SV Racing Back In Shape—But Out For Sarasota

Almost no one who watched the 39-foot Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats SV Racing catamaran double-roll and eventually wash up upside-down on the sands of Cocoa Beach, Fla., during last month’s American Power Boat Association Offshore National Championship season-opener expected the boat to be back in action in time for this weekend’s Sarasota Powerboat Grand Prix in Southwest Florida. The most notable exceptions, of course, were team owners Vinnie Diorio of Wisconsin and Canadian Simon Prevost. So they tasked the crew at the Bristol, R.I., custom powerboat company to repair the light damage to the catamaran—and the team at Mercury Racing in Fond du Lac, Wis., to go through its 860-hp engines—and shoot for that lofty goal.

Though the SV Racing team’s 39-foot Outerlimits catamaran won’t compete in this weekend’s Sarasota race, it will be ready to go for the next two races in the APBA series.

And to the delight of the entire SV Racing team, the repaired boat and refreshed engines are back at the its Sweetwater Performance Center and Marina home-base Oshkosh, Wis. But it will not make it to this weekend’s Sarasota contest, the third race of the APBA series, where its out-of-Supercat-class spec, Mercury Racing 860 engines would have landed it once again in the Class 1 ranks.

“We had the boat and motors back as of Saturday, but with everyone’s hectic work schedules we decided to just take our time and get the boat ready for the St. Clair (Mich.) and Michigan City (Ind.) races,” said Diorio. “Everyone decided to take it slow and enjoy what we are here to do—and not make it a job. Gary Swanson, our crew chief and the general manager of Sweetwater, and the guys have working on it every day we got it back little by little after their full-time jobs.”

The Outerlimits and Mercury Racing crews came through for the SV Racing team.

Though SV Racing won’t be in Sarasota this weekend, Diorio Will. He will be driving the 32-foot, Super Stock-class Doug Wright LPC raceboat with throttleman/owner Loren Peters of Missouri.

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