It started going bad in the Nordskog days when he was pres. of APBA, He said that the UIM world championships were out of the grasp of the average guy campaigning an open class boat, that`s why the Italians were winning the championships, they hired the top guns from america and had 2, 3, and 4, boats campaining around the world. As a result of his work came the single format world championships which stayed UIM for awhile. Under the rules you had to compete in your own APBA or Italian , South American and European, races to qualify to participate, and you had to finish all races in the top three positions. We had to have permission and be sponsored by APBA or other bodies to Race for the UIM world championship.
Bottom line is that there were three sanctioning bodies who worked TOGETHER !!!!!!! UIM was the ultimate sanctioning body, then APBA, then the Local clubs who were APBA affiliates. All used the same rule books, and had the same recognized classes. I think it was three classes recognized world wide. Open class for the big guys, Modified class, Production class, . The local club classes could have run what you brung classes, but if you wanted to compete nationally you had to be a member of a club and a member of APBA, If you raced UIM also you had to have a letter from your APBA afiliated club saying you were qualified and were sponsored.
Seemed simple enough and worked pretty good until the Indy split. Now nobody knows who`s who, and like Brownie says we got more World Champions than carter has pills. In the day we had a UIM ultimate world Champion which was represenatative all the world local clubs, and all the world sanctioning bodies. After that you had your US1 champions in APBA as did the Europeans have ther champions. After that you had your club champions in there respective areas. Like I said Simple days simple times. Hope I have made some sense about how it was and everyone pretty much knows what happened to get where they are today. Worst thing that happened is that APBA Offshore sold out to individuals, and split from the UIM. Currently I think the best racing is UIM !!!!!!!!!!!!! I still enjoy racing and watching, I just don`t know who is who or what equip. they race Etc. Names I recognize and look forward to watching are names like Geico, Bud light, Tomlinson , Steve Curtis, Stan Ware, Bob Teague, Amsoil etc. Just as a past racer and having watched the last Key West worlds, that`s all that stick out in my mind. Used to be like Brownie said we knew almost every class and every person racing, and we knew there stats. Yeah STATISTICS what they had done, what there equip. was etc. we new who to hate and who to love, again like indy. Guess all things change, but nothing says they can`t go back to the same or similar, we should learn from the past, even though we don`t have recorded history in Offshore, That`s another subject and my finger is tired from all the typing.
