Commentary: Offshore Racing Needs A Winter Break

Squandering time—something I don’t often do—in the vast and vapid land of social media yesterday, I came across a Facebook video of Leah Martin. Martin, the executive director of the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout and a board member of the World Powerboat Racing Association took the time out her day to address a rumor that she had resigned from the first-year race-sanction organization.

If Martin had stepped down—and she confirmed via text message that she had not—it was news to her. She made the opposite high-def clear in her pointed video message to the social media masses.

Offshore racing’s exhausting rumor mill has been in high-gear all season. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

How do these rumors start? Simple, people with less than-noble-intentions start them. It’s not complicated. Rumors don’t generate themselves.

On one hand, attacking rumors head on and dispelling them, as Martin did, is proactive and admirable. Sunlight truly is the best disinfectant. On the other hand, it give the cretins who start them the satisfaction of provoking a reaction. The value proposition between addressing and ignoring rumors is tricky. There’s no correct, one-size-fits all solution.

Offshore racing’s rumor mill has existed since the sport began, but this season it is has become particularly virulent, transparently motivated and bottom-dweller stupid.

How stupid? Someone who knew better told me he “had heard” that the Super Stock class wasn’t participating in the Race World Offshore Key West World Championships next month.

“We’ll have 15 and maybe as many as 18 teams in Key West,” said Ryan Beckley, who is one the representatives of the Super Stock owners group, when I called him to share the stupidity.

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