New Super Cat-Class Team To Race Former Teague-Owned AMSOIL Skater
![New Super Cat-Class Team To Race Former Teague-Owned AMSOIL Skater](https://i0.wp.com/sarahhortman.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/new-super-cat-class-team-to-race-former-teague-owned-amsoil-skater.jpg?fit=1024%2C304&ssl=1)
When Arizona performance boater Kelly Kraiss purchased the 36-foot canopied Skater Powerboats catamaran from Bob Teague, the world champion throttleman and owner of Teague Custom Marine in Valencia, Calif., in December of 2022, he was not planning to race the former Team AMSOIL Skater. In fact, he wanted to use the 2008-built cat for pleasure boating on his home waters of Lake Havasu, which borders Arizona and California, or at one of his favorite places to boat, Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. And that’s exactly what he did—for almost two years.
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A new entry for the 2025 Super Cat-class season, the Arizona-based EWB Racing team plans to race its Skater 368 catamaran at a few events this year.
Kraiss, and his longtime friend and boating partner, Ron Gibbs of Bad Attitude Boats in Parker, Ariz., have participated in the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in years past as well as in the top-speed contest on Lake Havasu during the annual Desert Storm Poker Run. In fact, their fastest speed was at the 2017 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout when they hit 180 mph on the three-quarter-mile course in Top Cat, their 36-foot Skater. And while neither of them has ever participated in an offshore race, they plan to race the former Superboat-class Skater in the Super Cat class this season.
After purchasing the highly successful Skater 368, which once set a kilometer speed record on the Salton Sea in California and has not been on the racecourse since the 2016 Key West World Championships in Florida, Kraiss repowered it with a set of 1,700-hp engines from Sterling Performance Engines that were removed from the former Skater 388 that Performance Boat Center’s Myrick Coil and Rusty Williams ran to 205 mph the day after the 2019 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout.
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Best known on the racecourse as Team AMSOIL with owner/throttleman Bob Teague and driver Paul Whittier, the 36-foot Skater last competed at the 2016 Key West World Championship in the Superboat class. Photo by Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
Kraiss said he never pushed the almost-8,000-pound raceboat or its monstrous engines to the limit with that setup—although he called the acceleration unbelievable—mainly because he kept the drives with the raceboat-specific 1.6:1 gear ratio.
“We’ve had a lot of fun in the boat, but we decided racing it could be even more fun,” Kraiss told speedonthewater.com. “We’re putting the Teague Custom Marine raceboat engines back in after Bob gets done going through them—and the drives; we beat those up a little with those big motors. The engines are at his shop right now. We’re hopeful that our first race will be Shootout Offshore at Lake of the Ozarks in June.”
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The accomplished Skater 368 and its 1,700-hp Sterling Performance engines were on display at the 2024 Desert Storm Poker Run in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Photos courtesy Kelly Kraiss.
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Kraiss said Teague, who first started racing in 1973, has been an invaluable resource to this point for him and the team, which is going to be named EWB Racing after Kraiss’ Lake Havasu City-based EWB Aerospace business. Like any good racer, Kraiss added that the name is open for negotiation if the right sponsor comes along.
“All of this is new to Ron and me, but we’re ready for the challenge,” he said. “We’ve always raced shootouts together and we used to race off road together. I’m planning to drive and he is going to be on the throttles. His shop also is going to handle rigging the boat.
“We have the original motors that came with the boat still so we sent them back to Bob’s shop so he could make them brand new again; the drives are headed to his shop soon,” he added. “We’re going to put the crashboxes back on the boat, too, and then we can start testing. We can’t wait. Bob seems pretty excited to help us get the boat back on the circuit.”
Teague, who said he didn’t sell the 36-footer for several years because he didn’t want to see such a great raceboat be converted into a pleasure boat, is eager to see how it will do in the Super Cat ranks.
“We’ve got the engines here now and I’m going to go through them and bring them up to the current cheating program that the other teams are using,” Teague said in jest. “I’m excited for those guys—I hope they do well and that they don’t hurt themselves. It’ll be cool to see that boat racing again.”
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.speedonthewater.com/wp-content/uploads/kraiss-gibbs2017.jpg?resize=640%2C459&ssl=1)
Pictured here at the 2017 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Missouri, Kelly Kraiss (left) and Ron Gibbs are excited about their first season of offshore racing. Photo by Jason Johnson.
Kraiss said the team will keep its equipment in the Midwest for the summer after the Lake of the Ozarks race to compete at the XINSURANCE Great Lakes Grand Prix in Michigan City, Ind., in early August and the Chicago National Grand Prix at the end of August. All three of those races are part of the American Power Boat Association Offshore National Championship series.
He’s unsure what other races the team will attend, although ideally it will get a chance to compete in Key West during the APBA Offshore World Championship hosted by Race World Offshore in early November.
“We’re going to try our best to get down to Key West,” Kraiss explained. “I’ve been out there every year watching the races as a fan. We’ve done the poker run many times, but the goal is to be a part of the races this year.”
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Although the Skater was an absolute blast with the monster power, life as a pleasure boat was short-lived as the No. 77 boat is returning to the racecourse this season. Photo by Pete Boden.
As for his plans for the supercharged Sterling engines, Kraiss said he doesn’t have any at the moment.
“Those beauties are going in the corner of my new museum-piece garage that I just built, and they’re always going to be on the team,” he said. “They’re always going to be mine. I just don’t know what we’re going to put them in yet.”
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Source: https://www.speedonthewater.com/new-super-cat-class-team-to-race-former-teague-owned-amsoil-skater/