Miss GEICO Team Planning 12-Race Season

Armed with new sponsor Xseed, Inc.—a leading producer of health care and nutrition products—the Miss GEICO offshore racing team plans to compete in a dozen offshore races this season. While the majority of events will fall under the Super Boat International sanction, the team has the Lake Race on Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks and the Offshore Powerboat Association race during the Atlantic City Festival of Speed in New Jersey on its schedule this summer. The team also will run its 44-foot, twin Mercury Racing 1650-engine powered Victory catamaran in three air shows—”racing” five aircraft overhead at each event—in 2014.

Shown here dressed in last year’s colors and on its way to winning a world title in Key West in 2013, the Miss GEICO cat is scheduled to run 12 races this season. Photo courtesy/copyright Andy Newman.

Miss GEICO driver Marc Granet said he expects solid competition in SBI’s Superboat Unlimited catamaran class this year. The team is hoping for a repeat performance of last year’s world-championship-winnng season.

“Team Gasse is going to run several races, and we’re looking forward to mixing it up with them again,” said Granet. “We haven’t raced against Tor (Staubo, Gasse’s owner and driver) and Johnny (Tomlinson, the team’s throttleman) since the Sarasota race last year.

“We’re also expecting good competition from the Qatar (Mercury Racing) 1650 boats,” he continued. “The Envy Mystic will be out there, too, once they finish their testing. I think the CMS team will be at the Lake Race and SBI Key West Worlds, at least, and they’re always very strong.”

Pre-season prep continues for the Miss GEICO cat, which was repainted for 2014 by Jay Pilini of Pilini Marine in Clearwater, Fla.

Asked if Miss GEICO would participate in the annual Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in August, Granet said that while the event is “on the radar” for the team it likely won’t happen this year. “At this point, we’re not scheduled to do the Shootout,” he said.

In addition to the ongoing job of prepping their catamaran for the season, the Miss GEICO crew is in the process of rewrapping and refitting it tractor-trailers.