Drag boat racing, much like drag racing, is a quarter mile straightaway acceleration race between two high performance boats.

Davis bought his first flat-bottomed drag boat at 26 after watching his father race as a kid. His father warned him of the addicting quality of the competition.

"He always told me you either get out of it or it kills you," Davis says, admitting his father was right, "Every year we just started going a little bit faster."

That was until one day in 1998 when Davis nearly took his boat airborne at speeds in excess of 150mph at a race in Bakersfield, California.

"The boat tilted into the air and landed back on its bottom," he recalls. "I road down the rest of the track, put it on the trailer and never drove it again."

Three months later however, he bought a safer "hydroplane" drag boat with a hull shaped like the pontoons of a catamaran. He christened it Cent$less (meaning "dumb and broke") and returned to the water.

Now Davis is holding fourth place in the 2008 IHBA Championship and he is confident he can still finish off the season on top.

"We're trying to get the high points championship" he says. "With three races left it's still mathematically possible. I think we still have a good shot at it."

Well, ranking at No. 2174 on this year's Inc. 5000 is almost as sweet, don't you think?

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