Catching Up With Race World Offshore Head Larry Bleil—‘Gung Ho’

As different as they are—particularly during the winter—the cities of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and Key West, Fla., have one thing in the common. They are Race World Offshore head Larry Bleil’s favorite places to be. Bleil’s wife, Shannon, hails from the Alberta area. So the Key West-based couple and their nine-year-old son, Max, usually head there for the holidays for a much-needed break from all things powerboating after the annual Race World Offshore World Championships in their hometown are complete.

The founder and president of Key West-headquartered Race World Offshore, Larry Bleil is already eager to kick off the 2024 season. Photos by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

But even in the frozen north, Bleil is never truly off the clock from the business of producing powerboat races. Race World Offshore has four events on its 2024 schedule—the April 28-30 Marathon Grand Prix, the June 7-9 Ocean City Grand Prix, the September 27-29 XINSURANCE Clearwater Nationals and the November 3-10 Key West Worlds. All are sanctioned by the American Power Boat Association.

In fact, though his wife and young son will stay in Alberta for the next month or so enjoying time with her family, Bleil is headed to Key West tomorrow to return to work in earnest. When it comes to event production, the man is in constant motion.

And yet he always finds time to talk, as he did yesterday.

With 75 boats registered, Race World Offshore had its best Key West Worlds turnout to date. Explain that.

It’s a combination of multiple things, really. All of the classes there were competing for APBA world championships. I also think that Key West is the best race site in the world—for a week it’s nonstop fun in a party atmosphere. And being that it happens for a full week, it has three races. So if a team has a problem with its mechanical program in one of the first two it can usually get things fixed for the next one. What else could you ask for?

What was your highlight or highlights from the 2023 event?

I have several. Speed On The Water being able to raise $200,000 for a local Key West charity is a highlight—what your team does is just incredible. Our Friday raceboat showcase on Duval Street, which we changed up a little bit in 2023, was another highlight.

I also think the racing itself was a highlight. If you remember, in 2022 we didn’t even race Wednesday because of the wind and water conditions. In 2023, the weather was perfect and the racing was excellent.

You added a new event in Ocean City, Md., this season. How did that come about?

Ocean City contacted APBA and APBA contacted us. It didn’t come from a local promoter or anything like that, it was the city itself that wanted a race. So we went there and sat down with them. The race is taking the place of an air-show, which is why it has the dates it does.

The Ocean City venue has a history of cancelations. Does that concern you?

No. I think the cancelations of the past happened because of funding issues or the entities producing the races. The city is 100-percent behind it now—they are the ones who brought it to us. We went there to check out the site and it could not be a more perfect place to put on an offshore powerboat race. They told me that the air-show brought in something like 400,000 people because this is a lot of population in the area, so we are excited and moving forward gung ho. In fact, Rodrick Cox and I are heading there this month on the 16th to meet with the city.

The Super Cat and Super Stock owners create their own championship schedules. What attracts them to your events?

There are a couple of things. Our races are part of the APBA Offshore National Championship Series and I think that means a lot. Race World Offshore wasn’t even part of APBA when we started, but I feel like having a major organization such as APBA and UIM (Union Internationale Motonautique) brings a lot of credibility to our events.

I also think we put together a pretty darn good, really professional team at RWO. We try to make things as easy as possible, but even then we still get complaints from race teams and we do the best we can to address them. We expect some complaints. But we listen to the race teams and we do our best to work with them.

With 75-boats in the mix, the Key West Offshore World Championships attracted their largest fleet since Race World Offshore began producing the event in 2018.

We have never, for example, charged teams for towing if they wreck or roll their boats—and towing is not cheap. Safety also is not cheap, but it has to the best. You can’t just go out there, put on a race and hope it works out. And though it’s not easy to find new race sites, good new venues will work with you.

Race World Offshore and Powerboat P1 have partnered in different aspects of offshore racing for several years now. That seems to be a good relationship between separate event producers serving the same constituency.

Azam Rangoonwala of Powerboat P1 and I have worked pretty darn well together in areas such as safety, race control and technical inspections. Putting on a boat race is the hardest thing I’ve ever done—I have built 30-story office buildings that were easier. So we do work together as part of the APBA national series.

The space to host the Key West Worlds has contracted during the past few years and that continued in 2023. Will the shortage of space continue and translate to lower boat-counts in the future?

No. Last year was the worst we could have had it with the loss of the soccer field for parking. It will not get any worse than the scenario in 2023. We were able to get additional property from NOAA last year and we already have it set up for the years moving forward. And the City of Key West has been great. Our footprint is not shrinking any more than it already has.