Profile: Billy Moore—The Gentleman Professional
Nineteen-year-old Billy Moore strapped into the driver’s seat of an offshore raceboat for the first time in competition in the 1996 season-opener in Key West, Fla. Alongside in the enclosed cockpit of the 46-foot Skater catamaran powered by four 1,000-hp Mercury Racing engines was legendary throttleman Bobby Moore, who happened to be his father.
The two had logged countless hours testing boats, but on race day, Billy saw a different side of his usually low-key dad.
“The first time I ever raced with him, I thought to myself, ‘This is a completely different animal,” said the younger Moore. “He was still laid back but I could feel that the intensity was ratcheted way up.”
When Billy Moore throttled Mike Falco’s Team Defalco Outerlimits to a world title last November, the victory was the culmination of decades of commitment and hard work. Photos by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
After the start, Bobby was running the boat hard going into the first turn.
“I’m thinking he’s going to let off and he did at the last second, and I said, ‘I need to turn this thing,’” said Billy. “Dad said, ‘Son you’re going to have to do better than this.’ I said, ‘Tell me what I have to do’ and he said, ‘Listen to me and we’ll be fine.’”
The Moores raced the boat called Nuff Respect together two more times that year, once in Sandusky, Ohio, and then at the season finale, the offshore racing world championships in Key West in November. The father and son won the Superboat class world championship. It was one of many titles and accolades in the career of Bobby and the beginning of Billy’s.
Fast forward nearly 30 years and coming into the 2024 Race World Offshore Key West World championships last November, Billy Moore and Mike Falco were on a roll in their 45-foot Victory catamaran, Team Defalco. They had won races in Sheboygan, Wis., and Sarasota, Fla., in what should have been the middle of the 2024 season and were looking to continue their momentum in the last two events of the year in St. Petersburg and Clearwater, Fla.
Mike Falco (right) and Billy Moore finished the 2024 Pro Class 1 season on a hot streak.
Mother Nature had other plans, punishing the two cities on the west cost of the Sunshine State with hurricanes, forcing the cancelation of both. Then the race teams set their collective sights on the southern-most city in the United States, Key West, for the annual three-day battle for supremacy and the Race World Offshore world championship. Weather continued to play a role when the first of the three races on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, was canceled. That ramped up the intensity for the remaining races on Friday and Sunday.
During Friday’s Pro Class 1 race, the unknown element was the return of the defending champions driver Darren Nicholson and throttleman Giovanni Carpitella in their own Victory cat, Mobile X Walmart. In one of the best days of racing veteran observers had seen in years, the duo took first place followed by Team Defalco, setting up an epic showdown for the double-points race that would decide the championship on Sunday.
From the start on Sunday, Mobile X Walmart moved to the lead chased by Team DeFalco. On the sixth of 11 laps, Mobile X Walmart slowed when the escape hatch in the bottom of the cockpit opened and fell into the water. Moore and Falco took advantage of the opportunity and took over a lead they wouldn’t relinquish, earning the checkered flag and the world championship in Pro Class 1.
“It was something to try to prove that we are a top team in Pro Class 1,” said Moore, who turned 50 years old last December. “We had some good races during the season and with the momentum we were looking forward to Clearwater and St. Pete. When that didn’t happen, we knew we had to prove that we belonged on the top box of the podium in Key West.”
John Tomlinson, who throttled the Pro Class 1 entry, Morpheus 8, in Key West, has known Moore since he was a kid.
“He’s certainly paid his dues,” Tomlinson said of his friend and rival. “He works hard at it and he’s hungry for it. When you work on boats and you’re in and out of different ones for 20 years, you have a feel for it.”
Added Steve Curtis, one of the winningest throttlemen in offshore racing history, “Billy understands boats, he knows what he’s doing in them and he knows how to make them go quick. He’s got to be the favorite going into 2025.”
A multi-time world champion, Steve Curtis (left) sees Moore as the odds-on favorite to take the Pro Class 1 national and world titles this season. Photo by Cole McGowan copyright Powerboat P1.
A Humble Start
One thing that Bobby Moore instilled in his son and everyone in his famed shop, Bobby Moore’s Custom Marine, on North Miami’s NE 188th Street, was humility.
“We got back to the shop on Monday after that Key West win in 1996 and one of the first things I did was go clean the toilets and bathrooms,” said Billy. “I said, ‘I’m not going to let this go to my head.’”
He and his older brother Bob Moore, Jr., grew up with their dad and mom Joanne in Miramar, Fla. Billy played some football, but mostly spent his free time at his dad’s shop. Like so many second-generation competitors, he started out sweeping floors and doing whatever was asked of him.
Billy also raced motocross for a while but he said he wasn’t fast enough to make a living racing and it was more for fun and an escape from the go-fast boating world. “It was the one thing I could do where I could get away from my last name,” he explained. “Nobody cared who my dad was and nobody cared if I finished first or 15th.”
Moore ran his first race as a driver in the 45-foot Katana Skater catamaran.
At Bobby Moore’s Custom Marine, there was an outboard-focused crew run by Guy Radiano and the stern drive team headed up by Troy Hannon who now runs Supreme Marine in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Billy floated between the two and tested whatever he was asked to run so he logged copious amounts of seat time in a variety of boats. His first time race was with throttleman Billy Ford in the 46-foot Skater, Katana, that Bobby Moore had throttled to a world championship. Moore’s childhood nickname “Cracka” was on the driver’s canopy. “It was a nickname that one of my brother’s friends called me and it just kind of stuck,” said Billy.
When Tomlinson and his partner Mike Thomas were getting their business TNT Custom Marine up and running, they would call the Moores and ask if they could come launch a boat to test. Many times Billy, who was in his early 20s, would go out to test with Tomlinson.
Moore is exiting the Super Cat-class Graydel team to focus exclusively on the 2025 Pro Class 1 season.
Billy got his first shot at throttling when he was 26. David Woods and his Pier 57 team in Tennessee were also dealers for Fountain Powerboats and Marine Technology Inc. catamarans and a customer, Gary Nichols, wanted to try racing. “David smiled at me and said, ‘Go sell him a boat,’” recalled Moore.
In Nichols’ first race, he and Moore wound up leading on the old course in Sarasota, Fla., in an MTI catamaran. “Gary was having a blast and I was having a blast and that set the hook and he said, ‘We need to get a boat,’” said Moore.
His father had sold his shop to Tomlinson and Thomas and moved back to his childhood home in North Carolina in 2000 and Billy followed the following year. He partnered with Nichols in a 42-foot MTI and during their four years together, the team claimed multiple victories and a world championship.
“It was kind of funny because he didn’t realize I was 26 years old,” said Moore. “He said, ‘Well damn, this could get interesting.’”
The Defalco team will face strong competition in the Pro Class 1 ranks this season. Photo by Jeff Helmkamp copyright Helmkamp Photos.
In addition to the ride being his first throttling opportunity in the sport’s top class, Moore had to stand up to the pressure that came with his last name. After all, his father is credited with inventing the throttlemman’s position. “You realize that it’s a big opportunity because of who my dad was,” said Moore. “But it was also a pressure-cooker because I had to perform. At 26 years old, I had a guy spending a lot of money to go racing and it’s all based on me getting him there and getting him around the course.”
Moore took the responsibility seriously. Many 26-year-olds would have wasted their Friday nights partying too much and their Saturday mornings paying for it, but he played it smart.
“I tried to behave on race weekend because my dad said, ‘Remember when you’re at the races, you’re there to work,’” said Moore. “You’re the hired help.”
Midway through his four-year run with Nichols, Moore realized that he had what it took to run with the biggest names in the sport including Curtis and Jerry Gilbreath who were throttling for the Reliable Carriers team and Jim Dyke with the Popeye boat.
At Grand Haven, Mich., Moore recalled that he had to get aggressive and put a move on Gilbreath to get around him and take the win.
“That’s when I said, ‘I can really do this,’” Moore recalled. “I remember being on the way home and thinking, I just beat a bunch of guys I used to look up to. Then I said, ‘What do we need to do to make the boat better?’”
Easygoing off the racecourse, Moore is intensely focused on race days.
At another race, Dyke shook Moore’s hand and said, “You’re doing a good job. You beat me. Your dad should be proud.”
At the world championships at the end of that season, Moore recalled getting a “horrible start” and he and Nichols made their way through the fleet to finish third, passing Gilbreath to grab the final podium spot. For the Sunday race, Moore tried something different with the setup and managed to finish third again. He was walking through the pits when Gilbreath stopped him and said, “I’ve raced your father and now I’ve raced you. You’re a damn good competitor.”
Long before teaming up with Falco, Moore’s first Class 1 opportunity came as throttleman for owner/driver Chris Parsonage in his Victory cat, The Negotiator, in 2008. “That was when Class 1 was really big,” said Moore. “There were two Qatar team boats and two Victory boats.”
Racing Class 1 in Europe was a more structured format than what Moore was used to in the U.S. The teams practiced two hours on Friday and then again on Saturday morning before qualifying for pole position later that day. Sunday morning was two practice laps and then the main event later that afternoon.
“One of the coolest moments was in Egypt in Class 1,” said Moore. “We finished third in the race and coming up to the pontoon, I told the team manger to call my dad while they were handing me the American flag to take up to the podium. They told me there hadn’t been an American flag handed out in Class 1 in 11 years.”
Woods sold his business and Moore went back to Florida to work with Todd Werner at Pro Marine in St. Petersburg, expanding the service department and helping with Werner’s new boat company, Statement Marine.
“We built up the service department and the first year we did really well,” said Moore. “I was constantly around the races and Steve Curtis called and said, ‘Would you be interested in running the Qatar Super Cat?’”
The Qatar team raced primarily in the United States and in 2015, the country hosted the Qatar Cup with many boats from the United States getting shipped over for the event.
Moore throttled the Qatar team MTI catamaran in the 2015 Qatar Cup. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
Soon after, the Qatar team was shut down and Moore worked with some different boat owners including David Speer, running at shootouts and poker runs in his fast red MTI cat. In 2016, Andy Strobert bought the boat that is now Team DeFalco. Running it as CT Marine, Strobert and Moore took a memorable ride over the back of Bob Bull’s MTI coming into Key West Harbor in 2017, flying through the air and landing upside down. Driver and throttleman were uninjured.
Dabbling in some other marine-related business interests, Moore has worked as a trainer for boat operators for the U.S. military and he and Tanner Lewis, who has raced in Super Stock, and other classes in offshore racing have a business called Bluewater Yacht Company that charters and sells larger vessels in the U.S. and abroad.
In 2018, Canadian Chris Grant bought a 42-foot MTI to run in Super Cat as Graydel. The boat didn’t have the speed to be competitive and before the 2023 season, Grant bought the Skater 388 that had run as Stihl and then AMH Construction.
Canadian Chris Grant shared the cockpit of Graydel with Moore for two full seasons in the Super Cat class. Photo by Cole McGowan copyright Powerboat P1.
Moore and Grant served notice to the Super Cat class winning convincingly at Cocoa Beach. The duo was a threat at every race in 2023 and 2024 and parted ways for 2025 so Moore could concentrate on Class 1.
“Our main focus is going to be on the Class 1 program and the competition is going to be pretty stiff,” said Moore.
Golden Opportunity
Any throttleman will tell you that partnering with the right boat owner is crucial to success in a sport that requires investing copious amounts of time, resources and money. In 2023, Falco, who owns a construction firm in New York City, was racing with another throttleman in an Outerlimits hull that wasn’t competitive. He reached out to Curtis for a recommendation for a throttleman who could run a boat and manage the whole operation. Curtis pointed him toward Moore.
The two started in the Outerlimits, but Moore knew that the CT Marine Victory hull was available and Falco pulled the trigger on the purchase. Moore re-rigged the boat as Team DeFalco and it made its debut by capturing pole position at Cocoa Beach in 2024.
Involved in a frightening wreck with Moore throttling during the 2017 Key West Offshore World Championships, the former CT Marine Victory catamaran took Moore and Falco to a Pro Class 1 world title in 2024. Photo courtesy Sam Jirik.
The DeFalco shop is in Washington, N.C., about 45 minutes from where Moore, his fiancée Carly Everett, her daughter, Allie, and their three cats live in Grantsboro. His mother and brother live nearby and the family stays close with the boys checking in on their mom often after Bobby passed away in 2020.
“I can’t say enough about Mike Falco giving us the opportunity here to bring in some other projects,” said Moore, who is hoping to expand his business, Moore Performance Powerboats, by adding some projects to the shop. As long as the Pro Class 1 boat is ready to race, Moore can take in other projects so boat owners looking for a world-class setup team should reach out to him.
Until recently, Moore had been splitting time between the race shop and his friend Pete Caldwell’s business at Caldwell Marine. Now he’s in the DeFalco shop every day, making sure the boat will be ready for the big step up in competition the team will face in 2025 starting with Thunder on Cocoa Beach in May.
“Being here every day lets me see everything that’s going on,” said Moore. The 2024 season started inauspiciously with Team DeFalco showing speed, but being unable to finish races. The boat was fast at Cocoa Beach and at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, but two DNFs in the final results left the throttleman frustrated.
“We needed to get back to the basics, figure out what was going on there and find a resolution,” said Moore. The team at the DeFalco shop consists of crew chief Rolf Arnsted, Torjus Dahl, and Will Cutler. Some of Falco’s employees round out the support team at the races.
One issue Moore found himself battling early in the season was big spikes in water pressure. Between the Lake of the Ozarks race and the event in Sheboygan, Wis., Moore attacked the boat’s water system and felt going into the Midwest Challenge on Lake Michigan that he had corrected the problem.
The Defalco team was untouchable at the 2024 Midwest Challenge in Sheboygan, Wis. Photo by Jeff Helmkamp copyright Helmkamp Photos.
At Sheboygan, Team DeFalco captured pole position and then won both Pro Class 1 races in dominant fashion.
Between the Lake of the Ozarks and Sheboygan races, Falco called Moore and told him to get all the safety gear out of the Pro Class 1 support trailer and bring it to Ocean City, Md., because the two were going to race the red 38-foot Doug Wright in the Factory Stock class. After logging about 10 minutes of test time, Moore throttled Falco to his first checkered flag in offshore racing.
“That gave the team a boost of confidence,” said Moore. “Our guys went through the entire boat because we had the sense that even though it isn’t our boat, it has our name on it. We got it done and that momentum and confidence spilled over to our main goal, which was to be a front runner in Class 1.”
Next, at the Sarasota, Fla., race, in early September, Team DeFalco took pole position despite having an issue with a drop box. After the crew thrashed to fix the boat, Moore and Falco won the Class 1 race on Sunday.
On their way to a Pro Class 1 world title last year in Key West, Fla., Moore and Falco were relaxed and well-prepared. Photo by Matt Trulio.
One key to the team’s success has been bringing on Arnsted who had a wealth of experience on other Class 1 crews. He and Moore collaborate on setup calls and bounce things off each other.
“As far as the feedback on what I’m feeling in the boat goes, it only works if I’m truthful about everything I feel,” said Moore. “If it feels like crap, I tell him it feels like crap. It’s about multiple heads working together to be one brain.”
Looking ahead, Moore said he has no plans to hang up his orange helmet any time soon. When he turned 50, he admits that he took a step back, but then he realized that Curtis and Tomlinson are at least 10 years older than he is.
He still thinks of his late father often and knows that Bobby was with him in Key West last year. Billy Moore knows full well the pros and cons that come with his last name, but no one can say he hasn’t earned his place as one of the best throttlemen in the sport.
“Through the years, I’ve always been gracious and grateful,” said Billy. “I’ve always tried to be level.”
Bobby, your son has definitely done better.
Bobby (right) and Billy Moore are two of the finest offshore racers and gentlemen the world has ever known. Photo courtesy Billy Moore.
Editor’s note: An award-winning marine journalist, Eric Collby is the offshore racing editor for speedonthewater.com and a member of the Race World Offshore livestream broadcast team.
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