Gene Stephens turned his disease into a heightened passion for his sport.
By TERRY TOMALIN
Published October 17, 2003
[Times photos: Bill Serne]
Gene Stephens and Deanna Richardson will compete Sunday in the Super Vee Light class of the APBA Offshore National Championships in St. Petersburg.
"My dad (Gene Stephens, above) was determined to beat (leukemia), no matter what," says Deanna Richardson, below. Stephens' disease has been in remission for six years.
ST. PETERSBURG - When Gene Stephens was diagnosed with leukemia, he decided he should stop wasting time and start having some fun.
"It made me stop and re-evaluate my priorities," said the Tampa resident, whose disease has been in remission for six years. "I had always wanted to race powerboats, so I thought to myself, what better way to spend time with my daughter."
When the green flag drops on Sunday to start the second day of racing at the American Power Boat Association Offshore National Championships on the waters off the Pier in downtown St. Petersburg, Stephens and daughter Deanna Richardson will compete in their Super Vee Light, a 30-foot Phantom called Attitude Motorsports.
"To beat a disease like leukemia, you have to have a positive attitude," said Richardson, 27. "And my dad was determined to beat it, no matter what. That is where the attitude comes in."
This was Richardson's first season behind the wheel of a vee-bottomed race boat capable of speeds approaching 90 miles per hour.
"I have been around boats all my life," Richardson said. "My father taught me how to drive, so in a race, it seems like we always know what each other is going to do."
Stephens, 49, first became interested in offshore powerboats when he happened upon a race in Key West 15 years ago. By 1990, he had hooked up with a Tampa-based team called The Heat is On and ended up winning the world championship in the Sportsman C class.
Years later, after retiring from racing, Stephens joined the APBA ranks as a technical inspector, but it didn't take long before the roar of engines called him back.
Soon, the entire family got into the act. His wife, Amanda, travels the race circuit working for the APBA. Deanna drives the race boat. His son-in-law Keith Richardson serves as the team's crew chief. His other daughter, Heather Burke, leads the cheering section.
Richardson started her rookie season off with a win at a regional race in St. Cloud. She and Stephens, who throttles the boat, then competed in four national races - Daytona, Marathon, Savannah and Sarasota - but never equaled the success of that first outing.
"One of these days, we will win another one," Richardson said. "And when we do, we will donate the prize money to the American Cancer Society."
However, Richardson and Stephens will have their work cut out for them. Pasco County racers Steve Miklos and Gary Deciucies have dominated the Super Vee Light class for the past two years. Their Vortec Extreme team has won six races in a row and appears unstoppable in its quest for a second national title.
"The only problem is that each race we are winning by less and less," said Miklos, the throttleman. "In this sport, nothing is ever a sure thing."
But that is exactly what Miklos and Michael Allweiss, the APBA Offshore chairman, wanted to achieve when they redesigned the racing classes in 2000.
"The whole idea is to have evenly matched boats," said Miklos, who serves as the sanctioning body's competition director. "In this sport, you can have two boats run a 100-mile race and still finish within seconds of each other."
APBA Offshore has devoted much of its time and energy in recent years to develop tight specifications and rules to avoid the type of one-sided competition that has and continues to plague other forms of powerboat racing.
There was a time when all it took to win an offshore powerboat race was money. The team with the deepest pockets, not the best driver, throttleman and pit crew, usually won.
Streamlined classes, designed to create parity for competitors and provide "deck-to-deck" racing for the fans, has proven popular. It is not uncommon for an offshore race to draw 80 boats and thousands of fans.
The single-engine Super Vee Light, the class in which both Attitude Motorsports and Vortec Extreme compete, shows great promise because of its affordability. A Factory 1 boat, a single-engine, vee-bottom favored by many entry-level racers, costs about $65,000. The Super Vee Light, which is basically a canopied version of the same boat, costs about $85,000.
But what makes ordinary people like Stephens (he owns a landscaping business) be able to afford what was once just a rich person's sport are the new engine packages.
In 2002, General Motors introduced the Vortec, a maritime version of the engine found in most GM trucks. Miklos and Deciucies ran their entire seven-race season last year without having to replace their engine, something that was unheard of in the old days when the big boats would blow through a set of motors each race.
"The competition is always close," Stephens said. "We are looking forward to racing in St. Pete."
APBA Offshore National Championships
WHEN/WHERE: Today-Sunday; St. Petersburg.
WHAT: The National Championships is a three-day festival of extreme offshore boat racing. Vinoy Park will host the Race Village today-Sunday. Fans can meet the teams and view the boats. Vinoy Park also offers prime viewing of the races.
SATURDAY: Noon, Performance and One Design classes; 2 p.m., Factory 2.
SUNDAY: noon, Super Vee, Super Vee Light, Factory 2; 2 p.m., Super Cat, Super Cat Light.
RACE COURSE: Each lap is about 5 miles long. The number of laps varies based on weather or other unexpected conditions.
WET PIT: Vinoy Basin adjacent to Vinoy Park.
DRY PIT: Vinoy Park. The Race Village also will host other events and merchants.
