Catching Up With Billy Moore—Throttleman First Class

For the better part of its first two seasons, the Class 1 Defalco team was—despite the best efforts of Mike Falco and throttleman Billy Moore—a back-marker. The team didn’t lack for talent in the cockpit. Though Falco was new to the sport, he is an experienced go-fast pleasure boat owner. And Moore is a veteran, world-class throttleman with Class 1 experience to his credit.

Mike Falco (left) and Billy Moore notched their first two Class 1 victories togethers last weekend in Sheboygan, Wis. Photos by Jeff Helmkamp copyright Helmkamp Photos

Nor did they lack for resources. Falco is the president and chief executive officer of New York City-headquartered Defalco Construction, one of the city’s largest cast-in-place concrete and foundation subcontractors. He is more than willing to invest in building a winning race program.

What they didn’t have was the right boat for Class 1 competition. Their 48-foot Outerlimits catamaran—an incredible model in pleasure dress—simply couldn’t compete against a fleet of Victory-built catamarans and one new 43-footer from Skater.

So in early 2024, they acquired a 45-foot Victory cat with BPM drives and SCS quick-change gear-sets. Per Class 1 specifications, they powered the catamaran with Mercury Racing 1100 Comp engines.

And in the first events—Thunder On Cocoa Beach and Shootout Offshore—of the Union Internationale Motonautique Class 1 series, they finished just two of three races.

Then came last weekend’s Midwest Challenge in Sheboygan, Wis. Not only did they finish the Saturday and Sunday contests, they left the rest of the fleet in their mist, earned two checkered flags and moved into second place behind the Monster Energy/M CON team in the Class 1 series points standings.

Of course, success wasn’t as simple as slapping a couple of spec engines into another race boat. Just ask Billy Moore.

That’s exactly what I did yesterday morning.

You brought home two victories in Sheboygan last weekend. That’s quite a turnaround from where your team has been so far in its Class 1 campaign.
(Laughs) Yeah, we have been working on the boat since the season started. I always felt we were quick. What I didn’t know was that we kept getting these water-pressure spikes. I never saw it on the dash—I’m not staring at the dash during races—but the guys saw it on the data-logger. We saw spikes up to 89 psi on one side and 80 psi on the other. Rubber hoses can’t stand up to that kind of pressure very long.

When we got home from Shootout Offshore, we took off the pressure-relief valves and found they weren’t allowing the flow we needed. So we changed some stuff around and put in new 1100s and tested. But I still wasn’t 100-percent happy. So we went back, changed a couple more things and tested again.

The Defalco team is running a Victory catamaran this season.

We changed a lot of stuff with our sea strainers. We changed our water-dump configuration—now the dump comes out of the deck instead of out the back of the boat and we have a video camera on it. We also changed the water-dump out of the turbo housing.

The cool thing is, Mike gives us all the resources we need to do this stuff. He wants to win. We were just talking yesterday and he was asking me what we could do to improve for the next race in Sarasota (Fla.)

That must be rewarding—and fun. You’ve worked for a lot of teams during the years.
It is a lot of fun. Mike is really gung-ho about it and has given me the resources to make everything the best it can be. He’s really laid-back, but he’s want to do whatever it takes to make us better for the next races. He understands that none of the guys we race against are going to sit idle between races. He knows they are doing their homework and trying to improve, just like we are.

You’re based in North Carolina. Mike Falco is based in New York. How does that affect your practice and test sessions?
We work around his schedule, but he’s really pretty open and flexible. Mike either flies down or drives down in his motorhome. When we test, we put out a buoy course that simulates the next race. We get to where Mike is comfortable turning the boat hard and I am comfortable setting us up for how hard he needs to turn it. He has fun, but he’s always chomping at the bit to get better and better.

With last weekend’s wins, Defalco is now second in the Class 1 series standings.
(Laughs) I didn’t know that because I don’t look at the points. I look at winning each race. If I we can’t win, what do we have to do to finish second? If we can’t finish second, how do we get third? If you start chasing points, you tend to over-analyze it.

Last weekend’s races had this weird little swell. You couldn’t see it but you could feel it. It wasn’t “big,” just enough to launch the boat. I kind of struggled with that on the first lap on Sunday. We were fast, but sketchy as hell a couple of times. But once we got it figured out, we knew how hard we could send it into a turn and just went for it.

The thing about Mike is that he never tells me to slow down. He’s always like, “Go harder” (laughs) and I’m good with that.

Said Moore, “Mike is really gung-ho about (racing) and has given me the resources to make everything the best it can be.”

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