Fountain V-Bottoms Sweep Key West Worlds

November 24, 2003, Washington, NC: The confusion of multiple sanctioning bodies, and multiple "World Championship" venues, was no problem to the Fountain Super-V racing teams. Fountain made a clean sweep of all three of the 2003 World Championship venues, taking first place overall in Deerfield Beach, Orange Beach, and this past weekend in Key West, making Fountain the undisputed World Champions in Super-V!

This past week, teams from all over the nation traveled to Key West for the 2003 Key West Offshore Worlds, making a huge statement to the sanctioning bodies regarding how and where they will race. Super Cat, Super Cat Light, and Super-V's pulled away from the traditional organization to run in Key West, which had been established as the premier venue for world championship offshore events.

The traditionally rough waters of Key West were in full force on the Wednesday race, with consistent 6-8 foot seas and 15-20 mile per hour winds. Just as the race was preparing to start, a front blew through knocking to tops off the swells, and softening the bumps to 4-6 foot confused sea conditions. After a back and forth battle with team Spiderman, Ettore, with Dennis Sigalos and Jim Richardson in their 40' Fountain, took the lead on the 3rd lap and never looked back. The first place finish gave them the advantage going into the second race of the two-race format. The sea conditions changed dramatically for the Sunday race, with the typical calmer conditions in the harbor, and big water on the outside back stretch. The Super-V teams were able to complete the 5-mile laps significantly faster on Sunday, averaging nearly 90 miles per hour over the 65-mile race. Ettore dueled with Spiderman once again, and settled into a grove after loosing their steering half way through the race. The second place finish for the day gave them the points they needed to capture the overall title. "We were running great until the steering went away" said driver Jim Richardson. "We had plenty left, but we knew that we need to maintain second, and finish the race to take the title", he continued. In true sportsmanship fashion, team Ettore donated all of their prize money to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Key West.

Fountain also again demonstrated that the technology of even their 1999 38' Fever is still up to the challenge, by capturing the World Championship in Factory 2 for the second consecutive year in Key West. Piloted by Greg Hukari and Jimmy Speros, team Fountain-Mercury secured the title by taking a second on Wednesday, and a first place on the Sunday final event. "This Mercury powered Fountain ran flawlessly", said Speros. "The old girl still has what it takes to beat the newest technology that the competition has to offer, and that's with carbureted HP500's." The victory in Key West makes Fountain-Mercury the most successful Factory 2 boat in the country, with 3 world titles to its credit.