For several years, Billy Moore of North Carolina has throttled Super Stock and Pro Class 1 raceboats in the same season. Moore and Defalco team owner/drive Mike Falco earned back-to-back world championships in the Pro Class 1 category, and he and Graydel team owner/driver Chris Grant always were a threat to take top honors in the Super Cat class.
But as Moore and the likes of Grant Bruggemann, Jay Muller and John Tomlinson know well, change is the only constant in the life of a professional throttleman. And for the record, the list of the folks who can put that job on a tax return is short.
With Falco out of the sport for now and Graydel gone in another direction with a throttleman Jay Muller, Moore is tackling a new role this year in the Super Stock ranks this season. He’ll be handling the throttles of Diggin Deep 32-foot Doug Wright catamaran alongside owner/driver Andy Miller of Upstate New York.
“The Diggin Deep team raced out of our shop last year,” Moore explained. “Andy I talked about doing something together last season and he asked me to race with him this year. I figured, ‘Hey, why not?’”
Moore currently is awaiting the delivery of new Mercury Racing ROS outboard engines with 15-inch mid-sections to repower Miller’s 32-footer. Though he has extensive experience as a throttleman and is the son of the Bobby Moore, who is widely credited with the throttleman role, almost none of it is in a Super Stock-class catamaran. He “ran a few races” with Super Stock-class team-owner Tanner Lewis, he explained, but that’s about it.
“The competition in Super Stock is vast and very, very stiff,” Moore said, then laughed hard. “I am 100-percent certain I will get humbled.”