Oracle Team USA race

Directly before or directly after each Louis Vuitton Cup challenger race, another duel will take place that may be more entertaining than the official race itself.

It will match the two Oracle Team USA boats. One is skippered by Jimmy Spithill, who guided BMW Oracle Racing to victory in the last America’s Cup. The other is steered by Ben Ainslie, who has won five Olympic gold medals.

“We’ve always set ourselves the goal — and it was very ambitious — that we’re going to try to get better in-house racing than the challengers get in the (official) racing,” Spithill said.

The 34-year-old Australian has already been designated as Oracle’s skipper in the America’s Cup finals, while Ainslie, 36, an Englishman who is a more recent entrant to multihull racing, is gearing up for his own Cup campaign in a few years.

Oracle team CEO Russell Coutts said it’s going to be hard to keep the two skippers and their crews from going all out against each other. But he doesn’t want to risk a catastrophic accident or even minor damage to one or both boats with so much at stake.

Will the skippers be more cautious than they normally are in a race? “We’ll see how cautious they are,” Coutts said with a laugh.