Expect plenty of thrills on the tight .78-mile Lake Avalon course. 

“It’s gonna be a tight course,” he said after making a few Media Day laps and reaching a top speed of about 120 mph in his 17-footer. “If we have 15 F1 boats, that will be perfect for this course. Our final is going to be 50 laps and lapped boats obviously become the obstacle. But I predict that the top four or five boats will be within two seconds of each other at the end of the race.”

There will be qualifying and heat races to determine the starting order for the Sunday finale.

The weekend festival will also put the finishing touches on the F1 and F2 ChampBoat Series seasons, and in order to earn his third points title in the last five years, Seebold must make up a 160-point deficit over front-runner Terry Rinker of Tampa. In second place, a scant 49 points behind Rinker, is Homestead native Sean Torrente. 

“It’s a decent lead,” Seebold said of Rinker’s cushion. “Is it impossible to overtake him? No. We’re going to come here to win the race and wherever the rest of the chips fall, well, that’s racing.”

The ChampBoat drivers haven’t raced since Aug. 10. It was then that Seebold piloted his famous No. 16 tunnel boat to his first win of the year in the Chris Craft Cup. The race took place on the rough waters of the St. Clair River in Algonac, Mich., just north of downtown Detroit.

Seebold, in his 29th season of powerboat racing and the owner of five F1 Champboat titles, said he expects all the teams to be well-prepared for the season finale despite the layoff.

“More so than the layoff, it’s the fact that we’re at a new site,” he said. “When you go where you’ve been before, you can always use last year’s notes. Here, it’s a clean sheet of paper for everybody.”

The 2008 series started in May in Pickwick, Tenn. Subsequent events were held in Bay City, Mich., Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Algonac. 

The St. Clair River course was the longest in the series, measuring 1.5 miles. The laps will go by much quicker on the shorter Lake Avalon course.

Seebold has the experience to know that, as in most forms of motor sports, some days will go better than others.

“The guy who wins championships is the guy who has the best off day,” he said. “It may sound kind of funny, but that’s the way it usually works. When you have a bad day, you’ve still got to be able to do as good as you can.”

The beginning of each race will feature an exciting “Le Mans start,” with all boats lined up at the dock and leaving on command. The first boats to reach the actual rectangular course will have the early upper hand.

“With a course this tight, it will be all about acceleration. Top speed won’t matter than much. It will be who can get from 0 to 120 miles per hour the fastest. It’s going to be tight for passing.”

Seebold comes from a family that was bitten a long time ago by the boat racing bug. His father, Bill, captured many championships over a 46-year career and now resides in the local Cedar Hammock development. Bill Seebold has been a “mentor” to race chairman Brian Ohlis of Naples and has helped coordinate a number of the details for the upcoming special.

Child Speed is a charity organization Ohlis has created in order to help serve local children in need. For more information about the event, contact Ohlis at 239-253-0557 or e-mail him at jbohlis@comcast.net.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it