The Rising Stock of SuperStock

In no small way, Martin Sanborn and the rest of the folks behind P1 SuperStock USA couldn’t have picked a worse time to launch a powerboat racing series when they decided to get going in 2010. The United States economy was on the ropes and the boating industry was hanging from them. And the high-performance segment of the industry? It was dangling by a thread.

Even Sanborn’s biggest fans—and after a lifetime in the go-fast industry with Fountain Powerboats, as an offshore racer and as a broadcaster/commentator he has made quite a few of them—wondered if he’d lost his mind. Not only was the industry in dire straits, offshore racing was continuing its steady decline. The idea of yet another powerboat racing series seemed completely far-fetched, if not outright nuts.

But then something funny happened on the way to the racecourse. Despite the demise of Powerboat P1 Evolution- and Stock-class racing in Europe, what remained—the SuperStock class—began to gain momentum. And the same thing began to happen with the new series in the United States.

Read More: The Rising Stock of SuperStock

(Photo courtesy/copyright Jeff Gerardi/FreezeFrame Video.)