A veteran offshore racer with multiple world titles, AMH Construction/Instigator team owner Peter Meyer looked lost as he wandered around the Super Boat International Offshore World Championships pits on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in mid November. The death of 66-year-old Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats principal Joe Sgro, his longtime competitor on the racecourse and dear friend off it, on Thursday during the Florida Powerboat Club’s annual Key West Poker Run, clearly devastated the multi-time offshore world championship winner. It was all he could do to get through the weekend.

Quiet and shy by nature, Joe Sgro (in red T-shirt) had touched many lives, especially since picking up the reigns of Outerlimits in late 2014. Photo copyright speedonthewater.com.

And when Meyer claimed yet another world title at the end of weekend, his thoughts were still with his friend. “That win was for Joe Sgro,” he said, fighting back tears, after Sunday’s race.

“I raced with him and I raced against him,” he added. “We loved it. We loved each other.”

While the show went on for both the SBI Worlds and FPC Poker Run festivities after Sgro’s death following a single-boat accident in the waters off Marathon, the loss overshadowed both events for most members of the performance-boating community. Quiet and shy by nature, Sgro had touched many lives, especially since picking up the reigns of Outerlimits in late 2014 after company Mike Fiore died following an accident during the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Central.

Following Fiore’s death, the loss of Sgro was almost too much to process for those who knew both men, and at the very least cruelly tragic for those who did not.

To read the full story, click the download link for the PDF of the November/December 2017 Speed On The Water magazine, and please share any feedback with us below, via email or on social media.