In the wake of two separate boat accidents connected to OPA Racing’s recent offshore race in Michigan City, IN—one on the course, one off—two Super Cat teams are quickly converting a catastrophic day into a mutual golden opportunity.

The first mishap involved Super Cat Class’s KLOVAR, the 388 Skater raced by Randy Keys and Bill Allen (previously campaigned as Dependable Marine). Keys, the boat's owner/driver, had recently arrived in Michigan City when he received a call from his crew that the boat had been involved in a collision with another vehicle while being trailered to Indiana. Keys jumped into Allen's pickup truck and drove two hours to meet them; a few of his crew members suffered minor injuries, while the boat landed upside-down after sliding on the highway and ending up on the median near a cornfield.

The second crisis involved KLOVAR's Super Cat competitor, Dirty Money, a 2010 Skater previously campaigned variously as Stihl, Gone Again and, most recently, Justice League. Driver Bill Pyburn, racing with Rusty Williams on throttles (filling in for Jason Ventura), crashed during the race. Pyburn and Williams were unhurt, but the boat was demolished.

With no boat to race for the remainder of the season, Dirty Money's owners, Beau and Tiffiney Renfroe, went to Skater to inquire about building a new boat. "We were told that it would be close to a year, maybe a little longer, before we could get a new hull," Beau Renfroe says. "At the time, KLOVAR was sitting right next to us in Skater's shop. We'd heard a rumor that Randy Keys was debating about what to do next, so we reached out to him, just to give it a shot and see if we could acquire the boat. After going back and forth on some figures, we finally agreed on a number."

While the KLOVAR hull is being repaired at Skater, it is being rebranded as the new Dirty Money, and should be ready to go to compete in Key West later in the year. "Stephen Miles came on board and jumped right onto the task of getting some renderings done," Pyburn told Speedboat. "He has been working with me for the past week, and he's done a truly phenomenal job. It really looks great. We're really excited to have that part of it done now, and we're looking forward to getting everything else finished." The boat will be partially repainted by Skater, and will be wrapped by Ryan Beckley at his shop, Kinetic Animation, based in Bradenton, FL.

The Dirty Money team's goal, Renfroe says, is to have at least a good solid week after the restoration to test it prior to November's world finals races in Key West. "I'm sure we're going to be making many flights to Skater over the next month or so, but whatever it takes, we're going to get it done," Renfroe says.

Although there was between $70,000 and $100,000 worth of damage to KLOVAR—as well as to the truck and the trailer—the team at Skater is already hard at work transforming it into the next-generation Dirty Money. "There was relatively little damage," Keys says. "There was some damage to the canopy, but nothing too horrible."

Adds Renfroe: "(Skater founder) Peter Hledin builds a great boat—we learned that from our accident as well. Dirty Money suffered significant damage to the front, but the canopy and the cockpit stayed intact." The boat will be getting a new two-man canopy to replace the damaged four-man canopy.

Pyburn, a racing veteran and longtime poker-run enthusiast, tells Speedboat that the Dirty Money accident was actually his first mishap on the water. "In all my years of boating, I've never been wet," he says. "And even this time, we didn't get wet until we had to swim to the safety boat. Everybody was sure that we must have gotten hurt, that it had to have been bad. But no, it really wasn't. People can't believe it, but it was pretty uneventful. It just looked way worse on the outside of the boat compared to what was going on inside it."

As for Randy Keys, don't count him out of the offshore game. After racing an MTI 390XR in 450R Factory Stock class during the 2022 season, he was already well into making his mark in Super Cat in 2023, and he's more determined than ever to experience the culmination of that dream.

"I'm already in talks with some different people," he says of finishing out the season. "I may buy another boat to race in the 450R class, but there's a fairly decent chance I'll end up in the Super Stock class. I just need something to do during my downtime with Super Cat. Also, my daughter Addison turns 16 next year, and I'm hoping to jump in a boat with her. We just don't know which boat yet. But it's looking extremely promising that we'll be in another boat soon. I'd love to campaign a boat at Key West."

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