J & AX Topics

[Big Don]

After spending many, many years in J I have to agree on the set up comments that have been made. I told every one of my kids (once they learned how to drive, start, mill)…that we will be fast until they are about 105 to 110lbs. After they hit that weight we would have to readjust the setup and we would lose speed. And anyone that knows me, knows that is not an option for me. So I just kept putting lighter drivers in the rig.

We tested for I bet 100 hours just getting on plane and testing setups for J. I have to admit having kids in J in the recent years was grueling because of it. Wind change, water conditions change, kid weighs 10 lbs more than the year before and back to the drawing board.

I can tell you this… for us… dropping the engine down, did not help the getting on plane. It did not considerably slow us down. Lower unit placement to the bottom of the boat is critical and changes with the size of the driver.

I took Del testing with us one weekend a few years back, the year before Michelle started racing and by putting different kids in the boat and where they sat was remarkably different and drastically changed getting on plane. Even after testing for 10 hours that day we were not sure what we had learned but we kept working at it.

In the years of J I could count on one hand the number of times we didn’t get out for a heat but like I said, it was grueling. It’s the worse feeling in the world as you watch your kid struggle to get on plane. Thankfully my kids were on the small size (thank god they take after their mom with that and not their dad) and older and we were able to have them realize that if they were struggling to get on plane that they had to try something different. Back off the throttle a little, lean forward, get further back, right before it blows out try cracking the throttle…
We need to fix this, but let’s make sure whatever we decide it is truly a fix and works.

[csh12M]

Not weight or height

For some reason this thread keeps going the wrong ways. I am not sure if we need to raise the weight or not. If we do it may hinder the lighter kids trying to plane. I am sure that lowering the motor is not the fix. If anything it may amplify the current problem.

I hate rules as much as the next person, but putting a minimum distance from the point of the torpedo to the back of the bottom of the boat would be no big deal, and I believe solve a lot of problems! I would say a minimum of 5" from the back of the bottom of the boat. It could be measured with a simple GO/NO GO block. Teams will still have to test, boat designs will still vary and be better or worse, but it should help the 125lbs driver compete evenly. As it sits now you get double hit, you have to run with the extra weight and you have to run an inferior setup. You are forced to choose between speed and getting on plane. It is a poor situation.

Would any current J teams reading this be against a 5" GO/NO GO gauge from the torpedo to the back of the bottom? The lighter kids will still plane no problem, it will have no effect on them. However, the heavier kids will still be able to plane and be competitive. I believe this fix has NO negative ramifications for anyone and only positives for the class as a whole.

[Fast Jack]

Set Back

There are a lot of boats that would have to have the motor board cut and re mounted in order to set the motor back . I look at the J calss as a class that has a level playing field ,in that a new 9 year old may have to add weight , a 14 year old with 5 seasons of racing may be over by 20 # .The 14 year old with 50-75 races behind him should overcome any weight disadvantage whith driving skill. If 4 inches is the magic set back why go to 5 ?

[Jeff Brewster 59s]

random thoughts and opinions on a cold Ohio morning....

I did some digging in old rule books this morning and found that the J classes stayed at 245 lbs up until 1985 for the 60-J. When the 7.5 came in that year they were set at 270 for that engine only.
Around 86 is when all classes were bumped up 5 lbs for the addition of kevlar, so the 60-J was up to 250.
I am missing the rule book from 86 but by 88 with the Omc coming in it was set at 290 and has stayed there.
Luckily, for J the weight has changed with the motors.
(The "C" class should have been dropped when we went from the 110 lbs 30H to the 89 lbs 102) (I know, different thread please)

Richard Hearn some deep thinking there, but so true. Thanks for sharing and thanks for coming back.

Logan Sweeney is probably the most amazing J driver I have ever seen and I have seen a lot. I still chuckle at the mental picture of what his father looked like in his Jsr. Too bad his J career was cut short because he was pretty tough also. (I honesty don't remember Jim in an A, I think he went straight into Csh)

My son Ryan was too big for J when he reached the end of his 11th year. He started Axs as soon as he was 12 and I really think he could have used atleast another year in J.

What we are creating is very low J numbers in some areas with the advent of Axs. If the lure isn't there of faster speeds in Axs, most kids would be happy with the J speeds and deal with it since they wouldn't know what they were missing.

As a kid, my reward of getting out of J was to get trounced repeatedly by Jim McDonough and Carl Holt in the A classes. So the Axs does serve as a good stepping stone and I still wish it would have an age limit (17) like it was originally intended. (Sorry George, love ya buddy)

Sorry to those that whine about J testing, but these kids are the future of our sport! If you see kids having trouble, offer your help to the struggling parents. They are not having much fun at that moment either.

I like the idea of the set back rule that Dean has proposed. My only negative thought is the picture of Sam sitting there scratching his head and designing a boat that will surpass any such rule written.

One last thought: I find it interesting that it seems the only people that want to keep the J classes going way too fast is the current J dad's. I thought 29 mph was rockin' in my 60J! This would still be racing at 35 mph. I do not want to see my next two J drivers going 45 mph sorry. Maybe that is ok for the more experienced drivers but way too fast for the newbies. And don't tell me that I need to take them testing to get used to the speed, around here I will be arrested within minutes. Water control officer: Sir, you are letting your nine year old daughter operate a water craft!!!!!!!!!!! Aarrrggghhhh!!!!

[ram95]

J's - proceed with caution

This has been a great thread. My son runs J & AX. He's 42# heavy in J. It took us most of the season and some much appreciated help from Rich Runne, Shawn Cavanaugh, Doug Piersall, and Dave Young to get things somewhat sorted out.

The big item was not having the T-Stat housing plugged! We just didn't realize what a factor that was.

The other item was not being able to test enough on our own between races. Again, that's our own fault for not pursuing getting a J prop.

I'm not on the J-Committee but I'd encourage them to NOT make any changes to the fore & aft engine mounting position. I would go along with lowering the engine to 2" for this season. And, if that happens, we need to address the height for AX and perhaps A as well. Since, I for one, don't like having to change a boat-set-up between heats.

Just my thoughts - thanks

[Big Don]

Ahhhhh, here in lays one of the difficulties with our sport. If you change a rule for one class it has the potential to hurt another.

To really fix the J problem you need to adapt a rule similar to what Dean proposes.

But that will hurt the AX class if they are running the same boat. Now if you do it for AX also you just change almost everyone’s propeller box.

I thought Dean’s idea was a good one, and if we were running J still would not hurt us because we had J only boat. But it will hurt the majority of the racers that run both J & AX on the same boat and we don't want to do that. Could it be done with a simple shim on the back of the boat? I don’t think so but I could be wrong.

[Matt Dagostino]

Hum..........

Funny how a class that's supposed to be the simplest and easiest to work with is probably the most complex and cut throat.

Until we remove the checkered flag, Championships, and most of all Hall Of Champions recognition from the J Class then indeed the J Class will continue to be 'cut throat'. We all have a 'Pleasant Praire, WI' type story we could recall if we think back in J Racing! But racing is racing whether we are 9 years old or 90 years old! We all strive to win which is what racings ultimate prize is.

Who remembers the 1997 fight in front of the judges stand at Hinton Nationals during the JSH finals over J prop selections!! My money was on 'Moose'...........Oops, didn't mean to break up the fun.



Ok.............back to chatting about transoms.

[Kev43V]

After spending many, many years in J I have to agree on the set up comments that have been made. I told every one of my kids (once they learned how to drive, start, mill)…that we will be fast until they are about 105 to 110lbs. After they hit that weight we would have to readjust the setup and we would lose speed. And anyone that knows me, knows that is not an option for me. So I just kept putting lighter drivers in the rig.

We tested for I bet 100 hours just getting on plane and testing setups for J. I have to admit having kids in J in the recent years was grueling because of it. Wind change, water conditions change, kid weighs 10 lbs more than the year before and back to the drawing board.

I can tell you this… for us… dropping the engine down, did not help the getting on plane. It did not considerably slow us down. Lower unit placement to the bottom of the boat is critical and changes with the size of the driver.

I took Del testing with us one weekend a few years back, the year before Michelle started racing and by putting different kids in the boat and where they sat was remarkably different and drastically changed getting on plane. Even after testing for 10 hours that day we were not sure what we had learned but we kept working at it.

In the years of J I could count on one hand the number of times we didn’t get out for a heat but like I said, it was grueling. It’s the worse feeling in the world as you watch your kid struggle to get on plane. Thankfully my kids were on the small size (thank god they take after their mom with that and not their dad) and older and we were able to have them realize that if they were struggling to get on plane that they had to try something different. Back off the throttle a little, lean forward, get further back, right before it blows out try cracking the throttle…
We need to fix this, but let’s make sure whatever we decide it is truly a fix and works.

very well put Don!

[reed28n]

Testing

I love Jeff's post. We need the J kids to succeed period.

If there is a way to make it easier for all fo the kids to have get on plane 100% of the time we should do it. But it sounds like as many variables as we have tried to remove we have not accomplished it yet. With all of the experienced racing families have learned through their hours and hours of testing and the varied boat designs over the years that we all owe it to the J kids to give them all an equal starting point.

I see kids that can't get on plane because of knowledge but I also see J families reaching for that 1 more MPH and leaving their rig on the beach with heated psitons and burnt rings not getting on plane.

J should be about learning to start, learning to drive and sportsmanship.

Maybe correcting the planing issue is kind of protecting ourselves from ourselves. I had two nephews start the same year and it was a lot of work.

The kids that race now are probably more ready for speed than we were as kids because of all the stimulation they are bombarded with. Heck I bet their bicycles are faster. Razors and skateboards? My five year zips around on a scooter that would have killed us at 5.

I think the step in speed from class to class should be considered as much a just overall speed. I also believe that if you find a way to have our J kids in close racing for three laps that they will not be as concerned about how fast they are going individually.

[Richard Hearn]

We're planning on running AXS and J with the same Hydro and Runabout for 1 driver this year and 2 drivers next year. While I haven't tested the AXS yet, I did notice that the AXSH that won the nationals this year had a torpedo that was closer to 1" off the back of the boat (I just eyeballed it). With a J at 5", it would mean I'd have to have different boats (I can't think how I'd reset the transom 4" between heats). Change the rule for the AXS just because of the J setup and I suspect you'll have a bunch of AXS folks pretty upset that their current boat and props won't work anymore (to Don Allen's point)...

For what it is worth, once we figured out that we needed to plug the motor, we never had problems getting on plane again in 2009. The additional power made getting on plane a cinch.

[Richard Hearn]

In reading Jeff Brewster's weight post on the J above, it seems that the OMC weight and the Merc 15 weight are both 290 lbs. Now that no (few) OMCs compete in the J class, we've effectively reduced the competitive weight of the J kid by 10-15 lbs (I know the OMC is lighter, and am guessing it is 10 - 15 lbs).

So, the transition from the OMC to the Merc 15 motor in the J class has effectively reduced the competitive weight of the J kid by 10 - 15 lbs. Why not add the 15 lbs back to the class to allow those drivers to compete?

[Kev43V]

I see some people are advocating lowering the height down to 2 inches. Would this then necessitate all new J props?

[BP125V]

just an idea....

Trying to add to the discussion.

Since there are issues concerning both speed and weight in the JH and JR classes, does it make sense to lower the upper age limit from 16 to 14? This does at least two things.

1) In general it will tighten up the weight spread between the small young kids and the bigger older kids. This will perhaps solve some of the speed differences seen when a bigger kid has to pull the engine back from the bottom of the boat in order to get it on plane vs a smaller kid who can keep the engine closer to the back of the bottom thus gaining a 1 mph or so. Like Dean pointed out the bigger kid gets the double wammy as not only is he heavier and most likely above the minimum weight but in order to get on plane his set up will now be slower.

2) Takes the older kids out of the class who complain that the class is too slow, move them up to AXS. I personally think J is going a bit too fast as do other J parents and yet there are J parents who think the class speed is fine and in fact it might not be fast enough (see Richard Hearn's post and I know Richard is not the only one). I think there is a chance of leaving more drivers on the beach if the parents perceive the class to be going to fast as they will just wait another year or two before letting their kids race vs loosing kids from racing period if they think the class is too slow and boring as they have the option of racing AXS or even A. Odds are the kid who wants to go faster is going to step up a class, not quit racing altogether.

Not sure why the ages for J are 9-16 but that sure is a HUGE difference in size, maturity, reflexes, strength, agressiveness etc. Obviously back in the day when J was started there was not an alternative. Thank goodness for AXS.

Granted this may have an impact on some local races and will reduce the driver pool for the J class, but I think this will allow the J class committee for more effectively govern the JH and JR classes.

thoughts?

Bill

[Jim Sweeney]

J & AX Topics

Bill, I understand where you are comming from but changing the age dosent really affect anyone. The 14,15, and 16 yr old kids will have been forced up to AX or A already because of being over weight and not compettive anymore. The real issue should be adjusting the weight problem so the kids can compete in the class longer.

[Jim Sweeney]

J & AX Topics

Bill, I understand where you are comming from but changing the age dosent really affect anyone. The 14,15, and 16 yr old kids will have been forced up to AX or A already because of being over weight and not compettive anymore. The real issue should be adjusting the weight problem so the kids can compete in the class longer.