Alcone’s Pleasure Cruise Quickly Turned Into a Powerboat Business

Matt Alcone is a three-time world offshore powerboat racing champion who lives in Laguna Beach and has business offices in Irvine, but has not raced in his home port since his winning ways began five years ago.

Because there are few national or international races held off the California coast, Alcone has had to take his boats to the East Coast in search of success.

Now the proud owner of the prestigious “US 1” logo displayed on the sides of his 45-foot Skater catamaran, Alcone brought the boat home to race this weekend in the Dana Point Offshore Grand Prix. It is the first time a No. 1-ranked boat in the top class of powerboat racing has raced locally in seven years.

Dana Point is a regional race sanctioned by the Pacific Offshore PowerBoat Racing Assn. and the first of three. Oceanside is next on May 21-22 and Huntington Beach on June 12-13.

Alcone, with throttle man Jerry Gilbreath of Priest River, Idaho, won the opening race of the American Power Boat Assn. offshore national championship series last week in Miami. Gilbreath was a nationally recognized water skier and endurance racing champion before moving from Santa Ana to Idaho.

“The biggest races on the West Coast have been regionals run by POPBRA in recent years,” Alcone said. “One reason we’re here is to showcase the venue in hopes of bringing a national here next year. We think one off Newport Beach, where it was once held when [former world champion] Betty Cook was competing, would be ideal.”

Alcone, 46, got into racing almost by accident.

“Living in Southern California, the ocean is a big influence,” he said. “We live along the water in Laguna Beach so we decided to buy a pleasure boat.

“My wife and I walked into the showroom and she saw a boat she liked because it had a TV and microwave. It also had three supercharged engines.

“Each weekend we took it out, I got faster and faster. It got so our friends wouldn’t go with me on pleasure trips. I’d come back to the dock and the refrigerator would be on the floor, the microwave broken, and I decided that if I was going to run a boat like that, I’d better get a race boat.

“I went to Douglas Marine, where they make Skaters [powerboats], and got one. We thought about cutting the canopy off and making a fast pleasure boat out of it, but I said, ‘Just for kicks, let’s take it to a race and see what it’s like.’

“Well, I won that first race and like the gambler who hits his first roll of the dice at Las Vegas, I was hooked.”

He formed Alcone Motorsports, headquartered in Miami, and was an immediate success.

In 1994, the distinctive teal and purple 40-foot Skater won six races and the superboat national championship. The next year he added a superboat world championship to his collection.

In 1997, Alcone bought a 45-foot Skater with a widened tunnel for more aerodynamic lift, and made offshore racing history by winning one national and two world championships in the same year.

Concentrating on the open class, top of the line in the APBA, Alcone won the national title, with its “US 1” honor, and was named driver of the year and inducted into the APBA Hall of Fame after his boat won six of seven races.

“Offshore powerboat racing is one of the few motorsports where driving responsibilities are split,” Alcone said. “I do the steering, my companion throttles, and also adjusts trim angles on the engine and tabs to keep the boat on the water. At the speeds we turn, it is very important when a prop jumps out of the water, to throttle back or the engine will blow.”

Unlike the 1980s, when the late Betty Cook of Newport Beach was winning three world championships, the driver and throttle man sit down inside a F-14 fighter canopy, an idea borrowed by unlimited hydroplanes.

Alcone set a lap speed record of 117.49 mph in the Atlantis Bahamas Superboat Challenge, with straightaway speeds approaching 160 mph.

When he is not racing, Alcone operates a worldwide sales promotion and marketing services agency he founded in 1977 with headquarters in Los Angeles and offices in New York, Seattle, Miami, Hong Kong, London and Australia.

His boat, white with fluorescent yellow, green, orange, plum, red and black markings, will be on display Saturday at the Embarcadero Marina at Dana Point. The race, which will run up and down the coastline south of Dana Point, will start at noon Sunday.

“It’s a bargain,” Alcone said. “All those race fans over at Fontana are playing big bucks to see the Winston Cup cars run. If they came down here, they could watch for free. If you have a boat you can park along the race course, and from the shore at Doheny Beach you can just about see the whole course.”

RIM OF THE WORLD

Seven-time champion Paul Choiniere and navigator Jeff Becker will be the favorites when the annual Rim of the World Pro Rally takes off tonight from the Holiday Inn in Palmdale.

They will be in a factory-backed Hyundai Tiburon, as will teammates Noel Lawler and Charles Bradley for Round 3 of the Michelin SCCA ProRally championship.

The rally consists of seven stages--five tonight and seven Saturday--on the twisting, undulating mountain roads of the Angeles National Forest in the foothills west of Antelope Valley. Tonight’s stages will begin at 7, with the event resuming at 1 p.m. Saturday.

The brother-sister team of Lauchlin and Farina O’Sullivan, driving an Audi Quattro, are coming off a victory in the last event and are tied for the series lead. The O’Sullivans won the Doo Wop Rally by one second over Rui Brasil and Carlos Tavares, also in an Audi.

Other open class favorites include Pete Lahm and Matt Chester in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV, a world rally championship-type car.

In addition to the Pro Rally series, there will be competition for SCCA club rally teams competing on the same roads.

Pro Rally drivers are not permitted practice. At the start, the navigator is given route instructions with precise mileage and the task is to drive as fast as possible through every stage, or racing section.

LOOKING FOR CHAMPIONS

The Evernham-Hawley Race Training Center, which will open Monday at Irwindale Speedway, is sold out through July, school officials said.

“We hope that five or six years from now, we will be standing behind a Winston Cup champion and have him say he got his start at Irwindale Speedway,” Ray Evernham said at Thursday’s training center dedication. Evernham is crew chief of Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 Chevrolet, winner of three of the last four Winston Cup titles.

Classes at the school range from a half-day, in which drivers can feel “the racing experience,” to five days of serious racing training.

Instructors include Paul Van Valkenberg, author of “Racecar Engineering,” and the engineer for the late Mark Donohue’s Can-Am and Indy car successes; Clint Mears, who drove Indy Lights last season, and Wally Pankratz, veteran open-wheel racing champion.

LAST LAPS

Derek Hill, son of 1961 world Formula One champion Phil Hill, was hospitalized last Sunday after crashing into barriers at Brands Hatch, England, during a Formula Palmer Audi race.

The accident occurred when the nose cone of his car came off at the fastest point of the track and was sucked under the car. That launched the car into the air and into the barrier.

Hill suffered a concussion and was briefly unconscious. He was taken to the National Neurological Hospital in London for a brain scan, but was released Thursday and expects to resume testing next week.

Kenny Roberts Jr. scored his second consecutive victory in the 500cc World Motorcycle Grand Prix last Sunday at Motegi, Japan. Roberts, on a Suzuki, held off defending five-time champion Mick Doohan to extend his series lead after two races. . . . The fourth annual British Extravaganza, featuring British racing machines, will be held Saturday and Sunday at Buttonwillow Raceway Park.

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This Week’s Races

WINSTON CUP, California 500

* When: Today, qualifying, 2:30 p.m. (ESPN2); Saturday, qualifying, 10 a.m.; Sunday, race (Channel 7, 11 a.m.).

* Where: California Speedway (D-shaped oval, 2 miles, 14-degree banking in turns), Fontana.

* Defending champion: Mark Martin.

* Next race: Pontiac Excitement 400, May 15, Richmond, Va.

BUSCH GRAND NATIONAL, Auto Club 300

* When: Today, qualifying, 3:45 p.m.; Saturday, race, 11 a.m. (Channel 7, 3 p.m.).

* Where: California Speedway (D-shaped oval, 2 miles, 14-degree banking in turns), Fontana.

* Defending champion: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

* Next race: Grand National 200, May 8, Loudon, N.H.

CART, Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix

* When: Saturday, qualifying, 10:15 a.m.; Sunday, race (ESPN, 9:30 a.m.).

* Where: Nazareth (Pa.) Speedway (tri-oval .946 miles, 1-degree banking in turn 1, 4 degrees in turn 2, 6 degrees in turns 3-4).

* Defending champion: Jimmy Vasser.

* Next race: Rio 400, May 15, Rio de Janeiro.

NHRA, Pennzoil Nationals

* When: Today, qualifying, 11:30 a.m.; Saturday, qualifying, 8:15 a.m.; Sunday, final eliminations, 9 a.m..

* Where: Virginia Motorsports Park, Richmond, Va.

* Defending champion: Cory McClenathan.

* Next race: Fram Nationals, May 13-16, Commerce, Ga.

FORMULA ONE, San Marino Grand Prix

* When: Saturday, qualifying (Speedvision, 4 a.m.). Sunday, race (Speedvision, 4:30 a.m.; Fox Sports West, 10 a.m.).

* Where: Enzo and Dino Ferrari Autodrome (road course, 3.057 miles, 15 turns), Imola, Italy.

* Defending champion: David Coulthard.

* Next race: Monaco Grand Prix, May 16, Monte Carlo.

INDY RACING LEAGUE, VisionAire 500

* When: Today, qualifying, 6:15 p.m.; Saturday, race, 5 p.m.

* Where: Lowe’s Motor Speedway (quad-oval, 1.5 miles, 24-degree banking in turns), Concord, N.C.

* Defending champion: Kenny Brack.

* Next race: Indianapolis 500, May 30, Indianapolis.