Boat Racing's Direction / Survival

[bill boyes]

I need me one of them yamato 101's

trade them for 302's.
Howie is right on.
Gee received Propeller Magazine today that i can read.

[daveracerdsh]

Rules

I agree with Matt. I go to the national meeting as a stock commissioner and spend 95% of the time tinkering with the rules......It frustrates me to no end....In another post I proposed that we get whatever tech rule changes one month before the meeting.....lets say there are 9 issues to be discussed...we have 2 or 3 phone conferences to discuss these issues....no vote is taken. We come to Reno, all of the issues are in writing, as they usually are.....we have a timer set at 5 minutes for each issue.....when the timer goes off Jeff calls for a vote. No more disscusion is allowed. That would take the Thursday morning session. The rest of the the time we talk about ways to improve the sport we all love. Forget about the little stuff that only affects 4 or 5 racers...we just do NOT have the luxury any more to talk for 3 hours over some insignificant little item on the agenda. We are working on bringing in new members, as well as retaining members, thru the 302SSH class. As everybody knows, here is a class where you have to do NOTHING to the motor, prop is provided..and you go racing. Ya...class is not perfect, and there will be hurdles along the way....but if things go like I think they will we will have a ton of racers involved with this. I hope this class is the turning point for stock racing. Remember.....the Yamato corporation crushes 1500 302 motors a year. 1500. I know there are going to be hurdles....but I want to see those motors here in the states. For this class to work....it is going to take the co-operation of everybody involved in stock racing.....from racers to club officials etc. I have heard from some race promoters that they do not have the time on the race schedule for this class. Find the time. Stock racing needs this class. Enough rambling. David

[Ron Hill]

1,500 Motors A Year?

Where did you get that 1,500 motors a year are "Crushed" by the Yamato factory? My sources tell me that is not anywhere near true!

302 Hydro is a good idea!

But that won't stop the "Circling of the drain".

There was a little race in North Carolina, last weekend. More than 65 boats, not one "RACING motor".

Look at Canada and Minnesota with their T750, T850 and VP 75 classes. Look at their "RALLIES" that they have.

[daveracerdsh]

motors

I got that number from Ric Montoya. I think he is a pretty accurate source. Dave

[daveracerdsh]

Drain

It is true that 302ssh by itself will not stop the decline in stock racing. However...we need a class to build on....and this class is it. People will get involved, see how fun racing is...and want to go faster or get their kids involved etc. Right now stock racing is fragmented....we don't have a base to build on. How cool would it be if we had 500 302 ssh hydros running in APBA....and those racers and their friends want to get involved in something faster? C stock hydro? D stock hydro? Formula E? Pro classes? We need a strong base from which we build things up. Just some random thoughts. Dave

[csh2z]

Ron,
There was a little race in North Carolina, last weekend. More than 65 boats, not one "RACING motor".
What does that mean? I didn't see you there!

[Dave M]

Point to Ponder

Rentention - Sit back and evaluate who you are trying to retain ? Are you focused correctly ? If you can't retain what you currently have, how are you going to retain any new to the sport members ? You need to work on that turnover stat.

1. Stop messing with tech rules, and safety rules.
2. Stop pushing people around
3. Combine categories for one stronger organization.
4. Focus on keeping costs down to the racer.
5. NEVER eliminate older engines unles they simply can't be found anywhere. (stop and think about this, how many people did you lose the last 30 years from engine eliminations ? You will never know)
6. Make rules black & white. Keep It SIMPLE. I should be able to read the rule book in 15 minutes; general, safety and tech.
7. Retain current memebers in any possible way.
8. Remove long standing authorities and infuse fresh blood.
9. Get over yourselves, this is for fun, not Nascar.
10. Make it fun for all. Become approachable, and approach others.

Food for thought, sit back and think about this, who are you really trying to retain.... has the current program helped anything in the last 25 years ?

[brill27]

To make this one outboard division happen i think there needs to be a commision of equal stock,mod and pro drivers to make up the classes to keep.that might be a good place to start.

[Ron Hill]

What it means is there is interest in boat racing

Region 12, APBA, has 12 A Hydros, 4 AXS Hydros, and 4 20 Hydros and 4 C Hydros. 24 Boat in SoCal. And a total of maybe 15 drivers. (All of Region 12, more than 20,000,000 people lieve here and we has 15 "Racers" and three of them live in Phoenix, 500 miles away!)

A Merc AXS costs about $4,000 . A fishing 15 can be bought for $600. But there is no class for "FISHING 15's". (Nobody wants "FISHING MOTORS" at our "BIG TIME" Races.

65 "River Racers" are almost five times as many racers as SoCal has. APBA continues to "Circle the Drain" but do they try go get any of these "River Racers" into the association?

I helped sponsor this race, and I'll help more next time, as I sold more than 65 River Race propellers in the month of August and these guys are very passionate about their "RACE BOATS". Most "BUILD" them motors themselves. Pretty much all three cylinder Yamaha or Mercury motors...The Merc guys don't like the Yamaha guys!!! (They don't hate each other....the just take it out on the 660 foot race course).

We have a class called COR in California. We now have at least 14 wet boats. I own three COR boats (If we counted all of my boats, Quindazzi's. Soares's and Taylor's boats, we'd have more than 25. We run fishing 2.0 liter Mercs. I'll sell any of my 3 or 4 powerhead for $5,000. You can build your own for around $2,000.

We figure at the 336 Enduro coming up we'll have 15 boats in our class, not counting our newest member, Lonnie Morris. Who has recently purchased the Del Taco GMT! (Those COR boys got to see Lonnie in action.....in the 711 GMT...They said, "Who is that kneeldown driver?" As he almost won his first heat.

John Soares and JJ Gibbs are the only second generation racers in the class.

This reason this class has grown, is the fact you can find an old V-6 and old boat and go race. This is a "Special Event" class and plans to stay that way!

Any of you ever look on Facebook or You Tube and see all kinds of boat races around the world with small outboards???

The best class in APBA, in my opinion, at one time, was 25 SS when you could run a Johnson or Evinrude FISHING powerhead on a Merc lower....Mercury got "PISSED OFF" and offered to make a new motor, if APBA would "KICK OUT" the OMC's. APBA bowed down to Mercury, as they always do!. Mercury built about 50 motors, once everyone had one, they stopped making it...There probably is still more than one million OMC 25 powerheads laying around this country.

Put an OMC power head on a 15A gearcase and you have a cheap "RACE MOTOR". And it would probably start and run!

[reed28n]

Cost factor

While cost is always a factor, I am always intrigued by trying to spend as little as possible on an uncertain power plant, load it in your $7,000 trailer towed by your $50,000 motor home or SUV, spend $300 to get to a race $100 in entry fees, put this old motor on your new $4000 carbon fiber boat to try and spin your $400 propeller that you bought 4 of, to be completely uncertain as to where you might finish..... but you did mention it would probably start in the water.

[Big Don]

Reed once again you have your facts wrong.

It was a $1200.00 trailer, a $25000.00 tow vehicle, 250.00 to get to the race (a close one), 160.00 in entry fee (that's if we only run 2 classes), a wood boat that I won’t even tell you how much it cost, and I have to laugh, 4 props? Wait, maybe Troy is buying your props.

[DiGia54D]

While cost is always a factor, I am always intrigued by trying to spend as little as possible on an uncertain power plant, load it in your $7,000 trailer towed by your $50,000 motor home or SUV, spend $300 to get to a race $100 in entry fees, put this old motor on your new $4000 carbon fiber boat to try and spin your $400 propeller that you bought 4 of, to be completely uncertain as to where you might finish..... but you did mention it would probably start in the water.

$50,000 on a motor home? Whats it from the 70's?

[14J]

$50,000 on a motor home? Whats it from the 70's?

No kidding. I think there was over 2MM in motor homes at Lock Haven.

[14J]

Reed once again you have your facts wrong.

It was a $1200.00 trailer, a $25000.00 tow vehicle, 250.00 to get to the race (a close one), 160.00 in entry fee (that's if we onlyu run 2 classes), a wood boat that I won’t even tell you how much it cost, and I have to laugh, 4 props? Wait, maybe Troy is buying your props.

I though Pavlick pays the way? Be honest you only spent $30 in gas to get there in your VW TDI.

[Big Don]

I wish he would pay the way.

Well he does keep loaning us the 225-V. So he's paying for that. Plus he has to put up with me because he likes Donny.