Tomlinson And De Quesada To Team Up In Class 1 For Key West
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Racing: Tomlinson And De Quesada To Team Up In Class 1 For Key West
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Class 1 teams headed to Key West, Fla., November 6-13, for the American Power Boat Association/Union International Motonautique World Championships, will have another strong outfit in the mix. Veteran offshore racer John Tomlinson will share the cockpit of a 50-foot Victory catamaran powered by twin Mercury Racing 1100 Comp engines with automobile racer Carlos de Quesada for all three Key West contests.
During the 2021 Race World Offshore-produced Key West event, driver de Quesada (center) teamed up with Huski throttleman Steve Curtis (left) and crew chief Gary Stray. Photo by Cole McGowan copyright P1 Offshore.
Tomlinson and de Quesada spent much of today testing the 50-footer in Stuart, Fla., under the watchful eyes of Class 1 Huski Chocolate crew chief Gary Stray.
“Carlos did really good and he seems like a great guy,” said Tomlinson. “And you know, give me a good racecar driver—and (former Tomlinson teammate) Lorne Liebel told me Carlos can really drive a racecar—and we’ll do just fine.
“We mostly just tested propellers on the Intracoastal Waterway,” he added. “We didn’t go into the ocean—it was really rough, like six- to eight-footers and really, really windy.”
During the 2021 Key West event in early November, de Quesada ran the 50-footer with Steve Curtis in the Class 1 ranks. Two months later, the Huski Chocolate team announced plans to field two Class 1 boats with de Quesada as the driver and a throttleman (most of the buzz was around Tomlinson at the time) to be named later this season. But personal and professional reasons sidelined de Quesada and the Huski group fielded one team—Steve Curtis and Travis Pastrana in a 47-foot Victory cat—this year.
Though its sponsor livery has yet to be decided, de Quesada Tomlinson will run this 50-foot Victory catamaran in Key West next month.
According to Tomlinson, the decision on what sponsor livery—Huski, one of de Quesada’s companies or combination of the two—their cat will carry has yet to be decided. First and foremost, Tomlinson explained, is preparing for Key West.
‘I’d like to get in a few more days of practice and testing before then,” he said.
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