It’s been an incredible five months since we first announced that The Watercraft Journal would step up to the plate and participate in the annual Long Beach to Catalina Offshore Championship. Now with the race only a couple of weeks away, all of the pieces are falling into place.
It’s been since 2009, that yours truly has participated in the grueling open-ocean 56-mile dash from Southern California’s Queensbay in Long Beach to Santa Catalina Island’s Avalon Harbor and back. That year, we raced the then all-new 2009 Sea-Doo RXT iS 255 and earned first in the Manufacturer Stock class and 10th place overall.
While this year we’re not expecting a repeat of such a performance, we will be competing in RPM Enterprises’ Manufacturer Stock class, meaning only seat covers, handlebars and an aftermarket bilge pump are allowed. We won’t be doing any of those as we’ll be aboard Kawasaki’s offshore racer-in-a-box Ultra 310R JetSki.
We also mentioned how honored we are to receive so much support from some major industry giants: Western Power Sports supplied us with a beautiful carbon fiber/Kevlar Fly Racing F2 Carbon Trey Canard Replica helmet, a Fly Racing Pro Lite Carbon Leatt neck brace and a pair of Dragon Alliance MDX Hydro goggles (with extra lenses no less!). Likewise, JetPilot provided us with an Apex Race John, Apex S/E vest, a pair of Immersed shorts, gloves and JetPilot’s Race Boots.
But what we’re very excited to announce here is the final hood design from Hurricane Industries. Learning that we were clear to race this year, we reached out to Derrick Kemnitz Jr., owner of Hurricane who immediately jumped at the chance to design a very cool one-off hood wrap for our 310R.
Taking time from his hectic schedule of designing and building insanely cool carbon fiber standup skis in his Antioch, California shop, Derrick designed this sweet custom hood wrap. With the measurements on hand, Derrick says he can create any number of custom designs for those racers looking to step up the look of their Kawasaki Ultra 3oo or 310 series JetSki.
Expect to see a full how-to tutorial on installing this custom decal kit in the next coming weeks. Until then, if you’re interested in your own custom designed hood kit, contact Hurricane HERE.
