Key West Worlds Finale Race 3: Back-To-Back Titles For GEICO
“For us to win (the Unlimited-class championship), something has to really go wrong for Johnny and Jeff,” said Marc Granet, the driver of the Miss GEICO catamaran, about an hour before today’s Unlimited class race in the Super Boat International Offshore World Championships in Key West, Fla. And something did happen when early in the race the CMS team’s 48-foot Marine Technology Inc., (MTI) catamaran, which came into today’s double-points race with wins on Wednesday and Friday, developed a mechanical issue on its port side with Tomlinson throttling alongside driver Jeff Harris.
Miss GEICO’s Scott Begovich and Marc Granet earned its second-straight world championship in the Superboat Unlimited class.
“We either lost a transmission or a prop shaft, I’m not sure yet,” said Tomlinson via mobile phone as he idled back into the wet pits. “We’ll find out when we get there.”
With Miss GEICO holding the lead of the race it established from the start, that left driver/owner Bob Bull and throttleman Randy Scism to give chase in Bull’s other MTI, the 52-foot CMS raceboat. For the CMS team to take first place overall, Bull and Scism needed to finish ahead of the 44-foot Miss GEICO cat. But GEICO held strong and claimed first in the race—and the Unlimited-class world title.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
“Hard, hard, fought,” said Scott Begovich, the throttleman for Miss GEICO. “It was the roughest race I’ve ever been in Key West, and I’ve been racing here since 2000.”
Related stories
Key West Worlds Finale Race 2: SOS Helped Itself
Key West Worlds Finale Race 1: Snowy Mountain Brewery Wins Third-Straight Title
2014 Key West Worlds and Poker Run Coverage
and then