Race Article: "Fog disappoints speedboat racers."
BY MATT PAIS, STAFF WRITER
POINT PLEASANT BEACH — The beers were chilled. The grills were sizzling. The rain had even stopped.
Everything was seemingly in order at Jenkinson's Pavilion yesterday for the start of the 37th annual AMF-Jersey Boyz Offshore Grand Prix, except for a single problem: You couldn't see anything.
A thick layer of dense fog blanketed the shoreline for much of the day yesterday, forcing organizers first to postpone and then to cancel the historic speedboat race.
Hundreds of spectators had lined up along the shore at the race's scheduled start time of noon and were disappointed when they received word the start of the race would be delayed for two hours. While drivers did eventually bring their boats through the inlet and start the race shortly after 2 p.m., they completed only half of a lap before visibility once again decreased, forcing the race's cancellation.
Yesterday marked the race's return to its roots, after more than a decade of being held in Atlantic City and a one-year stint in Ortley Beach. The national competition began as the Benihana Offshore Grand Prix and is sometimes referred to as the "Indy 500" of offshore racing.
The anticlimactic finish to the event, which turned into a lone parade lap for the 30 drivers and their boats, frustrated those who had spent countless hours preparing for it.
Walter Leite of Cherry Hill had spent weeks working alongside other AMF mechanics prepping the teams' boats. In addition to getting the boats back from last week's race in Puerto Rico, the crew dealt with stolen equipment and a layover in Miami before arriving here to tweak the 1,500-horsepower engines of each boat.
"It was hard on everybody," Leite said, adding that for those who work on the boats, the race is more about nerves than excitement.
"There's a whole lot to do. We set the (propellers) and all the engines," he said.
Leite walked despondently off the beach after the race's cancellation and headed back to Mantoloking Cove Marina to await instructions on how the team would proceed.
"Hopefully we'll be able to eventually get this one in," he said.
News of the cancellation also disappointed fans, many of whom had planned weekend vacations around the race.
Larry Fisher and his wife, Kathy, decided to take in the race in person and drove from Boonton early in the morning. They headed back to their car disappointed once the boats came to a halt.
"We're just going to go home," Larry Fisher said.
Dave and Denise McDowall had driven from La Plata, Md., with hopes of catching their first race of the summer. They said they plan to watch other races this summer but had been looking forward to yesterday's competition.
"New Jersey has really kind of become a hot spot for racing on the East Coast," Dave McDowall said.
He wasn't alone in his estimation of New Jersey's importance on the racing circuit.
Jillian Vann, an AMF employee, stood in a merchandise trailer bemoaning the race's cancellation. She and her husband, James, got a behemoth of a trailer filled with AMF gear two days earlier and had been expecting higher traffic and sales.
She said that although support for boat racing is growing across the country, "We're like NASCAR was 10 years ago." The Jersey Shore remains a central focus of the sport.
"It's grown and we are national, but it started out and is still a lot about families of the racers and their friends," she said.
Jillian Vann credits much of AMF"s increasing success to its founder, John Haggin.
Haggin sponsors more than a half-dozen boats on the high-performance race circuit, including world record holder Ken Warby, who traveled 317 mph in 1978. Haggin's magnetic personality will help launch the sport to new heights in coming years, Jillian Vann said.
"Here I am, following him around the country," she said with a laugh. "We're going to be big because people meet him and follow him places. That's just how he rolls."
POINT PLEASANT BEACH — The beers were chilled. The grills were sizzling. The rain had even stopped.
Everything was seemingly in order at Jenkinson's Pavilion yesterday for the start of the 37th annual AMF-Jersey Boyz Offshore Grand Prix, except for a single problem: You couldn't see anything.
A thick layer of dense fog blanketed the shoreline for much of the day yesterday, forcing organizers first to postpone and then to cancel the historic speedboat race.
Hundreds of spectators had lined up along the shore at the race's scheduled start time of noon and were disappointed when they received word the start of the race would be delayed for two hours. While drivers did eventually bring their boats through the inlet and start the race shortly after 2 p.m., they completed only half of a lap before visibility once again decreased, forcing the race's cancellation.
Yesterday marked the race's return to its roots, after more than a decade of being held in Atlantic City and a one-year stint in Ortley Beach. The national competition began as the Benihana Offshore Grand Prix and is sometimes referred to as the "Indy 500" of offshore racing.
The anticlimactic finish to the event, which turned into a lone parade lap for the 30 drivers and their boats, frustrated those who had spent countless hours preparing for it.
Walter Leite of Cherry Hill had spent weeks working alongside other AMF mechanics prepping the teams' boats. In addition to getting the boats back from last week's race in Puerto Rico, the crew dealt with stolen equipment and a layover in Miami before arriving here to tweak the 1,500-horsepower engines of each boat.
"It was hard on everybody," Leite said, adding that for those who work on the boats, the race is more about nerves than excitement.
"There's a whole lot to do. We set the (propellers) and all the engines," he said.
Leite walked despondently off the beach after the race's cancellation and headed back to Mantoloking Cove Marina to await instructions on how the team would proceed.
"Hopefully we'll be able to eventually get this one in," he said.
News of the cancellation also disappointed fans, many of whom had planned weekend vacations around the race.
Larry Fisher and his wife, Kathy, decided to take in the race in person and drove from Boonton early in the morning. They headed back to their car disappointed once the boats came to a halt.
"We're just going to go home," Larry Fisher said.
Dave and Denise McDowall had driven from La Plata, Md., with hopes of catching their first race of the summer. They said they plan to watch other races this summer but had been looking forward to yesterday's competition.
"New Jersey has really kind of become a hot spot for racing on the East Coast," Dave McDowall said.
He wasn't alone in his estimation of New Jersey's importance on the racing circuit.
Jillian Vann, an AMF employee, stood in a merchandise trailer bemoaning the race's cancellation. She and her husband, James, got a behemoth of a trailer filled with AMF gear two days earlier and had been expecting higher traffic and sales.
She said that although support for boat racing is growing across the country, "We're like NASCAR was 10 years ago." The Jersey Shore remains a central focus of the sport.
"It's grown and we are national, but it started out and is still a lot about families of the racers and their friends," she said.
Jillian Vann credits much of AMF"s increasing success to its founder, John Haggin.
Haggin sponsors more than a half-dozen boats on the high-performance race circuit, including world record holder Ken Warby, who traveled 317 mph in 1978. Haggin's magnetic personality will help launch the sport to new heights in coming years, Jillian Vann said.
"Here I am, following him around the country," she said with a laugh. "We're going to be big because people meet him and follow him places. That's just how he rolls."
