KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) Marc Granet and Scott Begovich raced Miss Geico to a second consecutive Superboat Unlimited world title Sunday at the Key West World Championship.
During the final race of the three-event series, Granet, from Boca Raton, and Begovich, from Jupiter, piloted the 44-foot catamaran at a 10-lap average speed of 81.2 mph over a 4.15-mile course that was peppered with rough seas and winds gusting in excess of 20 mph.
''It was brutal out there,'' Granet said. ''There were holes, there were steep swells, there was wind (and) there was tide. We had to win, so we decided that we were just going to run it flat out.''
After winning the first two races Wednesday and Friday, Miami throttleman John Tomlinson only had to finish second to win the Superboat Unlimited title in CMS. But one of two propeller shafts broke, forcing him and driver Jeff Harris of Greenville, North Carolina, to quit.
Chuck Broaddus of St. Clair Shores, Michigan, and Grant Bruggemann of Bradenton won the Superboat class in Broadco. National Superboat Class champion Stihl, piloted by Robert Noble of Orlando and Mark Kowalski of Hinckley, Ohio, took a big lead at the beginning of the race, but broke down during the fourth lap.
''Our strategy was to win at all costs,'' Broaddus said. ''We were going out there for first place and we brought it home.
Hooters-Instigator, piloted by John Stanch of Westmont, New Jersey, and Italy's Giancarlo Cangiano, won the Superboat Extreme class, and Snowy Mountain Brewery, with Michael Janssen of Denver and Brian Forehand of Wilmington, North Carolina, topped the Superboat Vee class.
