Why Not Combine Classes?

[Dr. Thunder]

These are the 2 most important/ relevant sentences in this entire thread.

The CLUBS can pick want they want to run.

That brings me to my second point. Why would you be waiting for the SORC, MORC or PROC to cut classes/ combine. You want classes cut, each driver needs to take responsibility themselves. The clubs will run whatever they can to keep financially solvent and keep members happy and working. different, they are free to do so. Step up with your club and try it.

Just quit whinning about your commissions not cutting the race day down - it is not their job to manage everybody's races.

These are excellent points Brian ... regatta conduct is up to the local clubs. Let them run until midnight if they have the membership support to do so.

What we are really trying to address is how you create growth for the sport ... how you go about enticing new racers to join in ...

That, for me, is why I see the USTS format to be such compelling example of how you conduct business in a way that creates long term support and club viability.

Nevertheless, we still have too many class configurations to support. The sheer number of classes that APBA offers to the potential "kneeldown" racer is too daunting ... it's just too complicated ... easier to go over to PWC (they have an excellent website by the way).

[Mike 41P]

The 25SSH goes 71-73 MPH, the CSH goes 68-69 MPH

Only in someone's dreams does 25XS go over 70 in a real sprint race set up. We mostly run 67 - 68 and I don't believe CSH is quite up to 69 either.

I'm not saying there are not things to resolve, but the diff ain't that big.

Mike T BSH/25XS/25mod

[Richard K.C. Mo.]

**** , i hate echos.!!!

The problem with combining classes is all the boats currently running are so specialized, so trick, so cool, and so fast, that they can't run in water that has any chop.....

Questions:

1. Why did the Pro Division rule out tunnel boats??? Answer: OPC Sport "E", were legally PRO E's and F's... They did several things "WRONG" in the eyes of the PRO DIVISION. One, they burned gas. Two, they had electric starters. Three, they could and would run all day, every day. Four, they could turn sharper than a hydro..... So, the answer for these new comers was to kick them out...(An OPC "E" did win National High Point)....

APBA has ALWAYS passed rules against NEW ideas so to protect the status quo....(Don't screw with my class, start your own)...

Jay Root built a tunnel boat with a Mercruiser and ran it in inboard hydro. The INBOARD DIVISION took care of Jay. They passed a rule against any trimable drive...(Jay didn't win the Nationals but lead and scared the fire out of the inboard hydro people)...

2. Why do we "BOW" to 12 boats as a full field? My brother ran against 32 "A" Hydros in the 1949 Hearst Newspaper Regatta...35,000 spectators...Havasu and Parker use to run over 100 boats at a time. NASCAR starts, what 43 cars....How cool would it be to watch three Dodges run for fiv laps. Then three or four Chevies???

3. Why not more laps for more boats? 10 boats, ten laps...20 lap main???

4. Why clock starts?

5. Why not Modified LeMans starts??? (Easy to announce who is racing, who is your sponsors, where you are in points...with clock starts all you hear is noise with boats running all over the lake)...

6. Why have a MOD/PRO/STOCK Division? (Divisions by speed?? Transom height rules???)

7. WHY AREN'T ALL KNEELER RULES, for CONDUCTIONG a race, the same????

8. Why don't more classes have Nationals at different locations?? FYI: 45SST, in the stock Division, have already had their Nationals for this year. The SHORT COURSE Nationals were at Bakersfield. And the Marathon Nationals were at Indio. By having this classes's Nationals, at a NON FIVE-SEVEN day regatta, the races had more racers, some racers were able to race in their FIRST APBA Nationals...

9. Why not two levels of CLASSES? Like National and Local.... Local classes would have Nationals wherever they were bid for? The National Nationals would run NATIONAL NOVICE (J), A, Hot Rod, C, Classic (D).


****Hot Rod would be the classes name....and many COMBINED motors would be run in these NATIONAL CLASSES...

10. Combined Classes WOULD BE NATIONAL CLASSES: Why not DESIGN a hydro for each class and a runabout? THESE DESIGNS WOULD HAVE HEAVIER WEIGHTS THAN CURRENT WEIGHTS. RUNABOUTS WOULD HAVE 10 TO 12 HIGH SIDES, A BOTTOM WIDTH, AND FINS ON THE BOTTOM, TELESCOPIC NOSE PIECES LIKE OPC PICKLE FORKS.

HYDROS WOULD HAVE SPONSON DEPTH, BOTTOM WIDTH, COCKPIT COMBING HEIGHT AND SPECS, TELESCOPIC PICKLE FORKS LIKE OPC...

The botom Line: Most NORMAL people want to get up, eat breakfast and enjoy their day. Toward evening they like to eat dinner at a reasonable time... We have all seen the results of racing from dawn til dark.

We race one boat in SST 45, on a weekend, it takes at least three people working full time to keep this boat running. We ran two boats, last race, and it came close to killing us.

Look around and ask yourself why did so and so quit??? Why did so and so go go kart racing???

Last question:

11. Why does the ENTRY LEVEL OF APBA,as kneelers is considered, require you to take a week or more off work to run at the Nationals...? You could race at the Indianapolis 500 and not miss work or school.

Does anyone realize that there are less than five Stock drivers in Region 12 anymore? And for the last five years, on the same weekend as the Nationals, there has been a boat race at Long Beach, California, at the Marine Stadium, one of the finest bodies of water in the world to race on....Not one kneeler has showed up for this race, because they all traveled to some place east of the Mississippi to race the NATIONALS....This Long Beach race has more than 100 entries and thousands of spectators....I've had people ask me where are the little boats? I say they went to the Nationals...

If we had a LOCAL CLASS NATIONALS, maybe someone would race little boats in SoCAL....

ADD: The problem is, if I was appointed the "KING", I'd make rules and no one would want to do it my way...they'd rather run against three boats for three laps, and be NATIONAL SOMETHING....

I really mean that , me thinks, as i don't race but having been to many someone has to step up and take charge.
As a spectator i've been to many races with 100+ entrys, i think you fella's need to ask when was this fun to watch? I mean not as a competitor, running out of the pits to see how we did , but as a person watching.

Sometimes less is more.!!!

And that's all i have to say 'bout that. except the chocolates part , or was it? anyways!!!
RichardKCMo

[Ron Hill]

I Thought..

1. Weak classes??? Hell every class is weak. I'd say that we should change the HIGh POINT SYSTEM FIRST... and let me tell you why....

45 SS or 45 SST is a Stock Class...OK?? The reason I say 45 SS or 45 SST is in the rule book that I don't have but I do read the ON LINE HIGH POINTS AND IN STOCK OUTBOARDS, WHATEVER THE HELL THAT MEANS......Stock??? Stock is cows ain't? Or Stocks and bonds....Why have tow HIGH POINT SYSTEMS HERE??? Why not total all the 45 points...KISS: Keep it Simple stupid....

Anyway....

We, the Hill Famil, are back racing after an 8 year leave....(In 1997 Chad had dreams of being a Formula One Champion.....after Jimmy Hauenstein's death, our team mate and sponsor...we quit racing for a FINAL TIME....In case you don't know it, the Hill's have quit racing more times than the average driver has raced).....

Chad is teaching, selling Marine Products and has a lovely wife. He decided he wanted to run the Western Formula Liites Series... (About 6-7 races for 45 tunnels....35-37 second course, two qualifiers of ten laps and 25 lap Main Event)...Chad has won several J runabout, J hydro and A hydro Winternationals. At 28 years old, he never raced in an APBA Summer Nationals. He was a Junior All-American Football Player and then a high school STAR....and he could not miss a week of practice, in August, for 12 years.

As a result of Sports, Chad never raced at a Summer Nationals....He did loan his J prop to Steven Dawe, for the Ohio Nationals, where Steven ran two seconds for a third... Chad won 26 straight J runabout races and never
raced at the Summer Nationals...as much as he loved boat racing, he loved local sports MORE.....

Fast forward, 2006...

Bakersfield 2006...APBA's 45 SS Closed Course Nationals....Chad gets quite "Pumped Up" for this race and finishes second.

In April, Western Formula Lites has its first race at Parker. Chad wins a qualifer and finishes thrid in the finals...

Two weeks later, it is the Indio Race and the 45 SST MARATHON NATIONALS. Chad doesn't want to go as his wife can't make the race and his Crew Chief is supposed to go to a wedding in South Carolina...

Ernie (Dawe) tells me I need to come to his race and Bill Curtis tells me I need to have Chad there....

We end up going to the race...Pat, our Crew Chief, girl friend doesn't speak to Pat for two weeks because he doesn't go to the wedding in SC, he goes to the APBA NATIONALS...Chad tests props, puts his Series motor in the trailer, and ends up APBA Marathon National Champion in 45 SST....

On Monday, Chad says, "Did I really win a Nationals?" The Series is what he focused on, but when he realized he'd won an APBA Championships...he was a JERK for about a week....Pat and I had to remind him there was no "I" in TEAM.....

Anyway, all of a sudden people are talking "HIGH POINTS"..."Hall of Champions"....The problem, we had no clue how Chad could win a High Points, either Marathon or Closed Course, we also had no real clue as how you could make the Hall of Champions..because, maybe, you need more boats at the Nationals, maybe there is an average...

My POINT (S):

1. Series races points should count toward high points, as you race the same boats as closed course classes.
2. If one boat shows up, he should be allowed to race in a COMBINED Class as the club needs the entry fee, and if you can get points toward a total points, you'll race...

ADD: Ernie Dawe explained to me that you can't figure out who is going to win High Points until about October because of the averages...NOW, WOF??? I can see NASCAR saying, we will figure out the average points that are scored and in a few weeks we'll tell you who is HIGH POINT... Problem is, people want to be High Points and race their 8-10 or 14 races against their cousins, a friends... and say, "I'm the best..."

BOTTOM LINE: HIGH POINTS SHOULD BE HIGH POINTS BASED ON THE NUMBER OF BOATS BEAT...One Boat in a race..gets less points than a guy who wins with 30...

LAST ADD:

Chad runs in Series races with 15-25 boats and gets NO POINTS. (Same with U.S. itle Series, no APBA POINTS?? Why not??? He runs the Nationals with 10 boats and gets 1200 points....Same boat...different game.

People talk about OSY 400.....Truth is, people like it, as they don't have to run 90 pounds of lead...people go on their asses, cool heads can win...I wouldn't be surprised that OSY 400 is the largest KNEELER Class in APBA........Maybe, we need more OSY 400 TYPE CLASSES...

Trust me, when Chad started 45 SS, at 220 pounds, I thought he was way too heavy...when I found he needed four pounds of lead to make weight...I said to myself. "Self, maybe we can compete in this Series."


THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT OF A "CONCEPT" CLASS....

QUICK SUMMARY:

1. Our rules are so screwed up that an average person doesn't even try to figure them out.
2. We have many look alike classes: IE...OSY 400, CSH, 20SSH, C MOD...B Hydro (NBRA has the right concept here)...
3. Even "HARD CORE" racers like Nationals in their "BACK YARD"...Why not every race having at least one CLASS be a Nationals...Trust me, when I was running D Runabout HARD, I'd have gone to the Nationals where ever they were...as D Runabout was MY CLASS..even though going to Wisconsin, to race, I'd have never won a Nationals in WISCONSIN, as them boys knew their tracks...AND, having to take almost three weeks off to attend the Nationals made me not want to go....I could not afford to attend the Nationals when I was raising kids...My propeller business was in the summer. I could not afforad to take three weeks off.
4. APBA should offer a "PRIZE" for certain classes...Like a WALDMAN AWARD...Say, This Class will get a "SPECIAL AWARD"...Like OSY 400, APBA should say, the driver with the most points in OSY 400 willget an AUTOMATIC PASS to the APBA Hall of Champions...I'll add here that the Super Stock Series has not pass to the Hall of Champions, but with them racing with IHBA and APBA their Series winner should have a pass to the APBA Hall of Champions because Super Stock, Flat Bottom racing, is BIG TIME AND DESERVES REWARDS....FROM APBA...

I mean, who runs APBA????

Let me add: When all is said and one, a lot will be said, little will be down...and we'll continue to shrink.......Losing Gary Lewis should be a wake up call...Gary at 32, has enough money to race kneelers....why did he quit? He was basically rasied by Jimmy Dawe, a long time kneeler....

[Ron Hill]

Dean Hobart

The ANSWER to Saturday testing and having FUN....IS SIMPLE: If you have a two day race....Saturday's points are half and so are Sunday's....

BUT THINK: One race APBA gets half the bread...(Points).

[S.wolf]

Usts

Ron Hill is right, series racing at the highest level should get points towards HALL OF CHAMPIONS. I went to a couple USTS races over the last 2 years and couldnt believe the competiton. It seems like a national event at every USTS race, and you must do well at all six events to become the champion, yet the PRO CATEGORY doesnt give any credit for this. Doesnt sound right to me. Help me understand.

[Dave M]

Beating A Dead Horse

You know, this topic comes up every year, many ideas have been formed, lots of tempers have flared, many opinions formed, and what is the net result ? Stress. Nothing ever gets done. SO why bother beating yourselves to death on all this combining stuff when not one idea will be placed in proposal form and submitted for consideration at the Nat Meeting for APBA ? It might be a good idea to be there to answer the tough questions as well.

A few folks have mentioned NBRA. Maybe they are smarter than you think. If some hardcore folks would take a serious minute and really digest the rulebook in NBRA they might learn that a lot of the ideas presented right here on the coveted hydroracer have already been implemented. And guess what ? A lot of it works. I even think someone posted the combinations on the first part of this thread.

I will agree that it won't make everyone happy, but then the current system obviously does not make many happy.

[HRTV]

Well Dave its your lucky Day! you just had the last option to post in this thread. Everyone have a safe and happy summer this thread is closed go racing ! HR will be here when you get back get out and enjoy the summer.