Thriving OPA Class Heading Into 2019 Season With New Name And Big Numbers

Fans of the Offshore Powerboat Association‘s Super Vee Light class will have to learn a new name for the organization’s canopied spec single-engine V-bottom category. With approval from OPA head Ed “Smitty” Smith, members of the 11-team class have dropped the Super V Light moniker in favour of the Pro Stock V handle.

Nobody’s Business and Woah Mama! are two of 11 OPA teams that will compete in the recently renamed Pro Stock V class this season (click image to enlarge). Photos courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

“The teams in the class decided on the new name,” Smith said. “I think it’s great, and they think it’s a better representation of who they are as a group.”

In just four years, the class reportedly has grown from one boat to its present size. The current roster of Pro Stock V teams with Mercury Racing 525EFI engine-powered raceboats from 30 to 32 feet includes defending 2018 world champion Done Deal, Fast Boys, LSB/Hurricane of Awesomeness (also running a new Super Vee Xtreme-class boat this season), Nobody’s Business, Phase 05, Play It Again, R&S, Show Time, Typhoon, Wazzup (a team of the same name also runs in the Super Vee Xtreme class) and Woah Mama!

According to Smith, most of the teams—if not all of them—plan to compete in the six-race American Power Boat Association Offshore Championship series, which is being co-produced by OPA and the Powerboat P1 organization and kicks off May 17-19 with the Thunder On Cocoa Beach/Space Coast Grand Prix in Cocoa Beach, Fla.

Check out the slideshow above for a look at a few other teams running in the Pro Stock V ranks this season.

Spearheaded by the Done Deal team representative and enthusiastic class booster Allyson Papp, the 16-year-old daughter of team owner and throttleman Steve Papp, the class will have its owns merchandise tent featuring T-shirts and other gear from Pro Stock V outfits at each event. “We hope to reach more fans and spread our love for the sport with them,” she said.

No less than a half-dozen teams that have competed in the Super Boat International Superboat Vee class—the more-powerful single-engine (carbureted as opposed to fuel-injected) version of OPA’s Pro Stock V class—also reportedly will run most or all of the APBA Offshore Championship series.

Canopied single-engine V-bottoms that have run in Super Boat International’s spec Superboat Vee class will compete alongside their OPA counterparts this year in the six-race APBA Offshore Championship series.

“We are going to run them as two separate classes, probably in the same race but with two separate starts, and see how it shakes out,” Smith said. “It would be nice to eventually have everyone on the same power and in the same class, but for now we will go with what we have and see what happens.”

Editor’s note: Special thanks to Allyson Papp for contributing to this article.

Thriving OPA Class Heading Into 2019 Season With New Name And Big Numbers

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