Wisconsin-Based Father-And-Son Super Stock Team To Debut In Shootout Offshore
A couple of experienced go-fast powerboat owners who live in the Appleton, Wis., area, 53-year-old Tom Sanderfoot and his 21-year-old son, Max, an honor student in his junior year at Wisconsin School of Engineering, bonded long ago over their love for speed on the water. The senior Sanderfoot has owned a number of go-fast V-bottoms including a 52-foot Outerlimits, while his son has logged 200-plus hours in his own 36-foot Doug Wright catamaran.
Thanks to Performance Boat Center—particularly employee/offshore racer Rusty Williams—Tom and Max Sanderfoot are entering the Super Stock-class ranks this weekend in a 32-foot Doug Wright raceboat. Photo by Jeff Helmkamp copyright Helmkamp Photos
Come Saturday afternoon, they will share the cockpit of a 32-foot Doug Wright catamaran dubbed Sign SharX for their Super Stock-class debut during Shootout Offshore—the third race of the American Power Boat Association Offshore National Championship Series and the second race of the Powerboat P1-produced Union Internationale Motonautique Class 1 World Championship—on Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri.
And for a couple of reasons they couldn’t have picked a better venue. First, they purchased the 32-footer through Performance Boat Center in Osage Beach, Mo., which also handled the canopied cat’s rigging and setup. Second, they were inspired to enter by Rusty Williams, who throttles the Super Stock-class Performance Boat Center raceboat along with throttleman and fellow Performance Boat Center team-member Myrick Coil.
“How did we get into this?” Tom Sanderfoot said, then laughed. “Two words: Rusty Wiliams.”
Though Wisconsin’s Lake Winnebago is the Sanderfoot’s home-water, the Lake of the Ozarks is close to their heart thanks in large part to their relationship with the Performance Boat Center crew. With encouragement from Williams and others at the multi-brand dealership, they decided to give Super Stock-class racing a try.
“Max is going to throttle and I am going to drive,” Tom Sanderfoot said. “It’s going to be a great father-and-son bonding thing.
“It already has been,” he added. “We did three things today that we’ve never done before. We entered an offshore powerboat race, did the (APBA-required) dunker and ran a Super Stock raceboat.”
The rookie duo won’t run a full Super Stock season this year, but they are committed to this weekend’s event as well as the Powerboat P1-produced Midwest Challenge, August 9-11. They’re also eyeing the Race World Offshore Key West World Championship, November 3-10.
“If everything works out, we’d love to run in Key West,” Sanderfoot said.
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