Monday, July 18, 2016

Mark Gerner readies for the 2016 Long Beach to Catalina and Back Offshore National Championship PWC Race

July 7 2016
Mark Gerner at the 2016 Mark Hahn race, a race he won in 2009.  Photo by Mr. David Puu 

Mark Gerner readies for the 2016 Long Beach to Catalina and Back Offshore National Championship PWC Race

Former Triple Crown and Mark Hahn 300 mile race Champion and PWCOFFSHORE.COM founder Mark Gerner has picked up his momentum with both training and pushing the technical envelope with the Kawasaki ULTRA platform, all in preparation for this year's 2016 Long Beach to Catalina and Back Race aka "The LB2CAT," a 56.5 mile PWC race across the channel to Avalon and back to the Queen Mary (Long Beach), a channel that has been known to present potentially brutal sea state conditions.  In 2015 Gerner broke the all time record by three (3) minutes with a time of 51 minutes and 50 seconds from Long beach to Catalina and back, but Craig Warner of Monster Energy Kawasaki beat Gerner by 30 seconds and took the championship.  "Breaking the record by such a significant margin but not taking the championship on that day has only strengthened my resolve" said Gerner, a former Marine Corps Infantry Officer.

Mark Gerner
With more podium finishes in this race than most racers combined, Gerner is always in contention.   Since and including 2009, Gerner has either come in second place behind Monster Energy Factory Kawasaki's Craig Warner or he has been in the lead and had a mechanical issue that took him out of the race (editors note - minus 2014 when he had a mechanical issue on the start line). 

Gerner's weeknights are dedicated to gym work and weekends are dedicated to water time.  "I don't care who you are or how successful you've become, you can always get better and it takes commitment and hard work" said Gerner.

Gerner will be piloting a Turbo Powered Pro Open Kawasaki ULTRA 310 built buy Joshua Paddock.  "I have a great deal of faith in Josh's work" said Gerner, his eye for detail and technical expertise is second to none."  The craft is rumored to be pushing close to or above 400 horsepower.

Gerner is sponsored by FLY Racing, HYDRO-TURF / HTMoto, R&D Racing Products and is supported by what he calls "The best people in the world on the PWCOFFSHORE Race Team"