Rick Lindsey, head of XINSURANCE and the company's fleet of offshore race competitors, is selling his XINSURANCE South 45' Victory Pro Class 1 boat to Outta Pocket Racing, Speedboat has learned.
The boat, previously campaigned by Bill Pyburn and Brit Lilly, will be driven by its new owner, Kevin Birrell, with veteran racer and current World Champion Billy Moore on throttles.
"We're partnering with Outta Pocket Racing, and there's a five-year agreement in place with a lease option to buy," Lindsey says. "I'm glad that it worked out when it did, and I'm excited to just keep going forward with good people."
Although this will be Birrell's first time in offshore competition, he is a longtime boater, having owned numerous vee bottoms and purchasing a 46' Skater in 2019. That led to his purchase of a 388 Skater last year, and attending dozens of poker runs and shootout events.
"I'm leasing the boat I expect to own it within two years," Birrell says. "The name 'Outta Pocket' came about because I tend to say some outlandish stuff that my friends say is 'out of pocket,' an we just thought it would be a good name for the team So we just formed it and we decided we're gonna go racing. We're going to try something new. I've always wanted to race. I've been going to Key West since the early 1990s. It took us a little while to get a deal in place, but it finally came together and we're happy about it."
Will Casciano, director of race operations for Outta Pocket racing, says the team plans to have the boat at the season's first race, in St. Petersburg, FL, March 27–29. "We're feverishly trying to get it ready," he said. "We're testing this weekend, and then we're going be testing next weekend and a little bit next week as well."
"We've always been fans of racing, and this lifelong dream of his," Casciano says. "We've talked about it for a long time. So when Rick posted that he might sell the boat, we started to think seriously about it. It was kind of a joke at first, but then we started to look into it and figured out what it would cost and everything that it would entail. It just made sense, so now we're here."
That, coupled with having Moore as his throttleman and boat’s primary caretaker, should garner positive results in short order. Moore helped Mike Falco earn back-to-back World Championships in the esteemed Pro Class 1 series. Moore will be pulling double duty this season as the throttleman for Diggin’ Deep Super Stock team with owner/driver Andy Miller.
"It came together very quickly," Billy Moore tells Speedboat of the deal with Lindsey and Birrell. "Kevin is coming here to North Carolina this weekend, and we'll probably run the boat all weekend long. We'll set up a course here on the Pamlico River and get some seat time. We're not going to St. Pete to try and set the world on fire per se—we'll just let Kevin get acclimated to racing. He's done a lot of poker run stuff, but it's not the same."
"I've been talking to Billy for five years now," Lindsey says. "I've known him and liked him, and when Mike Falco of Defalco Racing decided to move on, it became an opportunity. Kevin and Billy will be working together to make the best performance they can. I'm lucky that Billy became available. Everything works out for a reason."
The team has only a short timeframe to put some seat time in the boat and get it ready for racing. Casciano says the boat will likely see some changes in graphics (i.e., adding the Outta Pocket Racing branding), while XINSURANCE will continue to sponsor the boat this season.
Birrell says the current plan is to race most of the IHRA schedule, as well as some of the dates scheduled by Race World Offshore, including the World Championships in Key West. "I'm assuming we're going to go to Lake of the Ozarks. I heard it's a lot of fun. It's possible we do everything minus Orange Beach, AL (Sept. 11-13). Right now, we're just focused on trying to get ready for St. Pete and New Orleans."