(From left) Ballough, Scism and Tomlinson with members of the Abu Dhabi Class 1 offshore racing team.
Even a casual offshore racing fan would never think of calling Gary Ballough a “rookie.” After all, the Stock-class veteran throttleman has 12 National Championships and 12 World Championships—not to mention 107 wins in a career that has spanned most of his adult life—under his belt. In 2012, Ballough and teammate Omar Danial took second place in the Union Internationale Motonautique’s X-Cat class, the international equivalent of Stock class in the United States.
And yet last weekend, Ballough was every bit the wide-eyed rookie. That’s because he got the nod to share the cockpit of the Abu Dhabi team’s 48-foot Marine Technology, Inc., catamaran with throttleman Johnny Tomlinson for the UIM Class 1 races on Saturday and Sunday in Terracina, Italy.
and then