Outboard racing journalism?

[krazy karl]

Ron,
Those numbers are a little bit misleading. They still make the point but there were more racers that ran in some of those classes. We ran ASR at every event in region 11, unfortunately we didn't have a high enough boat count except for one to count for national points. So my record only shows that I ran one race when in fact I ran several. But you point is valid, WE NEED MORE DRIVERS AND BOATS. Did the Schwartenbachs (sp?) buy that ASR that was for sale at Minden?
kk

[Ron Hill]

Misleading? I'd Call It Circling the Drain

Ron,
Those numbers are a little bit misleading. They still make the point but there were more racers that ran in some of those classes. We ran ASR at every event in region 11, unfortunately we didn't have a high enough boat count except for one to count for national points. So my record only shows that I ran one race when in fact I ran several. But you point is valid, WE NEED MORE DRIVERS AND BOATS. Did the Schwartenbachs (sp?) buy that ASR that was for sale at Minden?
kk

You are right about needing more drivers and more boats. At the last Minden race the NorCal 400 boats, which there are four, had eight drivers signed up to race.

Schwarzenbach did NOT buy that A Runabout, but they are interested in A Runabout for both Mickey and Britney...

Imagine going into a Hobby Store and they really don't have anything to sell, but they know where you can buy a OLD BOAT in Texas that needs a motor but you can probably buy a motor in Seattle, then send the foot to Florida or Michigan, and then you could drive 300 miles to see if you could get the motor started as there is no test time...

NorCal 400 should be a class.....and used at the driving school (S)

[raceright]

You are right about needing more drivers and more boats. At the last Minden race the NorCal 400 boats, which there are four, had eight drivers signed up to race.

Schwarzenbach did NOT buy that A Runabout, but they are interested in A Runabout for both Mickey and Britney...

Imagine going into a Hobby Store and they really don't have anything to sell, but they know where you can buy a OLD BOAT in Texas that needs a motor but you can probably buy a motor in Seattle, then send the foot to Florida or Michigan, and then you could drive 300 miles to see if you could get the motor started as there is no test time...

NorCal 400 should be a class.....and used at the driving school (S)

There is a lack of understanding this, why--???

[Smitty]

Pat, I am currently acting caregiver for an old woman with dementia, and won't be going to Dallas or anywhere for a while. But we can talk here.

What do you mean when you say Stock outboarding is obsolete? The equipment? The whole concept? Have you any remedy in mind?

I was looking through a book on the history of outboard racing, written by a Brit, Kevin Desmond. He pointed out that through the supposed golden age of outboard racing in the Thirties, when even colleges had competing racing teams, the big classes were for what we would later call alky or PRO machinery. Desmond said it was not until Carl Kiekhahefer's first factory stock racemotors in the early '50s (KG4, KG7, KG9), combined with affordable assembly-line-built hydros from Swift, that the Stock category outgrew the Outboard (alky) category and left it far behind. To that I would add that the Fifties were the do-it-yourself years in every kind of mechanical, electronic, and woodworking realm, and Hal Kelly's plans, as brought to public attention by articles in Popular Science magazine, led quite a few more of us into Stock racing.

Now, looked at that way, you could argue that my suppositions are wrong and that it IS an equipment issue today. I have heard arguements for forty years that what is needed in both outboard and inboard racing is classes with relatively cheap turn-key equipment, complete outfits all set up to put in the water and race. And we are forever being told that Stock racing must have new engines available at marine dealerships. All I know is that in the Sixties, when our decade-old Mercurys were running elimination heats every weekend, the currently-available 36 Class runabouts were of no interest to anyone outside of a couple of areas in the Midwest.

Anyway, while all this is surely worth arguing, the points are all being made very well on other threads, so I'll get myself back to my own original topic which broadly stated is, how best do you "troll" the general public in order to catch potential outboard racers? How do you do it when our race sites are pushed farther and farther from big population centers? When the Thunderboats no longer thunder? When neither the sporting press nor local papers know we exist, and couldn't care less? When the internet has a billion other things to look at, and only those already into outboard racing are going to visit outboard racing websites and videos? When there are no longer shop classes in high schools? When everything you buy is already made cheaply in China, and few do-it-yourselfers are building anything from kits or plans (If you are an old man who knew ham radio, you'll remember Heathkit, Knight, Archer, Hallicrafters, Radio Shack, and other kit sellers, all gone now)? When young boys, instead of building wooden models of Miss Thriftway, are playing video games and gossiping on cel phones or Facebook? When the whole Western world is stuck in a recession with little relief expected soon and all of the governments nearly bankrupt, and the constant-dollar payrates of ordinary folk in a long falloff while fuel and other expenses go up?

The likelihood of ever seeing fifteen or twenty boats in two or three classes showing up at local club races would seem very remote. It surely will take some creative thinking here to start attracting the attention and engaging the imagination of potential Novices.

Here's one random notion that just now popped into my head as I thought about Rachel's group setting up displays at Scouting shows. If you were a Boy Scout, how might we create a merit badge for outboard racing?!! You can laugh, but I know (because it is my field) that the BSA has recently created a Welding merit badge, so maybe they would be open to ideas from us. Of course, participation in Scouting is way down from the glory days of my youth, but still, a racing merit badge would definately get the attention of a Boy Scout, oh yes!!

(Darryl S., get ready, you might get a bunch of orders for kits!!)

[Ron Hill]

36 Runabout

The class has been gone for 30 years and I know where three 36 Runabouts are right now, in SoCal wanting to race.

We had 20 Runabout: Keith and Mark Yunger, Bunker Hill, Dave Mayer, Joel Bronson, two brothers from Riverside (7) boats I can count off the top of my head.....Someone decide 20 and B should merge. SoCal "Hot Shots" went to Dayton to find out they couldn't keep up with a 20-H....Class disappeared in a year.

SCOA had 36 Runabouts at every race: They were the SCOA workers and leaders. Our Commodore, Race Chairman, Publicity Chairman, Fund Raiser and extra patrol boats. When APBA kicked the 36's out, our club took a nose dive that they never have recovered from.

NOTHING GOOD has ever come from dropping classes. There should be levels of importance....A KG-4 A Runabout title maybe only get 1/4 credit toward the Hall of Champions and maybe it only runs in Michigan....

But so what, they aren't told to throw your boat away and buy a new "WHIZZ BANG", if they wanted a "WHIZZ BAG" they'd buy one...

There was enough interest in 36 for Mercury to build a "CHEATER" for the 1970 Nationals. 36 was a great class!

[raceright]

No longer appropriate for the purpose it was obtained due either to the availability of better alternatives or change in user requirements

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/de...#ixzz2H3b4QuTn

This is one description of obsolete. Not far from the facts--there is no remedy for stock outboard. It has not been stock outboard for way to many years and HAS BECOME WHAT ALKIES USED TO BE, HUNT FOR PARTS& ENGINES,AND THIS LEADS TO HUNT FOR MEMBERS AND RACE SPONSORS AS WELL AS SITES, AND ALSO LEADS TO FIGHTING FOR SITES (SOMETHING i HAD ASKED apba TO ADDRESS AS A LEADER OVER 10 YEARS AGO).

The list goes on and on but for every talking point there is a counter point but it all leads to being obsolete. Just about every definition of obsolete suits powerboat racing and for the most part stock outboard is a good fit with most definitions.

[Smitty]

Imagine going into a Hobby Store and they really don't have anything to sell, but they know where you can buy a OLD BOAT in Texas that needs a motor but you can probably buy a motor in Seattle, then send the foot to Florida or Michigan, . . .

Point well made. Yet look at an actual example of the situation you describe: mid-1960s Stock racing, when, again, we in Reg.10 had elimination heats every weekend. I took a look at a 1967 APBA rulebook last night. It had a page listing the numbers of boats registered in each category and class for the year ending Oct. 31, 1966. Each of the A/B/C/D Stock hydro classes, every one of which used engines which were NLA from the factory or dealers and had to be obtained in the manner you describe, nationwide the registrations were in the mid- to high-200s . . . except for BSH, which had 320. The A/B/C/D Stock runabout classes, using the same NLA engines, all had numbers somewhere in the high 100s. Those A/B/C/D motors all had to be bought used, from another racer. But 36 Runabout, using engines that could be bought new (as everyone seems to think is essential)? 55 registered nationwide.

So given that situation in the Sixties, it still looks to me to now be far more of a problem to get new people interested at all, rather than for would-be racers to get equipment.

The 1967 rulebook (fascinating; takes me back to my long-lost youth!) also had a clue as to where racers come from, at least back then. In scanning through the pages of Stock Outboard members, looking just at those from Reg. 10, one can quickly see that the huge majority had home addresses in the city of Seattle and its immediate suburbs, with some numbers in Tacoma and a few in medium-sized towns around the three-state region. Looking into the Outboard and Inboard categories showed the same pattern.

So, unless current address listings, or listings in places other than Reg. 10, show a different pattern, it would appear(?) that while boatraces are now overwhelmingly held in remote areas, boatracers are much more likely to be found in the big cities.

If current figures support that thinking, at least it gives a clue as to where and how to "troll" for new members more efficiently.

(EDIT) Later: Ron, that was a crummy thing for the national organization to do to your locally-active 36 Class. Wasn't there a way to continue running it as a local event, still covered by the APBA insurance and general racing rules? Seattle Outboard races in the Sixties had as a favorite feature a local class of "Indian War Canoes," a wild event with racers from the Quinault tribe. You've undoubtedly heard about this, which I point out only to ask about how to handle locally-strong classes that are not popular nationally.

[Ron Hill]

Not To Really Argue

In the era of which you speak there were a **** load of Mercury Motors with Quickies in the US. In 1974, I talked Garbrecht into build 50 "D" Quickies and building .030 pistons. In 1975 I TALKED THEM INTO BUILDING THE 35 SS. Mike Jones got Mercury to build two runs for 25 SS's. Freddy Hauenstein and other got Mercury to built the 44 XS and the 25 XS.

NO ONE took "FISHING" Motor seriously for racing. Had we had bottom water pick ups, power trim, productions motors may have found a nice hem in Stock Racing.
Let me ask: How did kicking the KG-4, Mark 30-H and the Mark 55-H benefit Stock Racing?

[Smitty]

I'd answer but things have come up and I no longer have time to do any of this. Thanks to all.

[raceright]

The 36 class was a great class, I remember several races with a guy named George Scudder from LI man was he good (a Plumber by trade).
APBA commission killing this class might have been the beginning to the down fall of stock outboard.
This is about the time when stock would not allow MFG. to come in with new stuff. Why, not because it will hurt the class (same sorry excuse something like school budgets, when they say if not passed we will have to stop sports and busses)
It really is that they just do not want to have to spend any money--there cheapness makes it impossible for growth.