Stock Outboard: The Next Generation

[csh12M]

This is really similar to what I proposed years ago, lost by 11 votes. I would add allowing the 20SSH to run as a legal C entry at the lower weight. The same with 25SSR - but take out the Merc. This gives lighter Yamato drivers the option of running C classes. If you look at the times they are very comparable. Pass it this year for implementation in 2019, gives everyone two more seasons to adjust. If you really wanted to advocate positive change require all Yamato C motors to be sealed and only allow gearcase shaping and propshaft change. That would really help even the playing field and drive a lot of time and cost out of the sport by eliminating the need to blueprint motors. - Great ideas Dylan - I hope you stay involved and try and get them through. If your racing generation united its efforts you could displace the "traditional" thinking...the numbers are small enough to allow change to happen.

[GrandpaRacer]

Lots of good ideas here. Is there a resource where we can see how many people raced in each Stock Class the past few years? Evaluating Dylan's and others ideas may be easier if we had this information.
John Adams

[Big Don]

2016:
ASR 45
BSR 21
CSR 69
DSR 6
25SSR 52
ASH 73
BSH 19
CSH 120
DSH 21
25SSH 17
20SSH 111
45SST 13
300SSH 51

[Matt Dagostino]

Great post Big Don.........looking at CSH and 20ssh perhaps the formula that made these classes the biggest in APBA should be analyzed and applied to the weaker classes in the cataglory.....

[DiGia54D]

John, Go on stock high points.... If you go to the drivers point total and click it, it will show what races that driver was at and what place they finished.

[Wakefield 2015]

You need to look under Hi-Points. Can search by category, class, year. It even shows what races people attended.

[GrandpaRacer]

Thanks, I learned something today! That was a quick way to do it. I took Don's numbers and looked up 2017 (maybe not complete) and made this file.

	2015	2016	2017
ASR	57	45	49
BSR	26	21	22
CSR	65	69	71
DSR	6	6	6
25SSR	58	52	52
ASH	70	73	69
BSH	26	19	22
CSH	122	120	119
DSH	31	21	20
25SSH	10	17	8
20SSH	106	111	107
45SST	15	13	14
300SSH	42	51	63

300ssH is the growth King here.

[GrandpaRacer]

The Yamato engines make up more than half of all the Stock registration fees clubs collect.

[dholt]

This document has 20 years of Stock/Mod/J participation.
Numbers are always up for interpretation...but here's my take.

The A classes are in trouble for 2 reasons: Introduction of the AX classes and the death of the OMC. While the 'A' Sidewinder is slowly growing, I doubt it will ever rival participation of the OMC. Why?? Cost, ease of use, availability.

The 'B' classes have been flat/slightly declining for 20 years. Phasing out the Hot Rod was the right move...but has the SW delivered? Again, cost, ease of use, reliability. Sure some people say "I just drop in on the transom and pull the cord". But there are many others who have shared horror stories. Cranks breaking, piston rings breaking...waiting months and months for an motor...and others maladies. This can't happen if we're proposing going "All In" on an engine for multiple classes and eliminating the 2nd largest class in APBA. (20 hydro).


20 hydro/CSH/CSR classes have maintained strong numbers. Why? Cost, ease of use and availability. All 3 have been positives.

'D' class goes WAY downhill when Tohatsu replaced Merc. Too expensive.

25 hydro. Motor is 30 years old. It's dead, dead ,dead.

25 runabout. Life support only kept alive because Yamato makes up majority of class. These drivers should be in BSR with the Sidewinder. But the pitfalls mentioned above hinder that.

300 hydro. Look at the explosion in participation. Tripled in 5 years. Why? The broken record plays again...COST, EASE OF USE, RELIABILITY.
This class could have been OWNED by the Sidewinder 20. Imagine how many motors could have been sold if at least Ease of use and reliability matched the Yamato.

How about making a Spec/sealed runabout class for the SW 20? That could replace 25ssR.

I agree with Dylan...changes need to be made. I beat this drum 10 years ago. Get rid of the dead weight. More boats per class and fewer classes.
But you gotta be strategic and smart...and be able to DELIVER what people want.

I'm not protecting anything. I've had my fun for 41 years. No more rings to chase for me. Look hard at these numbers and ask...WHY are they what they are?

Stock Mod Activity.doc

[Flatiron]

Put together a sealed runabout class with a reasonable weight and I'll be their to support it.

[racer3j]

This has been great conversation thus far, and I appreciate all of the constructive, and educated feedback. The purpose of this post was do do just this. I should also note that this post was driven by many conversations I have had with the younger generation of drivers i.e. the future of this sport.

A couple of takeaways that I have gathered from this thread:

• Most people agree that classes need to be cut to some extent.
• We should not cut 20SSH as it is the second biggest class in stock outboard
  • However, I didn't see much opposition of moving the Yamato 80 to BSH in order to drive growth. 20SSH would continue to be what it is... a CSH for the lighter drivers.
• I have not seen any opposition to adding a side fin to the BSR class, to make that class more of a transition for runabout drivers moving from ASR. Yes the die hard roll up guys will have an issue with this... however there are only about 7 of you left, and you guys are mostly J Dad's now.
• I also believe the post with the participation numbers is skewed. We state the total number of participants, but we really need to look at how many people raced 5+ times 10+ times and 12+ etc. With out that data, I don't think we can make educated decisions on which classes are the strongest. (CSH and 20SSH will still be the strongest) but I think it may make it easier to cut classes when you see what percent of drivers raced more than a few times in a class.

Lets continue this conversation, and start moving in the right direction. I think with a few less classes, there is a great opportunity to grow the classes we do have by having a clear class structure for new drivers, while also being able to put together a marketable program to sell to potential sponsors.

DR

[Big Don]

Dylan, I have some of that data but not for a lot of years. It's a problem when your hard drive crashes and you did not back up your APBA folder. I recovered a lot of this info from Dana. 2004.2016 less than 3 races.pdf

This is 3 races or less. I think I have another document for the last year or two by class, going from 1 race to 22.

[Big Don]

I shared these numbers in the past and until I can find more I hope they help.

Raced 8 times or less for 2016

ASR 84.4%
BSR 71.4%
CSR 68.1%
DSR 100%
25SSR 73%
ASH 84.9%
BSH 57.8%
CSH 74.1%
DSH 80.9%
25SSH 100%
300H 52.9%
20SSH 77.4%
45SS 69.2%


In marathon:
4 guys ran more than 8 times. The average is about 3 times. I'm sure Top O skews that.

[Big Don]

Here is something else I shared back in 2011 or 2012

This is taking all drivers adding up how many times they each raced total, all in. Example: Dylan raced BSH 16 times, BSR 14 times, 20H 8 times, DSR 1 time, so Dylan would have raced 39 times. So he would be in that top 20% of over 15 times.

24.7%	2	or less
31.3%	3	or less
40.5%	4	or less
45.7%	5	or less
50.0%	6	or less
54.3%	7	or less
60.1%	8	or less
64.7%	9	or less
66.8%	10	or less
71.5%	11	or less
75.0%	12	or less
77.2%	13	or less
79.1%	14	or less
80.7%	15	or less

[Big Don]

This is also for 2011 or 12. This was by class, how many times someone ran the class. It's all classes. So in these numbers 41.24% raced a class 2 times or less, 49.15% raced 3 times or less 97.67 raced a class 15 times or less.

Nationally All drivers each class on is own
1	126	19.53%
2	140	21.71%	41.24%	Race less than 2 times
3	51	7.91%	49.15%	Race less than 3 times
4	58	8.99%	58.14%	Race less than 4 times
5	31	4.81%	62.95%	Race less than 5 times
6	40	6.20%	69.15%	Race less than 6 times
7	19	2.95%	72.09%	Race less than 7 times
8	28	4.34%	76.43%	Race less than 8 times
9	32	4.96%	81.40%	Race less than 9 times
10	23	3.57%	84.96%	Race less than 10 times
11	20	3.10%	88.06%	Race less than 11 times
12	8	1.24%	89.30%	Race less than 12 times
13	16	2.48%	91.78%	Race less than 13 times
14	15	2.33%	94.11%	Race less than 14 times
15	10	1.55%	97.67%	Race less than 15 times

[ryan_4z]

Alright Dyl,

Of course I dig everything you are pitching here but one obvious thing. I am not going to continue to beat my drum on the issue if I am the only one who is this passionate about it. So this will be my final plea for the bottom fin rule.

-It is not that hard to roll up a boat. You didn't roll up your J or A runabout. Neither did Peter Lauer. Or Brian Trolian. (Brian did but he had a side-fin boat too and he was probably racing BSR when he was like 8). Not sure about all the Michigan guys but I bet a lot of them ran side-fins in J and A too. Didn't seem to hold any of you back.

-The BSR class has had a nearly complete turnover of drivers in the last 6-7 years. Of the 22 drivers who ran the class this season there are only 4 of the old guard BSR guys left. And 2 of the are essentially retired. That is basically 90% new blood in that class over the time period. This clearly shows that drivers gravitate to the class.

-The only reason BSR struggles is because it has become localized to the mid-west. It is a huge hurdle to leap to re-introduce a class to a region that has none. There is strong interest in three of the four corners of the country to bring BSR back but, as Dana pointed out, questions about the availability of Sidewinders and other issues make that hurdle even higher. Allowing side-fins will not make this transition any easier. What will help will be getting motors in the region via the hydro class and Yamato 80 plan. Then runabouts will naturally follow. There is appeal to race this class because it is different from other classes.

-Roll up boats are not harder to drive than side fin boats. And they are way more fun. I have driven both many times and I think that it is a fallacy to say that side fins have taken over because they are easier to drive. They have taken over because they are faster. Give roll-up boats the last 30 years of evolution that hydroplanes and hydrobouts have and you better believed they'd be even better than they are now.

-My BSR experience is always my most fun of the weekend. No matter how disappointing the result.

-Side-fins boats are more dangerous and less forgiving. Especially when mixed in small numbers with a bunch of roll-up boats.

Those of you who agree with me, I hope you are plenty in numbers and speak up. Let your commissioners know that we need to preserve BSR--the purest form of boat racing. If we are in the minority, I won't battle this issue off the water. But I will certainly fight the uphill battle on the race course.

[jswain3]

I whole heartedly agree with Ryan on this one. I don't feel that BSR numbers have suffered due to the water ski fin on the bottom. In reality, the class has done pretty well since the SW took over, considering that most of us HR owners straight up went away or switched classes. Get BSH growing by adding the Y-80, and those drivers will start ordering SW20's. Runabouts will follow. Also, take the restrictor out and raise the weight to 385, for guys like Jordan, Adam, and I.

[ryanbrew57s]

You nailed it when you said the side fin is faster, when me and my father built my new boat we had to make the decision to make a roll up or flat turner and it all came down to the simple fact that flat turning was faster.... if it weren't for that my new boat would have been a roll up. And on the BSR issue, I would LOVE to race the class but c'mon I'm one of the biggest guys in the pits at 6'4 220lbs its just not going to work out very well

[Peter24m]

Totally agree with you Ryan. The majority of BSR drivers are under the age of 25 or are relatively new to the class. It's not declining, it's just starting to grow.

[csh-2z]

Good job picking up the mantra Dylan. I have written a proposal for adding the Yamato 80 into BSH. Tomorrow and Thursday, Ryan & I are going testing to get some data on running the 20 Sidewinder at various heights, with and without the restrictor and at an increased weight. After we have analyzed the data, I will refine my proposal for the configuration of the class to keep Yamato 80's competitive but with the Sidewinder as motor of choice.
At the very least, the guys running the Yamato 80's won't HAVE to run against C Hydros anymore.

By the way, the primary reason to put the Yamato 80 in the BSH class is to get the class started in areas that currently have none. Hopefully these drivers will eventually transition to the Sidewinder.

[daveracerdsh]

The future

[daveracerdsh]

We can all chat about the future of racing. But in the long run we better look at running 4 motors. It’s gonna happen. We are rea looking at the wrong problems.

[daveracerdsh]

The future of racing is in 4 strock motors. Better get used to it