The Great Unification

[MOBILEMERCMAN]

I will do that pick a dyno. Take a sample 525 from your fleet and my engine.
Steve

George with the IMCO boat lives in your area.

 

[Sean Stinson]

So the way I see it right now that the general consensus of all with the exception of a few is "Why Bother, It will never work".....So that's the position everyone is going to hold firm at??????

 

[XtremeRacing]

Steve,

You make some very valid point, I guess we need to look back at history and try not to make the same mistakes.

 

[Steve Miklos]

Exactly! Nothing has been learned so this situation (or something similar) will happen over and over again. The racers need to realize they are lucky to have a place to race their equipment.
Most racers spend half of their time wishing a competing circuit will fail rather then supporting the sport. With the OSS crowd "United we race" always has strings attached.
Steve

 

[Steve Miklos]

So the way I see it right now that the general consensus of all with the exception of a few is "Why Bother, It will never work".....So that's the position everyone is going to hold firm at??????

Well as you know Mike and I and some others sure tried. After that Bob Bull tried. Before that Gene Whipp.
Steve

 

[Steve Miklos]

George with the IMCO boat lives in your area.

I know and trust George well. He also knows how a Vortec runs as he has raced one in his boat.
Steve

 

[Wahoo 214]

Guys this is all great but there are some things that need to be realized to ever move forward:

Show me a sponsor that is happy with their Offshore Racing experience (Mercury Racing does not count)

Show me race promoter that has made money repeatedly. I know of 2. Sarasota and Key West.

Show me an independent promoter who has made money in the last 5 years.

You must ask yourself. Why would anyone bother to put a race on for the racers? Whats in it for them?

The same rings true for a sponsor. Whats in it for them?

So let's suppose you do get it all going. What would you do to prevent the next boycott?

This was the case when the economy was at a very high level. How can it possibly work now?

Racers are thumbing their nose at a circuit with TV and a sponsor. You have to ask. How can you be viewed by the sponsors or IRS as a for profit racing team?

If you did have a real sponsor they will demand the most exposure possible (TV the bigger the better).

So if you land a real one you need to get to where they get a return, or you will have nothing.

So let's suppose you do get it all going what would you do to prevent the next boycott? There were guys with real deals that lost them in the boycott (no one cared).

Bob Bull had everything in place in 2004 (sponsors, speed TV etc) after the 2003 boycott but was still boycotted, why? He was left to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on races. I would bet all of you wish he would still do what he did today.

How can the racers ever gain corporate Americas trust when the do not act like professional racers and deliver the best exposure possible for their sponsor? Why because they walked out to race for a not for profit with next to zero commercial exposure? No one will ever understand it but you can keep trying to sell it. After 5 years if you cant sell it ,nobody's buying.

Steve

There needs to be an Owner, call it Corp America, that will contract with the sites to create the series. The racers are signed to a contract so they have to compete for say 3 years. That is probably the best you can get.

 

[Steve Miklos]

There needs to be an Owner, call it Corp America, that will contract with the sites to create the series. The racers are signed to a contract so they have to compete for say 3 years. That is probably the best you can get.

Sounds good but the contract would be very hard to enforce. In F1 auto racing you post a bond and lose it if you miss a race. In F1 the TV rights pay out well (although Bernie keeps a good bit).

If you needed to post a bond the barrier to entry would be higher so quality would cost quantity.

I had proposed in 2001 when we had 15 +- Supercat teams. To limit it to 10. The first ten who registered for the year (paid all entry fees up front). Would be granted a Supercat franchise.

The thought was it would create a value for a team not just the equipment (boat). If you wanted in Supercat you would have to buy a team. If you were to stop participating you lost your franchise.
Steve

 

[TYPHOON]

Heatwave, No I do not mean a power to weight program. Possably a HP to HP program if the teams in SVL are interesed. Is it possable to have a ECM programed so no one could get into it except inovation on the Vortec motors?
MD

 

[Ratickle]

Heatwave, No I do not mean a power to weight program. Possably a HP to HP program if the teams in SVL are interesed. Is it possable to have a ECM programed so no one could get into it except inovation on the Vortec motors?
MD

Can't you just download the ECM official program at the race the day of/day before?

For all ECM's?

 

[Sean Stinson]

there needs to be an owner, call it corp america, that will contract with the sites to create the series. The racers are signed to a contract so they have to compete for say 3 years. That is probably the best you can get.

exactly, exactly, exactly (spoken as loud as I can say it)

 

[Sean Stinson]

That would take care of potential boycotts

 

[Steve Miklos]

Can't you just download the ECM official program at the race the day of/day before?

For all ECM's?

Yes that is the best way.
Steve

 

[TYPHOON]

Steve, are you interested in racing in Sunny Isle? We would like to acomidate you if we can. Please e-mail me what you think would be fair. I need to propose this to the class. I am willing to listen if you want. It seems the SVL teams still racing want to race as many boats as possable.
MD

 

[SHARKEY-IMAGES]

I recall racing my BULLET 130 in the APBA OPC E-Production class and they would make a custom color with multiple colors of nail polish to seal all of the key parts of the powerhead. Can this not be done here as well after all of the ECM's were put in place ? Seal the connections....

I had the same argument with the Powerboat P1 a few years ago. The connections I heard were not sealed leaving someone an open opportunity to cheat... I understand they made that one of the changes for the following year as there was some speculation of some funny business going on....

Seal 'em all up I say !!! :sifone:

 

[Steve Miklos]

Steve, are you interested in racing in Sunny Isle? We would like to acomidate you if we can. Please e-mail me what you think would be fair. I need to propose this to the class. I am willing to listen if you want. It seems the SVL teams still racing want to race as many boats

I will check with Adib on his scedule currently we are in on Thursday leave friday night. If we cannot make this work we would do another event.
Thanks
Steve

 

[Fever Mike]

Well as you know Mike and I and some others sure tried. After that Bob Bull tried. Before that Gene Whipp.
Steve

+1 on this...I tried along with these guys. I crewed, I raced and I was a tech inspector/official for APBA. I also came up with and wrote the P-Class rules which just basically gave L-Class direction and rules to go by and let the sancationing body make the decesions instead of the local boat club. I believe this class has turned into one of if not the most succesful class in offshore racing in recent years. I took my tech/official job seriously and tried to grow this sport. I tried to do my part and learned real quick that racers are some of the most ungrateful bunch of people I have ever been around.

You all wonder why this so called sport failed and keeps dwindling down to 1 to 2 boats per class! You all want to call yourselves professional racers but you are not even on par with car club races! Ever gone to a Porsche Club race, SCCA, NASA(National Auto Sport Assoc.) race? Well, I have been to many and I meet a lot of ex-boat racers or guys that could afford to boat race but chose not to for all the reasons I read about in this thread and all the other threads year and after year. Feb 2009 Porsche Club race at Sebring had well over 250 cars entered...yeah remember the few years when just about that many boats would show up to a race? I do!...It's not the economy that has turned away so many boat racers through the years. It is the child like unprofessionalism of racers and sancationing bodies that turn these people away. It has been a revolving door of racers and people behind the scenes for years and these quality people have run out. You can't just keep replacing them and now you have what you have...1-2 boats per class...what a joke...not much competition....who care to win a trophy by runing around the circut by yourself...how boring!

 

[Fever Mike]

Isn't this what APBA LLC was doing? I believe it was!

OK let me give you an example of what I am talking about

1) A level playing field for each class.....
2) Strong competitive class with several boats that compete
3) Tech rules that are enforceable and punishable
4) Show up money for anything over 500 miles
5) Contingency programs that reward the racers that do well
6) Prize Money and not prize money to recoup my expenses paid down 3 places
a) Third place pays you enough to recoup your expenses
b) Second pays double Third
c) First will pay a very very nice purse
7) TV coverage primetime live every race......
8) A national championship that if you win pays a disgusting display of wealth
9) A world championship that actually carries an inherent honor of winning it along with the above disgusting display of wealth prize purse!!!
10) A global world championship that if you win that YOU ARE THE MF'ing MAN
11) A gala event in the winter that everyone attends and is honored for their accomplishments much like the Oscars
12)Stay tuned I have a lot more

 

[Coach]

The next few weeks...

So it's true the way the situation has fragmented down to. Here's a positive next perspective.... over the next few weeks, after the OPA event, then there will be a reunion scenario in south Florida, available. It's obvious I realize, but just to make a point here, take your equipment and bring your team down to Ft. Lauderdale and race for two weekends in a row down there. Support the hard work invested into these two premiere race sites, and get back to that, passion and need for speed!

Someone start a thread for boat storage, in Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area, and build a list of safe and secure situations. The SBIP, and OSS events in June are capable of being incredible for everyone, just like the good old days!

Someone said on here, we need more racers and fewer talkers... There is some racing going on here the next three weeks, baby! Let's do this...

Coach

 

[Chris]

I wouldn't say my viewpoint is entirely negative, but the sport certainly has some barriers.

First off, how do you get the average person interested enough to care? There aren't enough of "us" to get a soap, beer or tobacco company to go deep with their wallets, so you need outside fans. You're most likely not going to attract thes fans from outside of the motorsport enthusiast community, so you need to take a portion of their attention away from other motorsports. So how do you do that? Wheeled motorsports is very easy for the average person to relate to and even those folks are having trouble retaining fans- NASCAR is losing viewership quickly. Drag racing is a dedicated but small sliver. Indy Cars is about the same. Formula 1 has a statistically insignificant fan base. So where are these new fans coming from? And more to the point, why should they? Where's the action? After the initial impact of the speed, size and power of the boats, what makes me want to spend my beautiful summer Saturday afternoon in front of my TV- more than once? NASCAR can't even retain these people anymore. I read recently that the average fan ranked the pit stop action very high on their interest scale- and the networks were cutting to commercials and skipping that part. If the competition isn't holding their interest, what does it take?

The real issue is this is all before we address the issue of a dozen classes on the course at the same time and no real way to tell who's racing who- especially if there's only one or two boats in that class.

There's just so much more competing for the average person's attention these days. Can you imagine making a list of what people's interests were in 1984 and sitting it next to a list from now, 25 years later? The sport needs to completely reinvent itself and become non-enthusiast friendly or it will continue to be a niche sport. Reunification will happen, but only because of a constricted marketplace that forces consolidation. And then the economy strengthens and entrepreneurship kicks in and you'll have a breakaway- either an enterprising club or new pro series. And the cycle will begin again.