Congrats to Kyler Talbot of Silverdale, who won the first of three races that he will compete in during the annual Key West Offshore Powerboat Championships. Talbot competes in the superboat stock class. He was the world champion a year ago.
You can take a ride along with Talbot and throttleman Joey Gratton in this YouTube video from a race at last year’s world championships. Pretty cool. You get an idea of what it’s like out there on the open water.
Unfortunatley, tragedy marred the races on Wednesday. A driver and a throttleman from Missouri died, racing later in the day, died after a violent crash. Here’s the link to my story with an eye-witness account from Bremerton’s Jon Jennings, part of Talbot’s crew.
I’ve been told there’s a fairly sizeable group from the Bremerton/Silverdale area following Talbot this week. It’s an expensive hobby, but the excavator from Silverdale has already shown that he’s one of the best offshore drivers in the world.
Here’s hoping for a safe and triumphant week of racing for Kyler.
