The “Smokin’ the Sound” Offshore Super Series (OSS) race set new records this past weekend (Sunday, April 6). A record crowd — estimated between 48,000 and 50,000 spectators — crushed last year’s attendance by at least 15,000.
A speed record of 194 mph also was set at the OSS season opener, and it was actually accomplished by two boats. The speeds easily eclipsed the previous record of 174 mph.
The Miss GEICO team of Marc Granet and Scott Begovich, who won
the OSS Turbine Extreme class in the team’s 44-foot MTI, hit the record
speed on both straightaways in all five laps. That’s 10 times during
the race that the team hit the benchmark speed, which is the equivalent
of covering 100 yards in 1 second.
“It was awesome,” said Begovich, throttleman for Miss GEICO. “This was a surprise. Our best speed before this was 185 mph. We ran 174 mph last year in Biloxi.”
John Tomlinson and Mike Seebold in the Bud Light Mystic catamaran took the title in the OSS Cat Extreme class hitting the record speed twice.
“That’s the fastest I’ve ever been,” throttleman Tomlinson said. “It
did get narrow at times on the turns, but the straightaways were fast.
Our (pre-race) calculations didn’t have us that fast.”
