Attend an offshore race this season and chances are you’ll find yourself hanging out in the Miss GEICO pits during the weekend. Whether it’s the music, steak-and-lobster dinners or the large inflatable palm trees, the Miss GEICO pits have become the main attraction for racers and volunteers. And nothing makes John Haggin happier than to see the hospitality area full of adults and children having fun. The philosophy of the AMF Offshore Racing team is to have a good time, but also contribute to the communities they visit.

“To me it’s just giving back,” Haggin said. “It’s a nice atmosphere and I just want people to have some fun.”

But for Haggin, the giving extends beyond feeding people dinner and offering up some cold beverages. Haggin is serious when he says he wants to put offshore racing into the national conscience, and he’s spending millions of dollars of his own money to make it happen.

Besides supporting the turbine-powered Miss GEICO catamaran-one of the fastest boats on the circuit –he provides sponsorship money for eight other teams that run in various offshore classes. In total, the AMF Offshore Racing squad is compromised of 13 teams or “lucky 13” as Haggin calls it.

“My whole concept is to get kids off the couches and the remote control out of their hands and go out and have some good clean fun with their families,” he said.

The 51-year-old Haggin attended his first race at age 6 and recounts the story of watching a boat slam into one of the docks. He was impressed by the racers who would run out into the middle of the ocean in the large open-cockpit boats.

Haggin started racing Jersey Speed Skiffs in 1982 and ran his share of offshore boats. Nowadays, the Palm Beach, Fla. resident says he leaves the racing “to the younger and better-skilled guys.”

But the memories of attending races as a kid have stuck with him. Haggin expects the AMF racers to go out of their way to sign autographs for children and spend time showing off the hardware. Call them ambassadors of the sport.

“Even if there is a TV camera on you or there is a big sponsor talking to you, if a little boy comes up and wants an autograph, you stop and sign it,” said Marc Granet, driver of the Miss GEICO catamaran. “It’s about the children. The second you turn your back on what really matters, that’s the beginning of the decline.”

All of the AMF sponsorships are for one year. The sponsorship is not based on their racecourse results but rather on what they give back to the community. For example, racers will go visit at a local elementary school.

“It’s got nothing to do with performance and it all has to do with sportsmanship,” said Granet, noting that some teams did not have their sponsorships renewed.

Talk with Haggin for a few minutes and you’ll find few people who are enthusiastic about offshore racing as he is. Since storming on to the national racing scene several years ago, Haggin’s goal has been to get offshore racing in television. While it has appeared on several regional sports networks, it has yet to make the big time.

But according to Haggin, the fluorescent yellow Miss GEICO boat will be in GEICO television advertisements starting early May. And Haggin along with the catamaran, are going to appear with billionaire Warren Buffett at the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha, Neb. (Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns the GEICO insurance company.)

“I would like it to be more televised like NASCAR,” Haggin said. “I want to raise the public awareness… so they can meet people like the throttleman Scotty Begovich.”

Granet has a master plan, and that’s to turn the Miss GEICO boat into a national icon, similar to the Miss Budweiser hydroplane. The Unlimited hydroplane left the sport in 2004 and was one of the country’s most identifiable boats.

“There is no national icon boat,” Granet said. “Hopefully by creating that, it will bring more interest to the sport and that will develop some larger sponsors.”

For now, AMF’s sponsorship of eight offshore race teams has helped the sport of offshore racing hold its own during an era when many racers are turning to poker runs.

That is why Haggin and everyone involved with AMF Offshore Racing received this year’s Viking Spirit Award. The award was named after the magazine’s founder, Bob Nordskog, and his marathon boat that is in the Motorsports Hall of Fame in Novi, Mich. Only two other people have received the award (Mark Kowalski in 2004 and Ed Cooper in 2005).

It’s AMF Offshore Racing's support of the sport and its efforts to help grow it that makes Haggin such a worthy recipient.

“I want to create a new generation of heroes for kids,” Haggin said. “I want them to have wholesome heroes instead of the guys in (professional) sports.”

And ask anyone in the sport, they’ll tell you he’s doing everything he can to pull it off. A few words of advice-don’t bet against John Haggin and AMF Offshore Racing.