Teams

BullShip

Garage Headquarters: The Mews, Wakefield, RI

Driver: Don Coyne

Mechanics: Brian Cotsonas, Mike Renaud, Ryan Richard, Dennis Gershkoff, Doug Snow

Nuts and Bolts:

Team BullShip has it all. These Rhode Islanders know they’ll be swimming with the sharks in the highly competitive ranks of soapbox drivers, so they’ve masterminded an entry that will leverage local color, youthful enthusiasm, professional guidance, and even a celebrity driver.

Two of the team’s mechanics, Ryan Richard and Doug Snow, work for the South Kingstown School System, and they’re involving students and families from the oceanside community of Wakefield in every aspect of Bull Ship effort. “We have the Shop students building the racer, and students from the Art department working on painting and design,” Snow notes, “plus on race day we’re going to have people dressed as sailors and mermaids.” The biggest fish in the pond will doubtless be the team’s driver, Don Coyne, a popular (and, the teammates jibe, extremely “handsome”) sportscaster for ABC6 News. “For my ‘Don’s Fishing the Ocean State’ show and www.fishingtheoceanstate.com website, I get to try a lot of fun things – but never anything quite like this!” he laughs. Coyne, Richard, Snow, and their fellow soapbox teammates Brian Cotsonas, Dennis Gershkoff, and Mike Renaud have played beach volleyball together in Narragansett for the past fifteen years. “We’re just bringing our competitive spirit to a new venue,” Snow grins, “where hopefully we’ll get less sand and more hands in our pants.”