PORT NECHES — Tim Seebold is retiring from powerboat racing after more than four decades in the cockpit after this season.

Finally, he can call himself king of the Thunder.

Seebold, 52, of Osage Beach, Missouri, won a rain-shortened Formula 1 final in the 15th annual Thunder on the Neches on Sunday. The flag official called the race after 11 of a scheduled 30 laps because of the bad weather that resulted in rough racing conditions, which led to two wrecks on the first turn.

“You just gotta go as fast as the conditions allow you to, and you never know what Mother Nature will do to you,” Seebold said. “You’ve got to be prepared for it, go as fast in the areas you can.”

Sunday’s win is just the latest addition to a long line of achievements for Seebold, a former scholarship wrestler at the University of Missouri, in 44 years of action. The reigning American Power Boat Association F1 champion, Seebold has won 16 world and national championships and, according to his online biography, won 34 F1 races, an American record.

“I’m going to run the team,” Seebold said of his future plans. “I’m going to bring my partner’s son up, Hayden, and I’m just going to do other things for boat racing besides sitting in the seat.”

The victory earned Seebold approximately $15,000.

There was plenty more drama in the Tri-Hull class, which ended in a disqualification of original winner Chris Rinker for hitting a buoy in the early part of the final. His 72-year-old father Jerry was declared the winner for the fourth time in the Thunder after beating the now-official runner-up Phillip Wolfe of Groves by about 5 inches.

“I am bad,” the elder Rinker, of Houston, said emphatically. “I am lucky.”

Very lucky.

Rinker, who earned approximately $10,000, had just run out of gas when he finished ahead of Wolfe. The two-time Tri-Hull points champion also won in the Thunder in 2009, 2011 and 2013.

“I went to the bottom of the river last year,” he said.

Wayne Barber of Port Neches was under the water for about a minute during the race after his boat overturned on the first turn with 10 laps remaining. He was not injured.

“Basically, I fogged up,” Barber said. “My glasses were fogged up. My shield was fogged up. I was breathing so hard to get air in, I was getting beat to death out there. I was breathing hard, and it was fogging up everything worse.

“I lifted my shield up to see, and then the spray from the boat ahead of me hammered me in the face so hard, I had to put my shield down because I was choking up on the water. I had just hit a turn, a wave came up that I didn’t see, and I couldn’t get ready for it. Next thing I know, I was upside down.”

Barber managed to breathe underwater with a spare air bottle.

Barber’s son Hunter led for much of the race until Chris Rinker passed him with seven laps remaining. Hunter Barber said a cylinder had dropped in his engine.

“I thought it was the spark plugs,” said Hunter Barber, who finished fourth. “We checked them, and they were all tight.”

Hunter’s mom and Wayne’s wife Forest Barber is the race organizer.

Chris Rinker had won by a comfortable margin and raised his right arm in victory at the checkered flag until he was disqualified. He was scored fifth.

“He’s going to timeout when I get home,” Jerry Rinker joked.

That would be the least of problems on a rainy, overcast day that wasn’t racing’s friend Sunday on the Neches River.

“We had a race about five or six years ago, and I had sworn I would never run that heavy in a race again,” Wayne Barber said. “I guess I forgot.”