Fountain Powerboats Teams Lead the way as the 2003 Competition Season Begins

Washington, NC April 28, 2003: With the first events of the 2003 season in the books, Fountain Powerboats teams have established themselves once again as the teams to beat. April marked the start of the APBA Offshore, Superboat International, and Southern Kingfish Association professional competition seasons with events in Daytona Beach, Miami, and Ft. Pierce, Florida respectively.

Beginning with the Daytona APBA Offshore event, Fountain teams took to the uncharacteristically smooth waters off of Daytona Beach for the season opener of the APBA Offshore-GMC Pro Grade Championship series. In the top APBA Vee-Bottom class, Super-V, Fountains captured 1st, 3rd, and 5th places in a fleet of 8 boats. Utz Quality Foods, piloted by Matt Rice and Mitch Miller battled to the lead early, and despite a caution flag held on to take the first win of the year for the Fountain team. The 2002 National Champions, Stainless-Pier 57, had a fierce battle with a new team entry, and indicated that it was one of the best races they had ever been a part of. Stainless-Pier 57 settled into 3rd place. The new 40' Fountain, Ettore, entry made its debut securing a solid 5th place finish in close racing with the largest Super-V fleet to take the water in years. Jim Richardson of the Ettore team said that they "loved the feel of the new boat. It turned like it was on rails, and accelerated better that our old boat with much more power. We just ran out of propeller, and were on the limiters early in the race, so we did not have the straight-away speed that we needed."

In Factory 2, Harwich Concrete Block rolled out a new combination for the boat, and at the last minute made a throttleman change placing Mike Stancombe in the boat with Lute Dicky. The 2 had no seat time together prior to the start of the race, and were leading the majority of the event. A caution flag allowed the fleet to bunch back up, and team Audacity was able to squeak by as the green flag flew for the restart. Consequently, Harwich Concrete Block settled for a 2nd place finish in Daytona.

In Outlaw Performance, John Reed of Daytona Performance Marine took to his home waters with his wife Tammy at the helm to capture a first place finish in the competitive outlaw series.

In SKA Fishing action, Fountain turned it's new 7-boat team loose on the waters of Ft. Piece, FL for the inaugural Yellowfin Kingfish Classic. Darren Ratley, Derrick Blanton, and Chris Blanton of team Rat Pack not only landed the largest fish of the event, but the largest of their fishing career at a whopping 62.68 pounds. They caught the winning King Mackerel in from their 34' Fountain in 70 feet of water near Juniper Inlet. They rounded out the event with a 20.86-pound fish to capture the two-day aggregate with a total weigh of 83.54 pounds earning a $25,000 payday, plus prizes in excess of $60,000 in value.

Superboat International Productions hosted the 13th annual Miami Offshore Grand Prix April 25-27, and Fountain again dominated all of the premier Vee-Bottom classes, capturing 1st place in Super-V Unlimited, Manufacturers 2, and Manufacturers 1. The 40' Fountain Firewater, piloted by Rich Wyatt, captured first place in the high-powered Vee-Bottom class running at speeds in excess of 110 miles per hour off of the South Beach race course in a deck to deck battle with the 40' Fountain "Muscle", which suffered an electrical system failure on the last lap and dropped to 3rd place. Veteran Offshore throttleman Jeff Harris teamed up with Reggie Fountain III to take 1st place in the Manufacturers 2 class in their 35' Fountain Poker Run edition with 525 Mercury engines and bravo stern-drives. Jeff and Reggie never looked back as they led from the green flag. In Manufacturers 1, Frank Sarro in his 29' Fountain "Extreme Marine", captured 1st place running a flawless race.