ran with it.
Though it’s far too early to gauge the single-class event’s long-term effects on the sport—much less dub it a “game-changer”—it was a solid success. Whatever form the affair takes, offshore powerboat-racing is back in Fort Myers Beach.
But across the country in Arizona, last weekend was a tragic as it gets for members of the Lake Havasu boating-community. On Saturday, 65-year-old former Desert Storm Poker Run Top-Speed Shootout champion Chip Romer and passenger Jennifer Luzzi died in what initially appears to be a high-speed, solo-boat crash on the waterway.
Both were longtime residents of the Lake Havasu City, Ariz. The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office investigation of the incident is ongoing.
Speedonthewater.com offshore racing editor, who filed his comprehensive Roar Offshore Fort Myers Beach coverage, is working on a story on Romer. It will go live tomorrow.
Triumph on one coast, tragedy on another.