Grant’s Signature Racing Rigging Global Warmer Outerlimits—And More

Beyond talent, experience and attention to detail, mindfulness and attitude make Grant’s Signature Racing in Bradenton, Fla., one of the top—if not the top—custom rigging and service shops in the nation. A simple expression used by company founder and owner Grant Bruggemann says it all.

“Heads down, butts up.”

Stopping for a moment in front of the Global Warmer Outerlimits, Grant and Kellie Bruggemann and Mouse are too busy for marine industry or offshore racing drama and controversy.

Translation? Avoid the drama and other distractions pervasive in the go-fast boating and offshore racing worlds and keep working. Bruggemann and his wife, Kellie, who runs the business side of Grant’s Signature Racing, stay out of the fray. The marine industry and offshore racing aren’t their hobbies—they are their professions. So they behave professionally.

“You don’t hear a lot from us,” Bruggemann explained. “We don’t do a lot of talking and we avoid controversy. This is our business.”

Space is precious at Grant’s Signature Racing.

In short, they work for fortune not fame, much less notoriety. That’s why other than Dan Davies, the owner of the Global Warmer Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats SV 43, few people outside the shop knew Bruggemann and company were rigging the 43-footer with twin Mercury Racing 1100 engines.

Painted by Stephen Miles Design, the canopied V-bottom currently is flanked by a new Skater Powerboats 388 catamaran Grant’s Signature Racing is rigging for pleasure use and longtime client Chris Hopgood’s CELIUS Super Stock-class raceboat. Both Bruggemann and Brian Jackson, who handles all the shop’s outdrive work, have more work than time.

Outdrive ace Brian Jackson never lacks work to do.

Coming jobs include a new Skater 368 catamaran to be rigged with Mercury Racing 700SCi engines and a 36-foot Doug Wright catamaran to be rigged with Mercury Racing 500R outboard engines.

“The projects just keep coming,” Bruggemann said. “We have great clients and great projects.”

When a reporter visiting the shop yesterday suggested to Bruggemann that he might need a larger facility, he shook his head and laughed.

Grant’s Signature Racing maintains and stores the Super Stock-class CELSIUS raceboat for owner Chris Hopgood.

“That would require hiring more people, taking on more jobs and not necessarily making any more money,” he said. “And Kellie and I would have less time away from the business.”

Today Bruggemann heads to Penske Racing headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., to be fitted for the throttleman’s seat in the new Team MTI Pro Class 1 raceboat. He’ll be joined there by owner/driver Willy Cabeza, with whom he shared the cockpit of the GC Racing 450R Factory Stock raceboat last season, and MTI principal Randy Scism.

Despite that it means time away from Grant’s Signature Racing, Bruggemann said he’s looking forward to the experience.

“Then I have to get back here and back to work,” he said, and laughed.