An offshore race held May 31 to June 1 at the Lake of the Ozarks, MO ended with Super Cat class throttleman Bill Pyburn and driver Brit Lilly taking the checkered flag in their Dirty Money 388 Skater. However, after the race, the pilots were accused of reckless driving by race officials, and the boat was disqualified. Thus, second-place finishers WHM Motorsports (with Billy Mauff and Jay Muller) were given the win.

Now APBA officials have overturned their decision and have reinstated Dirty Money's win following a protest filed by the team. WHM Motorsports is once again the official second-place finisher. Pyburn received the news via an email from Powerboat P1 Director of Operations Michelle Petro.

"I can’t tell you how proud I am of this team!" Pyburn told Speedboat. "It took a few extra weeks to get the WIN, but as of the morning, the ORC (Offshore Racing Congress) has sided with us on our appeal, and needless to say, we are on cloud nine. We can’t wait to get back on the course!"

According to the official rule book, "reckless driving” must have intent, Pyburn added.

Meanwhile, Brit Lilly told Speedboat that the team is very pleased with the outcome of the protest. "We're just thrilled," he says. "I've had some things go to the ORC before, but I've never been charged with reckless driving or anything like that."

Lilly explained the genesis of the original disqualfication: "I missed a turn buoy on the way to turn 1," he says. "Then there was an accident in the turn and the race was red-flagged, so that lap did not count toward any of the scoring. So there was no way for them to give me a course infraction on a lap that doesn't exist. So someone took it upon himself to decide to penalize me with reckless driving, because that's the only penalty that they could give me. Reckless driving comes with two yellow cards and an immediate disqualification. I just couldn't see how accidentally missing a buoy could be considered reckless. I've been racing for a lot of years now, and I've never missed a buoy, never put anybody's life in danger, never harmed anybody. And I just think that penalty was a little bit much for just missing a buoy."

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