This episode marks the debut of Martin Ferrero as informant Izzy Moreno. Ferrero previously played the cross-dressing Calderone lieutenant and killer Trini DeSoto in the pilot episode Brother's Keeper (1984). He would go on to reprise the role of Izzy in a further twenty episodes, becoming the only character outside of the principal cast to appear in every season of the show.
The Jan Hammer track "Rico's Blues" also makes its debut in this episode, in the scene where Crockett and Tubbs visit Vanessa at her "very exclusive, very expensive" clothing store. The piece can be considered Tubbs' theme in the series, his equivalent of "Crockett's Theme", and often appears, appropriately enough, in Tubbs-centric episodes.
The boat race is one of the very few times the color red appears on the show; red was one of the colors Michael Mann 'banned' from use on the production of the series, but owing to the fact the extra boats taking part in the race were simply owned and crewed by members of the public, the production team had to relent on this occasion and allow the red speedboat to take part.
The famous boat race scene would be emulated in the Director's Cut of Miami Vice (2006), which opens with a similar race around Miami harbor.
This episode features one of the few cases where Crockett and Tubbs are not ultimately revealed as undercover police officers to the target they are chasing - McCarthy is busted by Castillo and uniformed Metro-Dade officers while Crockett and Tubbs merely look on, so as far as McCarthy is concerned, they are still the well-to-do drug dealers they always claimed to be.