Countdown to Key West: Two Cruel Taking ‘Systematic’ Approach

Just a few hours out of Key West, Fla., right now with their 30-foot Phantom V-bottom in tow, the Two Cruel Production 4-class team of owner/driver Daniel Racz and throttleman and Glen Ray are hoping to avenge their five-point loss to the Crazy Chicken team in last year’s Super Boat International Offshore World Championships. Racz and Ray, who have raced together since 1999, come into the Key West season as the 2014 National Champions, as well as Florida State Champions, in the speed-bracketed (80 mph top speed/onboard GPS monitored) single-engine V-bottom class.

Run down the competition systematically—that’s the approach the Two Cruel team is taking into the SBI Key West Worlds next week. Photo courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

The Two Cruel team’s open-cockpit 30-footer is powered by a Mercury Racing HP 500 engine under the care of  Saris Racing Engines in Lake George, N.Y. The engine produces approximately 600 hp.

“We’re hoping that the way our stuff is running right now we are going to come home champions,” said Racz. “We are going to approach this like we approach every race. We got out to have fun, but we also go out knowing that we’re not going to win on the first lap. For example, this year in Orange Beach (Ala.) Chicken got out ahead of us. We systematically caught them. In the Pensacola (Fla.) race, Chicken got away from us and we accepted that we were going to take second place. About 100 feet before the finish line we come up on Chicken, and they are hooked up to a tow rope.”

“So we know that we are not going to win this thing on the first lap,” he continued. “We are going to try to use some ‘theory’ and win it smartly. We do run on the edge, but—knock wood—we have never broken out (of the speed bracket).”

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