Press realese just sent out from APBA HQ - sobering numbers

[Dave M]

Great Points

All of this is great points. But until someone takes it seriously enough to make change, it is just the winter blues heckling each other yet again.

I raced AMH on a CMH hull one time because the water was rough. We used to race a lot of rivers.... Ohio, Wabash, St Joe, Kalamzoo, and many in the south.

Boats cost $600 and gearboxes were not expensive. So if you tore up your equipment, it was not such a hard hit to your budget. Today you pay 3k - 5K for a new hull, 2K for a gearbox you hope keeps the gears in it, and over 1K for saftey gear. I wonder why we don't race rivers anymore........... 3MM plywood breaks easily. 1/2" did not.

And there are a lot of places out there that would LOVE to have a boat race. Go where you are wanted, not where you have been. But try and draw boats to these places.... to many people have to much invested in their equipment to take on a marginal race course. Technology is certainly hampering our efforts to find race course, nosie is not. In nothern MI there are probably a dozen or two places we could race anything we wanted to. But boat counts would be low, we proved that with the Beaverton MI race. Lots of history there witht he USTS and Mods. They still want us, but low numbers showing up makes it hard.

At any rate, sombody said it right, we are our own worst enemey. I am glad there is one organization that seems to see the light and is willing to go outside the box.

[Rex Hall]

Boat racing

One of the problems today is, you can get the bank to make a loan for a jetski, motorcycle, or 4 wheeler and go racing with it almost every weekend. Try to get the bank to give you a loan for a racing boat of any kind. 40 years ago you did not have as many other racing venues to draw you to, and the younger generation only see's cars, trucks, motorcycles and jetski's on TV. You have to have a sponsor that can get TV coverage and prize money to make this sport grow.

Rex Hall
Pro and Mod racer since 1961

[raceright]

Pro racing (alkies) in this hard economy had a 5% increase in 2009 I submit the avaibility of new engines in every class with only cc restrictions is the reason why. All engines are imported using US dealers. Why do we not have Stock ouboard doing the same. New engines in every class, or do we and I just don't know it.

(the above does not take into account the service or racing classes otherwise called anitques as they have a special place in the pro cateregory and have there own place as the original outboard racing and therefore will be loved by many forever )

Restrictions are CC'S Hence Bore and Stroke classes not manufacture driven
I believe this is the only true parity and stock and mod should do the same.

Pat Wright
Pro Commissioner
USTS Director
In the end there can only be one

[sam]

Pat, its just not the same ... not an apples to apples comparison.

If Stock and Mod went to any stock bore and stroke motor rules, probably more than half of the motors currently used would become obsolete.

Stock can not afford to alienate half of its membership

[mercguy]

hmmm............

Pro racing (alkies) in this hard economy had a 5% increase in 2009 I submit the avaibility of new engines in every class with only cc restrictions is the reason why. All engines are imported using US dealers. Why do we not have Stock ouboard doing the same. New engines in every class, or do we and I just don't know it.

(the above does not take into account the service or racing classes otherwise called anitques as they have a special place in the pro cateregory and have there own place as the original outboard racing and therefore will be loved by many forever )

Restrictions are CC'S Hence Bore and Stroke classes not manufacture driven
I believe this is the only true parity and stock and mod should do the same.

Pat Wright
Pro Commissioner
USTS Director
In the end there can only be one

Pat says the PRO category increased members due to the availability of NEW motors!!!!!!!!! STOCK has NEW motors too for all there classes...........maybe MOD outta listen???

[raceright]

Pat says the PRO category increased members due to the availability of NEW motors!!!!!!!!! STOCK has NEW motors too for all there classes...........maybe MOD outta listen???

Stock has new motors, but are they not manufacture driven?? (one mfg per class)
Pro has at least three Mfg. per class and in some cases four to me this is true parity.
Konny,Aherns,Rossi, VRP. there are also some older stuff around and is still competive,Yamato,Konig and some home made stuff. one Mfg. per class just don't get it.

[sam]

one Mfg. per class just don't get it.

parade

[raceright]

Pat, its just not the same ... not an apples to apples comparison.

If Stock and Mod went to any stock bore and stroke motor rules, probably more than half of the motors currently used would become obsolete.

Stock can not afford to alienate half of its membership

This is and always has been the catch 22 of boat racing. The trick is to allow anything that is new while not loosing to many members.

Other forms of racing allow new engines in all the time and older stuff just goes away. Yea it costs a little money. But racing is not to be designed around the poorest or unwilling all the time. If you continue to use this method than growth will never happen as we see in APBA.
As APBA's numbers decrease outlaw clubs will flurish, this may be where older stuff should be,I don't know ? keep going the way we are and it might happen anyway.
At the APBA level (not trying to sound like an I told you so) I warned that we do not permot enough and after many years two years ago they finally put a little money from there budget into permotion. (notice all the adds for APBA on TV notttt) But not nearly enough,so here we are. I submit and also challange APBA will not do enough and maybe there will be a for sale sign on the HQ building soon.

[dholt]

Stock participation Up

Pat,

If you examine the numbers, Stock was up just over 6% from 2008 to 2009.
And all but one class has multiple legal motors.

So, something must be working.

And while I believe most of what Pro is doing is really smart and progressive...modeling the motor structure may not be one of them.

Stock had 733 boats in the water last year.
Pro had 185.

There we (8) 500 hydros, (5) 700 hydros and (10) 1100 hydros in the water last year.

Obviously, something isn't working. Were those numbers in a category I raced...I'd be really, really worried.

And how many of those 700 and 1100's were "true" motors..ie..not 500's stepping up?

[Sonny]

Best kept secret

All it is going to take is the right guy to talk to some one he knows or someone in his or her circle of influence to bridge the gap. There are people out there who are always looking for the next best thing that people will pay any kind of attention to. If I had more time to commit to it I would try to contact espn and get at least one class (probably CSH) into the summer X games. It would be a no brainer.. Those people are always looking for new stuff. From an outsiders perspective there is a lot of mystery surrounding boat racing and many people who don't know better think that it is far more expensive than it really is. I know it may be a stretch but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there wasn't some kind of Discovery channel deal out there maybe... little reality tv something something. you know... maybe a theme boat or two?

[raceright]

D Holt nice to see you know so much about my classes,let me correct a few points though. 1100's have no 1100's just 700's and 850's. The only time
500's were run with 1100 was if there 700 was down and I don't believe that happened this year. USTS lost three sites last year so they were realy down in total numbers. Pro had a total # of entries of 1407. up from last year and as I said 3 title series races less.

Yes the capsule classes are fragile but this does not bother me or the pro commission as there are only about 15 total boats in these classes.
Some if not many of us in pro are not in agreement that boat count is all that matters. This is something that is of great concern to the stock division and for the 1000th time I say a strong growing stock catergory is the life blood of all powerboat racing.
Many people move on from there to a faster more expensive catergory all the way up to Unlimited (17 last year)
So race your pocket book but please help the stock division grow as we all depend on you.

[KevJohn]

Sorry to bring this thread up again but it sounded like a good read.

APBA numbers are down just like everything else these days. Whether boat racing is expensive or not is irrelevent in todays economy. People aren't eating out, spending as much on holidays or anything else regardless of what it costs.

Personally I like the idea of driving schools and other projects that get non-boat racers interested in the sport. Where I think clubs make a mistake is by holding just one event per year. If you want to become more visible you need to suppliment your big annual event with smaller weekly or monthly club races. Find a location where your club can run every other Saturday or Sunday. It works for motocross and car racing why not do it with boats?

Any advertising expect will tell you that repetition is the key to advertising success and its no different here. The public will get involved at ten times the rate and ten times faster if they see you out on the water ten times a year versus once.

For those of you who don't think there aren't any great all weather races left I expect to see you at next years Top O' Michigan. No little ponds, its runs regardless of the weather and it runs through miles of winding river. It is truely a great and growing race.

I have pictures to prove that both SLT's and runabouts can fly...lol

Just my .02

Thanks,
Kevin

[propnuts]

How about some good numbers to go with the bad

This weekend at Silver Lake in Eatonville WA, Seattle Outboard Association hosted their annual New Folks In Boats day on Friday. We had 45 folks sign up, 1 scratch and 2 that didn't get rides due to time constraints and tecnical issues. That means we had 42 people that had never been in a race boat try it out. One of those folks raced with us over the weekend, and many more said it was the best thing ever and are trying to figure out how they can race with us. We also had 135 entries on Saturday, a new record in the 5 years I have been race chairman, and probably more on Sunday. We had press there. We ran the A/C marathon which drew EVERYONE including a lot of residents to their docks and the shore. My goal is to make it bigger next year, and with 3 more SOA/HARM J boats coming on line this year I have every reason to expect it will happen.

I'm not sure how much of this can be duplicated around the country, but I have a 2 year old grandson, and I am doing everything I can to keep this sport healthy for purely selfish reasons. My grandson Alex has already told me he's going to beat Carson Kelly 9 years from now, and I really want to see how that turns out

[John C167]

Tony;

Best quote I heard from a new person that came out of the boat was " Oh My God, THAT WAS AWSOME" ! She was a lady in the 30-40 range, I think that sums it up ! Brought 2 friends that drove also, and 1 of them is working towards getting a boat over the winter !

BTW, you put on a great race !

John Biagio

[reed28n]

What I see is wroking

Region 1 - a handfull of events with limited classes. Good fields of boats in each. This promotes those particular classes. Keeps the program easy to understand for people new to the sport. The classes that run all the boats complete all the laps without mechanical failure...usually. Hard working club members.

Region 6 - They have been able to maintain the closest thing to the racing we all remember as kids. They have keep all stock races all stock classes. New racers are attracted to classes that will be able to compete on a national level. Hard working club members.

Region 10 - good fields of a limited number of classes. Drivers are attracted to and recognize the value in purchasing in stock equipment.

Our biggest barrier of entry is the vast number of classes across an ever growing number of categories. Our race results and race recaps are completely impossible to comprehend to anyne outside of our sport. As long as our orgnaization cannot see outside of our own self interest we will continue to decline because we are not marketable to the mass public.

We have a handful of events. Most of the racing goes completely unnoticed. There are too many entertainment options competing for the publics limited disposable income.

Solutions - a plan that brings us to a core number of classes governed by a core number of categories.

Update our web site

Establish a marketing plan.

Do Not vote people into office that are content with the here and now. Our elected positions should not be earned by years of service but rewarded to people with vision and fresh ideas.