Team Woody
Just a couple of good buddies from Texas that like to race boatsStory
by Michael Pearce | Photos courtesy of Ryan Walker
It’s an impressive armada that can be seen on Possum Kingdom Lake just about any day of the week.
Among the eye-catching watercraft are $100,000 bass fishing boats – some seemingly with more electronics than a NASA project – as well as ski/wakeboard boats with enough power to pull a dozen folks at a time, and houseboats so opulent they probably should be called “mansion boats†instead.
But even those owners should just weigh anchor and watch when Billy Shipley and Chad Woody unload one of their vessels on PK’s waters. Their speedboats can be up to 35 feet long, with twin engines sporting up to 1,000 horsepower to accelerate to more than 100 mph before cutting a tight turn at 75 mph with the ease and grace of a NASCAR champion.
To watch those boats in action is to understand why Shipley and Woody have won multiple national and world championships. Team Woody Off-Shore Racing, the name they chose for their team, has all but taken over the sport of speedboat racing in just a few years, and last year the two men won national and world championships with each of the three boats they race.
A couple of good buddies from Texas
Despite a dominance rarely seen in any sport, Shipley and Woody haven’t let success go to their heads.
“We’re really just a couple of good buddies from Texas who love to race boats,†said Shipley, a general contractor from Weatherford. “Doing all of this together, and with our families and all of the great friends we’ve made, is really the most important part of all of this.â€
Shipley has deep ties to PK. For many years he piloted a boat on the lake almost every weekend, but that was before the racing bug bit and consumed so much of his time. PK remains his official testing and pleasure, spot, though, and his mother, Debbie Benjamin, lives near the lake.
Shipley said he and Woody met in 2012 and have been close ever since, adding: “It was like we’d been best friends for years. We really hit it off. Our families hit it off. It’s like we’re members of each other’s families.â€
From beginning to world championships in a hurry
In 2014, Chad Woody and his father, Tom, invited Shipley to tag along to watch boat races in Florida. After watching races at Cocoa Beach and Key West, the partnership took shape, and the name “Team Woody Off-Shore Racing†was chosen to honor Tom Woody.
The two men bought their first boat in 2015, then bought another racing boat in 2019, followed by yet another in 2020 so they could race in more classifications.
The partners won a national championship in 2018, then followed that success with a world championship in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled most of the 2020 races
The partnership dominated the speedboat racing world in 2021 by taking national and world championships with all three boats, and it’s the only boat-racing team to race three vessels.
“We kind of kicked in the door and took all of the toys,†Shipley said. “It is a lot easier to keep track of things when you’ve just won it all.â€
The good buddies didn’t buy those world-class boats to have other people pilot them, though. They race as a team, with Woody manning the throttle and Shipley controlling the steering.
“It takes great communication and skill on both parts,†Shipley said. “You have to think alike and react alike. Chad and I seem to communicate perfectly without saying a word. It’s a team event.â€
Team Woody normally attends about nine major races each year, and most of those take place either in an ocean or one of the Great Lakes. The two men enjoy some poker runs on other inland waters, too.
The importance of piloting skills
Shipley said the oval-shaped courses range from 4½ to 7½ miles long, and the races total 40 to 60 miles, depending on conditions. All boats are limited to a maximum break-out speed, depending on size classifications, and all classes of boats have maximum speeds they can obtain. Any boat that exceeds that speed for more than three seconds is disqualified.
“The turns are where races are won and lost,†Shipley said. “The crucial thing is to maintain speed going into, and quickly accelerate coming out of, a turn. We have some turns we may hit at 75 mph, though. So much of it boils down to the skill of the people in the boat.â€
He said things can get a bit dicey, especially in rough seas, at such speeds. Accidents happen, mostly in the form of single-boat crashes. Shipley told of one such mishap involving an unexpectedly deep swell that dropped a boat several feet and injured those on board.
Other boats have flipped, an experience Shipley said they narrowly avoided.
“We had an experience when we turned a boat on its side and were fortunate it didn’t go over,†he said. “That scared us pretty good – and reminded us how fast things can turn ugly out on the water.â€
Most high-profile racing sports have extensive safety procedures at their events, but few can match the precautions of speedboat racing. Shipley said it’s not uncommon for up to a dozen rescue boats to be scattered about a course, and helicopters are aloft the whole time, carrying divers specially trained to be dropped at the scene of a crash within seconds.
The waters also are scanned continuously for any possible debris or anything that could cause problems, including endangered wildlife.
“In Florida, they scan the course for manatee and sea turtles,†Shipley said. “If they find them, they have to halt the races because they can’t legally scare them off. We once sat for two hours waiting for a turtle to get off the course so we could race. It’s pretty humorous when you think about it.â€
Texans keeping it fun
He credited the team’s agreed-upon goal of safety first – and remembering they’re racing more for fun rather than victories or titles – for their nearly unblemished safety record.
Shipley said one of the team’s greatest enjoyments is interacting with racing fans, of which there may be up to 100,000 scattered along Florida’s Cocoa Beach during every annual May race there.
While the races may only last an hour, Shipley said many fans are there for several days. Looking at the boats and talking to crews is a huge attraction for most fans, Shipley said, and he and Woody try to accommodate as many of those fans as possible.
Shipley said they especially like letting youngsters climb aboard their boat for photos with the racers, noting that he’s gotten many appreciative e-mails from parents for the time they’d spent with their children.
Shipley and Woody have agreed to keep fan interaction, especially with families, a high priority. After all, they’re “just a couple of good buddies from Texas who love to race boats,†Shipley said.
With multiple world championships, to boot.
