Offshore powerboat racing fans had just three opportunities to catch the canopied Fountain Powerboats V-bottom called American Custom Marine in action this year. Owner/throttleman Michael Knoblock and driver Matt Soper debuted the twin Mercury Racing 1550/1350 engine-powered 42-footer at the St. Clair River Classic in July. Next up for the team was the Great Lakes Grand Prix in Indiana. In September, they ran it in the Lake Hopatcong Grand Prix in New Jersey.
How fast is the American Custom Marine Fountain raceboat with its engines each producing 1,550 hp? Watch next Monday’s video on the American Custom Marine YouTube channel and find out. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
One thing no one saw during the season? The boat running with its engines in the 1,550-hp mode. It ran all three races with its quad-cam four-valve turbocharged engines in the 1,350-hp setting.
But come Monday, November 25, fans of the sport will see the V-bottom tapping into every ounce of available horsepower. Knoblock and American Custom Marine’s Tyler Blankenship ran the boat with its engines in the 1,550-hp setting—for the first time—last month on the St. Clair River in Michigan. And they have produced a short video capturing the experience
“We drained all the fuel out of it and put in VP 112,” Knoblock recalled. “We had video cameras on the bow, in the cockpit and on the stern. When we fired it up for the first time, well, let’s just say it immediately sounded different.
“I honestly don’t think I need to go any faster,” he added. “But I think if we tweaked it, we could.”
So how fast the cockpit duo from the full-service Nor-Tech dealership in Kimball, Mich., run the boat? Neither Knoblock nor Blankenship is saying—they want people to “guess the top speed” and post those guesses on social media channels and websites and message boards.
Reached by phone yesterday, Knoblock wasn’t about to tip his hand before the video airs.
“It ran good” was all the performance-related information he was willing to offer.
