Fountain Sees ‘No Reason’ For Kilo Record Attempt

Fountain loyalists eager to see a Fountain V-bottom built under company founder Reggie Fountain’s tenure set a new kilometer top-speed record won’t get that chance anytime soon—if it at all. That’s the word from Fountain, who lives just down the Pamlico River from the Washington, N.C., he founded and worked for until 2009.

Among the many Fountain raceboats mentioned for a possible bid to set a new kilo record is last year’s world-championship-winning Twisted Metal. But according to both Fountain and his son, no record attempts will happen in the near future. Photo coutesy/copyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image.

Talk of a Fountain attempt at raising the 180.464 mph kilo mark set by Brian Forehand and Joe Sgro in a 43-foot Outerlimits with twin 1,650-hp engines from Mercury Racing in late April (read the story) started before the boat’s wakes had reached the rivers. The calls for a “Fountain kilo attempt” reached pitch on the offshoreonly.com messages boards, the go-fast boating world’s most popular online portal. But while the enthusiasm for such an endeavor remained high among Fountain’s longtime offshore racers, loyal customers and fans of the brand, an actual plan for an attempt is far from being realized.

“If we were still building and selling boats, we’d have been out there right beside them,” said Fountain. “But being as we don’t own that company (Fountain Powerboats) anymore, there’s no reason to go out and set a record in one of their boats. We think we could do it—we already know we could. But why should we go set a record to encourage people to buy boats that we no longer build? Why should we spend $200,000 or $300,000 on engines and getting a boat together? You have to have a reason to do something like that, and I am not interested right now.

“Those guys, Mike Fiore, Joe Sgro, Brian Forehand and all, they did a good job,” he added. “I take my hat off to them. If I was in the market for a V-bottom now, I’d buy an Outerlimits.”

Fountain said that he would support a private owner of one of the Fountain sportboats built while he was running the company if that owner wanted to make an attempt at the record—and for the record Fountain’s American Power Boat Association-sanctioned Offshore Kilo Record of 171.88 mph still stands. That support would come in the form of set up assistance from Reggie Fountain, III, of Real Fast Marine, and Ben Robertson, Jr., who shared the cockpit of the 42-footer with Fountain’s father when he set the record in 2004 that still holds.

“If somebody wants to put it together we’d be delighted to help,” he said. “We’d help with setup, but they’d have to get the motors and the propellers. We just don’t have money to burn right now.”

Reggie Fountain confirmed his father’s position. “There’s some stuff in the works, but right now with all the stuff still going on with Fountain Powerboats and all the litigation we have to wait. To take a Fountain hull, modify it and set a record would be helping them. Even if we modified the hull, it would still be a Fountain powerboat.

“We want to do it and we have some plans to do, but nothing could happen until after the (Super Boat International) Key West Worlds in November,” he added.