Happy Holidays From Billy Boat( A Real Nice Guy)

December 25, 2002; Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Billy Boat

In this holiday season, I wanted to take the time to thank all my friends and fans for their support during the 2002 Indy Racing League season. The encouragement many of you expressed during the year was greatly appreciated.

I am sure many people are wondering about the status of Curb/Agajanian/Boat Indy Racing. Although we had many people working on major sponsorship and I was confident at least one of the three or four deals we had in the works would come to fruition, at this time Curb Records is still our only source of major funding. We still have many associate sponsors on board, but with the costs of new cars and the engine program, we are unable to commit to a full season program at this time. We are constantly exploring new ideas and looking at all of our options, but obviously March is just around the corner and time is running short.

One of those options may be running one or two Infiniti Pro Series cars out of my shop in Phoenix. I have kept Darrell Soppe (team manager and engineer), Terry Wilbert (chief mechanic), and John Jones (lead mechanic) on board during the winter (I do not believe laying everyone off during the winter builds a great team), and we have a number of new and existing drivers/teams excited about the possibility of partnering with us. This also allows us to explore a possible an Indy/limited schedule in the IRL. There is no doubt the small teams have been hit the hardest with the changes in the Indy Racing League, but hard work and determination (along with primary sponsorship) is the only way to take a team to that next level.

The Christmas season is about family, and I am happy to report my family is doing great. My oldest daughter, Trisha, got her drivers license in August, so her instruction is to drive like I tell her to drive, not like I drive. My younger girls stay busy with performing dance and cheer (racing makes you sweat too much), while my son Chad just wrapped up the Arizona Karting Association Junior 1 championship (winning 11 of 17 races on the dirt oval), his third after two quarter midget championships. My lovely wife Andrea holds down the fort at home and does all the Christmas shopping, including buying gifts for the children of the 60 employees at Billy Boat Performance Exhaust and the race team.

While looking at my kids Christmas list, I noticed that all of them had "For Dad to find a sponsor". Although I appreciate the effort, I told them to pray for those who protect our country and their families and for those less fortunate that may not have as much at Christmas. But if Santa wants to bring Dad a sponsor it would be ok.

Merry Christmas and God Bless. Billy