The Super Boat International (SBI) playbook for 2013 features a new pair of venues–Biloxi, Miss., and Orange Beach, Ala.–to its nine stop circuit across the US and provides offshore enthusiasts with an exciting, new Superboat Class. Biloxi revs up high-powered action set to fuel the waters with a season-opener along the Mississippi Gulf Coast April 25-28 at the 9th annual Smokin’ The Sound.

Among those missing in action this weekend were fan favorites Miss GEICO and GASSE. According to GASSE throttleace John Tomlinson, “plans are to run Sarasota and Key West this year.”

Click here to read more.

Miss the race? Catch up on all race covereage at the official SBI Livestream!

Source: www.offshoreonly.com; Bobbye Miller Kenyon; April 25, 2013.

Though some may feel as though the Super Boat World Championship Races happened just recently, the start of the 2013 Super Boat International Offshore Racing circuit is only days away, starting in Biloxi, MS on April 25th, running through April 28th, and Team Gasse couldn’t be more excited to get back out on the water!

Smokin’ The Sound will return to Biloxi later this month, followed by Smokin’ The Lake on the weekend of May 3-5 on Gulfport Lake. This will be the kickoff race in the nine-race offshore season run by Super Boat International. Smokin’ The Sound will have at least 25 competing boats in eight classes.

“This will be more exciting because of the big boats coming in so close,” John Carbonell, of Super Boat International, said.

Carbonell said the big boats will range in length from 45-to-50 feet, and will reach speeds from 160-170 mph.

The race village will be set up next to the George Ohr Museum, according to David. “It will be highly visible along the Coast. People are invited to visit with boat owners and boat racers and view the boats,” David said.

This year, all of the races will be available for viewing in REAL TIME via the Super Boat International Official Livestream! If you can’t make it down to see Team Gasse in action, make sure to check the livestream for exclusive footage, interviews, and photos!

Source: www.superboat.com; February 6, 2013.

The unexpected Ferrari is as good as expected

Our long-term FF is a Ferrari you can put snow tires on in good conscience.

As a repeat Ferrari owner, I was given an opportunity to see the FF about a year before it debuted. Ironically, I barely made it to New Jersey for the preview of the company’s first all-wheel-drive model because of a snowstorm. But when I eventually got there, I had a look at the car, tried out the back seat, and was sold. If you had told me 10 years ago that I’d be able to buy a 12-cylinder hatchback Ferrari with all-wheel drive, a rear seat big enough for an adult, and a cup holder, I would have told you that you were crazy. But I absolutely love it. This car is the closest I’ve found to all-around perfection. I can go places with my wife without having to leave my daughter at home. Even our dog comes along for the 150-mile weekend trip to our lake house. It’s a practical Ferrari, as strange as that sounds.

I’m by no means a purist; while I own several Ferraris, I don’t have an idealized picture in my mind of what the cars should or shouldn’t be. I was also a Porsche Cayenne early adopter, never once calling the company into question for building something that it hadn’t before. Porsche and Ferrari are simply making cars that their customers want. That’s just good business.

In my quest to use the car as intended, the first thing I bought for the FF was a set of snow tires. It’s in my regular rotation through the winter months here in Michigan. The all-wheel-drive system isn’t noticeable when it kicks in because it’s still very rear-biased, but you know it’s working because the car goes where you point it.

Click here to read more!

Source: www.roadandtrack.com; Ken Lingenfelter, Photos by David Lewinski; April 5, 2013.

Once again, Oslo, Norway, home of Tor Staubo of Gasse Racing, is gaining strength as an industry leader in green technology!

Norway, known for breathtaking glacier-carved valleys, fjords and abundant hydropower, is also increasingly the home to green data centers that can use the cold air (and water) for cooling, and clean power for electricity. And now a two-year-old Norwegian startup called Fjord IT is counting on the country’s natural environment to help it attract customers to its green data center services, including cloud computing and cloud-based storage.

Fjord IT has opened up its first data center space, which is a 1,000 square meters (3,280 square feet) pilot project, in Oslo. The company is co-locating its data center with Broadnet, the largest broadband and Internet service provider in Norway. Fjord IT has developed a cooling technology and is powered by cheap hydropower, which has a lower carbon footprint than fossil-based power. Those attributes could make its IT services appealing to environmentally-minded businesses as well as businesses in countries that have renewable energy and emission-reduction goals.

Gallefoss says the company has lined up its first customer in its Oslo space — business software service provider 24SevenOffice — and plans to open another data center space in Notodden, west of Oslo, this summer. The Notodden data center will be larger and use its cooling technology. The company is hoping to line up $10 million in a second round of funding this year, following a first round of $2.5 million from investors in Europe and Hong Kong.

Gallefoss didn’t want to talk about the cooling technology because he said the company is still applying for patents, but described it as a passive cooling technology that makes use of the cold outside air to maintain a constant temperature indoor. The average temperature of Norway is 7 degrees Celsius (about 45 degrees Fahrenheit). Google and Facebook are using this type of cooling for their data centers in that region of the world, too.

Read more here.

Source: www.gigaom.com; Ucilia Wang; March 19, 2013.

Super Boat International recently released that Livestream will not only be the #1 source for online race coverage, but is promoting the streaming of the races by including SBI in their Sports drop down menu under ESPN and ESPNW. Anyone can go to new.livestream.com and register for free and follow “super boat” and get instant texts or emails when race coverage goes live! You can also visit new.livestream.com/sbi to catch any of the races you missed last year!

Source: www.superboat.com; March 4, 2013.

BoatStars.com recently released this article about some of our favorite motors… the 1650′s, by Mercury Racing!

At the 2013 Miami International Boat Show, the master minds at Mercury Racing launched their amazing new 1650 Horsepower race motor, once again raising the industries standard with this latest addition. This insane horsepower is produced by Mercury Marine’s state-of-the art turbo charged 32 Value monster V-8 engine used in their other 1000hp power plants, only this engine runs on pure 112 Octane+ race gas, so the average gas station wont do.

With this in mind, this motor is strictly business as Mercury Racing has limited the availability of the motor to only professional race teams, and currently are not allowing these motor’s to be sold to the general public. We know this power plant will become a well recognized engine on the race circuit around the world in substitution for the large horsepower turbines, which are becoming a trend in the performance boating industry. Price tags on this motor are well over the quarter million dollar mark also making this Mercury Racing’s most expensive engines but comparable to any turbine setup, which as a key note does not come with any warranty compared to Mercury Racing’s other race engines—these typically include their standard one year warranty.

These motors will sure to be produce some big numbers over the next year and we are sure they will end up in several 200+ machines easily making Mercury Racing the number one source for those wanting to go 200mph without requiring the use of turbines or larger V-16 style engines. We know our friends at team Gasse have been running the prototypes for these motors since the end of this summer in their well recognized 48′ MTI and they are loving them, producing record speeds for the MTI matched with the reliability they’ve come to entrust in Mercury Racing out on the race course. So keep your eyes and ears out for this awesome motor but either way will know you’ll see and hear this motor when its anywhere near you.

Source: www.boatstars.com; February 16, 2013.

City officials have rolled out prospects for a Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway (home of Team Gasse’s Tor Staubo) in 2022 that would cost at least NOK 2o billion (USD 3.6 billion) and spur major redevelopment of the city’s semi-industrial northeast side. It would also play heavily on the success of the 1994 Olympics at Lillehammer, re-using facilities built in that area for alpine and bobsledding events.

That breaks from the plan to keep Oslo’s so-called “Games in the City” project located in or around the Norwegian capital. It takes around two- to three hours to drive or take the train to Kvitfjell in the mountain valley known as Gudbrandsdalen, but many sports officials hailed the decision to use the downhill and slalom slopes there that also still are frequently used in World Cup competition.

The main alternative had been to locate the alpine skiing events at Norefjell, another popular alpine skiing center much closer to Oslo that also was used in the Winter Olympics of 1952. Norefjell promoters were disappointed, but both sports bureaucrats and Lillehammer officials were relieved.

“Norefjell was an exciting prospect, but we have chosen the Lillehammer area,” said Oslo city government leader Stian Berger Røsland. “We also think the good reputation of the Olympics in 1994 can be important.”

All the other Olympic events are planned for the Oslo area with only the adjacent township of Bærum allocated a venue for major competition (figure skating at the Telenor Arena at Fornebu) and Lørenskog just northeast of Oslo getting the curling competition.

Otherwise the Oslo organizers plan to have ski jumping and Nordic skiing events in the hills at Holmenkollen, as expected, with freestyle and snowboard events at Wyllerløypa and Grefsenkollen, biathlon at Linderud on the city’s east side, ice hockey in new arenas to be built at Stubberud and Jordal and speed skating in a rebuilt arena at Valle Hovin. The plans would allow for what city officials believe are badly needed new skating facilities in Oslo.

“All of this is what Oslo needs even without an Olympics,” Ola Elvestuen, the city government official in charge of sports, told newspaper Dagsavisen.

Opening and closing ceremonies would either be held at Norway’s national football stadium at Ullevål or at a new stadium at Bjerke or on the Ekeberg plateau, both on the east side. An Olympic Village to house athletes along with a media center are planned for Kjelsrud, Breivoll and Økern, also in the eastern urban area known as Groruddalen.

A major rival for Oslo dropped out last week as a potential host site, when voters in St Moritz and Davos, Switzerland decided they didn’t want to move forward with an expensive Olympic project. “That increases our chances,” claimed Eli Grimsby, who’s heading the Olympic project for Oslo. Others view the Swiss rejection as a warning that Oslo should be careful about taking on such an expensive project as well, but Grimsby claims “this isn’t just an event that will last for 14 days. It will benefit Norwegians all over the country both before and after the Winter Games. In terms of health and activities, we’ll start four years before the games and continue afterwards.”

Oslo tourism officials and hotel operators like Petter Stordalen were predictably positive to the Olympic prospects. “I think this will be a fantastic possibility for Oslo,” Stordalen told DN. “I just hope it leads to construction of new arenas like they’re building in Stockholm even without an Olympics.” He sees benefits from economic and real estate development, and new facilities that could attract more international conferences and other visitors in the future.

Source: www.newsinenglish.no; Nina Berglund; March 7, 2013.

PowerboatNation © 2013

With the 2013 offshore racing season growing ever near, Team Gasse was thrilled to get our favorite #8 back in the water for the 2013 Miami Boat Show Poker Run! Take a look at these awesome pictures from the event, thanks to powerboatnation.com, here!

Source: www.powerboatnation.com; February 28, 2013.

Team Gasse’s owner and driver, Tor Staubo, hails from Oslo, Norway, one of the leading countries in green energy and energy efficiency innovation. Check out this exciting article about wind turbine implementation plans for Norway.

The residential and business energy-supply company EON intends to construct hundreds of megawatts of wind power generation capacity in Norway and Sweden, where development costs are lower than that of other European countries.

EON has proposals to set up 1,500 MW of wind turbines in Norway, as the country’s low population density and high wind speeds facilitate larger and cheaper projects than in Germany.

“Norway has a huge untapped potential,” said Mark Porter, the northern Europe onshore wind power director. “It’s a new market that has many cost-efficient projects. We plan to complete a handful before 2020 though not all nine farms will make it.

The Norwegian government and the European Union agreed to increase the fraction of electricity it consumes from renewable power sources to 67.5% by 2020, up 6.4% from 2010.

Norwea, which is the wind energy association of Norway, expects the installed wind generation capacity to increase to 3,500 megawatts (MW) by 2020, compared to the 620 MW that was in place on December 20.

EON also intends to install one of the world’s largest sea farms (700MW) in Sweden’s Soedra Midsjoebanken, and will export electricity from it to the Baltic region, Poland, and Germany.

“Sweden has great offshore potential, competitive with Germany and the UK, but first new physical cables are needed and it’ll likely be the back end of this decade before we can harness the potential,” Porter said yesterday from Malmoe.

According to Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, “Renewable energy will thus account for more than two-thirds of Norway’s energy consumption in 2020.”

Source: www.cleantechnica.com; Nicholas Brown; February 11, 2013.