Though the 44-foot Performance Boat Center-backed MTI catamaran won’t make it to the Super Boat International season-opener this weekend in Cocoa Beach, Fla., as owner/driver Randy Kent hoped, the Superboat Unlimited-class cat will be getting a new throttleman for the season. Myrick Coil, who competed with offshore racing legend David Scott in his Nauti-Marine raceboats and will share the cockpit with a teammate to be named later in Performance Boat Center’s upcoming Superboat-class Skater cat, will replace Reggie Fountain III, Kent’s longtime teammate.

Kent and Coil will race together for the first time in Kent’s Superboat Unlimited-class cat (shown here during the 2014 SBI Key West World Championships) on their home waters during The Lake Race. Photo courtesy/copyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image (click image to enlarge).

“Reggie and I are still friends,” Kent said. “It’s just that with him being in North Carolina and me being here in Missouri at the Lake of the Ozarks, we just weren’t going to be able to get the seat time together that we need to be successful in this class. When Reggie and I won our Super Cat Light title, we practiced and tested and practiced and tested all the time.

“The other thing is, we wanted our team to be a real, local ‘Lake of the Ozarks’ team,” he added. “With Myrick here, that’s what we are. And we can get on the water and be testing in a few minutes anytime we need to.”

While Kent originally had planned to have his 44-footer ready for the Cocoa Beach event, the timeframe required to finish his twin 1,500-plus-hp supercharged engines built by Mark Boos at Precision Marine in Kenner, La., as well as have Performance Boat Center re-rig the engine compartment and reinstall the powerplants proved to be too tight. He wanted to compete at the SBI season-opener as one of the required three events to qualify for the SBI World Championships in November in Key West, Fla. But staying back gives his team more breathing room. In fact, the boat’s stern drives were shipped this week to Wilson Custom Marine in Stuart, Fla., for complete blueprinting.

With Kent and Coil in the cockpit, the team’s first event this season will be—if all holds to plan—The Lake Race (June 5-7) on Kent’s home waters. Kent said he’ll hold to his original plan of running the SBI events in Marathon and Clearwater, Fla., and most likely add the SBI race in Michigan City, Ind., as the team’s third event.

“The plan is to run this season with Myrick,” Kent said. “If he goes from racing in the faster Unlimited class to the Superboat class when the Performance Boat Center Skater is ready, that will be a big advantage for him. And for the 2016 season, I am planning on converting my boat to a Superboat.”

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