Next years 60th Top O Michigan Marathon Nationals

[wildstormfilms]

Hello I would like to introduce myself. My name is Lee Alexander and I'm from Indian River, Michigan. I am posting this thread here to keep all of you race fans and racers informed on what could be expected for next years 60th Anniversary Top O Michigan Marathon Nationals Boat Race. My goal, as well as my good friends, Rob Hallenbeck and his boss, Wayne of Ryde Marine in Alanson, is to get the SpeedTV network to broadcast next years race. Currently I'm going to put together a promotional video for the SpeedTV executives to view as well as a proposal as to why they should come here and do coverage on this event. Afterall, its been a tradition for 59 years now and has been billed as the toughest outboard race in the world.

Currently, I made contact with a Jayson Geiser of the TV 7&4 sports team newscast and he has expressed interests in covering next years event and has asked me to keep him informed if anything develops. Anyways thats where we are at right now. This boat race deserves media spotlight because this is a challenging race. Think of it as off road racing but on water.

I will keep this thread updated as much as I can as soon as more stuff develops. Hopefully by doing this will increase more interest in the sport and get more people involved in outboard racing.

Thank you,
Lee Alexander

[HRTV]

No, thank you Mr. Alexander!

Greg,

Please explain your response

[wildstormfilms]

It could be interpretted as saying "No Thanks" to having Speed there... that's all. That's how I first read it.

That was my assessment as well. The Speed Channel, I think, is a great place to have them broadcast the race. If things fall through though, with them, I'll go to OLN and/or ESPN 2 or other networks. But I'm banking on the Speed Network.

Lee

[Gootz 142M]

Speed TV and Top "O"???????

I'll have to get my good hat out for that one.

[Gunjumper]

Sorry for the mixup...

My post read "no, thank you mr. alexander" with the emphasis on the comma. My third grade teacher taught me to pause when I come across a comma. So I'll try this again, I thank you sir for your hard work and dedication, it's greatly appreciated. I apologize again for the misunderstanding.

[CSR4C]

2008 Top O' date ?

I just got off the phone with Tad Olson, he said he would have liked to go to Top O' this year but Beloit was scheduled the same weekend!

Looking at the race schedule for the last few years, Top O' is the following weekend of the Stock Nationals. This works out best for everyone. When the Stock Nationsls ends on the first weekend in Aug. it works out the best for the schedule, when it ends the 2nd weekend of Aug. there are conflicting dates.

The MOD/Stock/J Nats are August 4th-10th in Whitney Point, NY
__________________
-S. Breisacher-

This this most likely means there will be conflicting dates in 08.
Can there be something done about this !!

There are only 4 weekends in August, why waste the 1st one. The schedule should be: Stock Nationals, Top O', Beloit, Dayton.

At least can we get the Top O' Michigan date firmed up early so everyone can make plans for next year.

Darrell
C-4-C

[racer121M]

Lee...thank you for your efforts to get the Top O covered by the broadcast media. I tried for several years to do just that with TV 7/4 and 9/10 and got no response. Even when they were giving time in their broadcasts to snowmobile drags on grass in Gaylord they couldn't cover one of the most historically important stock races in the country. I hope you can convince them that this race is important enough for the area and for the sport of stock outboard racing that it should be given 2 or 3 minutes of air time on the local stations. To get Speed TV or another network to cover the race would be the icing on the cake. If I can be of assistance to you let me know.

Bob

[kws]

I am in complete agreement with Darrel NO region esp. the close ones should put on a race the same weekend as the Top-O. if region 7 does next year I for one will not be attending the region race ( To those that put on the TOP can i set up a coffee booth ? )

[wildstormfilms]

My post read "no, thank you mr. alexander" with the emphasis on the comma. My third grade teacher taught me to pause when I come across a comma. So I'll try this again, I thank you sir for your hard work and dedication, it's greatly appreciated. I apologize again for the misunderstanding.

Its all good.

Lee...thank you for your efforts to get the Top O covered by the broadcast media. I tried for several years to do just that with TV 7/4 and 9/10 and got no response. Even when they were giving time in their broadcasts to snowmobile drags on grass in Gaylord they couldn't cover one of the most historically important stock races in the country. I hope you can convince them that this race is important enough for the area and for the sport of stock outboard racing that it should be given 2 or 3 minutes of air time on the local stations. To get Speed TV or another network to cover the race would be the icing on the cake. If I can be of assistance to you let me know.

Bob

Yeah there isn't anything special about drag racing on grass with a snowmobile?? I just couldn't believe that this race hasn't got any attention with the local media. I hear it on the radio and that it. I'm hoping to change all that within a year as this sport truely does deserve to be in the national spotlight.

Anyways I got a copy of last years boat race DVD from my friends boss today or last night so I will begin working on getting the promo video completed hopefully before the next boat race meeting so that I can present the video to them. I'm going to be meeting with Bob Ladd this Thursday to get more footage. He's got footage back from the 50's and 60's and I thought it would be great to add that in the promo video. Kinda give a history lesson on how the race was back in the day right on up to the present time. I will also be doing a minute or so movie style trailer video of the boat race, hopefully be able to use the 2007 footage, and posting that on the SpeedTV message boards just to spark interest on there for the users.

Anyone on here have any blueprints of the "D" Class boats? I want to do a 3D model of the boat which will be part of the one minute or so trailer video. I guess I could ask my friends boss if he has any blueprints but its 1:24 am here so i figured I'd ask on here.

Anyways, thanks for your support guys and I will keep you updated on whats going on.

Lee

[BP125V]

actually.....

I am in complete agreement with Darrel NO region esp. the close ones should put on a race the same weekend as the Top-O. if region 7 does next year I for one will not be attending the region race ( To those that put on the TOP can i set up a coffee booth ? )

Kevin,

Beloit has had this date for many years now. It is the Top 'O date that has been bounced around a bit lately. In fact a few years ago (not sure what year) it was much earlier in the year. It is unfortunate that Beloit would conflict but since we really don't have that many marathoners in BSOA/MRC we've kept the date. Plus, what date would we move Beloit to? From Memorial Day until the end of Sept every weekend is taken with exception of a few weeks late in July. We try to keep those open for those going to the Nationals. Plus there are years (like this year) where the Stock and Mod Nat's are split so we have to allow extra time for that.

Bill

[pearson95m]

August 16th 17th 2008

Top O for as long as I can remember has been the weekend following the stock nationals. If the dates are correct on the stock nationals, then I would say with 99% certainty that Top O will be the weekend of August 16th and 17th in 08. A couple years ago we tried running it in June. The reason was because most kids are back in school in late August and we were hoping to get more numbers with a June date. I don't think it worked out as expected and therefore we went back to the August schedule.

[CSR4C]

Move Whitney Point up one week

The June date didn't work for Top O', less boats, less spectators, water was cold. If it continued to be in June, I for one wouldn't have been back.

What needs to happen if for the Stock Nationals at Whitney Pont is to move up on week, then the schedule would work well. It would also allow C hydros from the west coast & other places to run OSY400 at DePue on Friday, kick back & watch some good PRO racing on Saturday, then head to the Stocks. We did this a couple times in the early '90s and enjoyed it a lot. 2 nationals in the same vacation time as for only one.

Darrell
C-4-C

[raceboat61-S]

I'd like to run the Top'O at least one more time. I last ran in about 1965 ? I'd like for nostalgia reasons to run the same rig again ! I still have my BU Rinker and Mark 20H. APBA allows "antique" racing but I'm not sure how that plays in a Nationals event. Rule book states that "antiques" cannot compete for "national points" but doesn't say we can't race. Would the race committee consider adding a class for the Mark 20H? I'll gather up several others who I know would run again if we could run our old motors. All of us are current short course runabout racer's. This might be a great special event as part of the 60th anniversary..... we would be running 60 year old motors that first competed in the same race in 1958 ! Is their interest from other Mark 20H racers besides Steve Roskowski and me ? Mike Marshall, Raceboat61-S

[wildstormfilms]

Top O for as long as I can remember has been the weekend following the stock nationals. If the dates are correct on the stock nationals, then I would say with 99% certainty that Top O will be the weekend of August 16th and 17th in 08. A couple years ago we tried running it in June. The reason was because most kids are back in school in late August and we were hoping to get more numbers with a June date. I don't think it worked out as expected and therefore we went back to the August schedule.

Yeah that time they had the race in June, I think there wasn't enough racers which is why they switched it back to August.

I'd like to run the Top'O at least one more time. I last ran in about 1965 ? I'd like for nostalgia reasons to run the same rig again ! I still have my BU Rinker and Mark 20H. APBA allows "antique" racing but I'm not sure how that plays in a Nationals event. Rule book states that "antiques" cannot compete for "national points" but doesn't say we can't race. Would the race committee consider adding a class for the Mark 20H? I'll gather up several others who I know would run again if we could run our old motors. All of us are current short course runabout racer's. This might be a great special event as part of the 60th anniversary..... we would be running 60 year old motors that first competed in the same race in 1958 ! Is their interest from other Mark 20H racers besides Steve Roskowski and me ? Mike Marshall, Raceboat61-S

That would be cool for you guys to race the old boats. I can pass the word along to Wayne Blomberg because he's part of the commitee. See what they think and stuff. I think that if there's enough Mark 20H Class racers, they'll do it.

[CSR4C]

I'd like to run the Top'O at least one more time. I last ran in about 1965 ? I'd like for nostalgia reasons to run the same rig again ! I still have my BU Rinker and Mark 20H. APBA allows "antique" racing but I'm not sure how that plays in a Nationals event. Rule book states that "antiques" cannot compete for "national points" but doesn't say we can't race. Would the race committee consider adding a class for the Mark 20H? I'll gather up several others who I know would run again if we could run our old motors. All of us are current short course runabout racer's. This might be a great special event as part of the 60th anniversary..... we would be running 60 year old motors that first competed in the same race in 1958 ! Is their interest from other Mark 20H racers besides Steve Roskowski and me ? Mike Marshall, Raceboat61-S

I think the only 20-H they would let you run there today would be the quiet 1954 version!