Miami Herald

August 1, 1991

RACE BRINGS ROAR BACK TO THUNDERBOAT ROW

ANDRE CHRISTOPHER - Herald Sports Writer

Eli Goran, a volunteer for the Fort Apache-Hooligan's Offshore Grand Prix of Miami, turned to the person next to him on the dock at Fort Apache Marina and extended a small red canister of ear plugs. The rumbling of powerboats grew louder.

The thunder was back on Thunderboat Row -- back from an hourlong race along Miami Beach.

Back, last Saturday, from a five-year hiatus of powerboat racing.

Not since the Apache Grand Prix Offshore Powerboat Race in September 1986 had a race roared out of Thunderboat Row, the famed stretch of Northeast 188th Street between Loehmann's Plaza and the Intracoastal Waterway where boat manufacturers build some of the world's fastest -- and priciest -- boats.

"There's a tremendous mystique about Thunderboat Row," said John Kenyon, vice president of the Offshore Power Boat Racing Association. "That is a real nostalgic area. Out of any one single road in the world, I don't think there has been one that has produced the number of boats you get from there."

Thunderboat Row has been muffled most recently by a luxury tax that adds 10 percent to the cost of any boat over $100,000. The real silencer to racing, however, was the 1987 indictment of former Fort Apache Marina owner Ben Kramer.

Kramer, a former world champion, was indicted on multiple charges that included racketeering, conspiracy to possess marijuana and conducting a continuing criminal enterprise. He was convicted in March 1990.

The U.S. government sealed off the marina in August 1987, and it remained in the government's possession until April 1989 when former car dealer Juan Almeida and his partners purchased it under the corporate moniker Fort Apache Marina Inc.

Said OPBRA president Marc Mercury, "The thunder never left. Ben Kramer did."

It has taken two years, Almeida said, to rebuild a business the government was "not interested in maintaining."

"This area was hot. It was alive," Almeida said. "But in the past few years it died off. We're trying to bring it back again."

Saturday's race, the second leg of the four-race OPBRA Gold Cup Offshore Series, was a welcome revival to powerboat racing in North Dade. Hundreds of people gathered at the marina, re- creating the race atmosphere Thunderboat Row used to have.

"I overheard one of the guys with the (Offshore Professional Tour) say they should come down here," said racer Glen Gluck. "I think you'll see it like this from now on when we race from here."

Probably the biggest attraction Saturday was having rapper Vanilla Ice in the race. Ice drove the Apache Express, owned by Almeida and Phil Feldman, to the Local Class 2 title.

Ice said he knew "a whole lotta nothin' " about Thunderboat Row, but he had the attitude that Almeida said made the area so hot:

"I know they go fast," Ice said. "That's what I like to do."

Said Bob Saccenti, the owner of neighboring Apache Performance Boats who used to race with Kramer, "(Racing) can be brought back. The people want it. . . .This is the town for it. It was born here."