June on the Gulf Coast can only mean one thing: time for some multistage beach cat racing!

This year marks the 12th running of the Great Texas 300—a marathon event in which many teams are forced to drop out before they even have a chance to truly get going, as their dreams come to grief in the heavy surf of the race’s signature beach starts.

As in years past, the 2014 event begins on South Padre Island, Texas, and finishes up three days and 300 miles later in Galveston. Interestingly, this descendent of the celebrated Worrell 1000 is no longer the only game in town. In May, a dozen different beach cat teams also took part in something called the Florida 300 (florida300.com), which kicked off in Islamorada, Florida, and finished up four stages later in Cocoa Beach.

Here’s wishing the best of luck to the new game in town and hoping it’s the beginning of a trend. Even in an era replete with “extreme” events, multistage beach cat racing remains, in many ways, the ultimate adrenaline rush. For details, visit greattexas300.com.

Photo courtesy of GT300/Chris Zander