Matt Trulio

Apologies to Yogi ... deja vu all over again, http://speedonthewater.com/commentar...re-racing.html.

Have a great and safe weekend on the water.

Interceptor

"The following are the 29 classes that compete in SCCA Club Racing National events. In some cases, the cars in the Club Racing classes have a sister series within the professional ranks"

Copied he quote above from the SCCA website. For me it sums it up very well. Many classes, low visability, amateur sport. Also similar to minor league unaffiliated baseball, many teams, many leagues and players living out the dream.
Think Joe NASCAR would pay NASCAR ticket prices to see offshore/inshore racing ? Would Joe NFL or NBA or NHL pay their ticket prices to see offshore/inshore racing ?

ed

compedgemarine

unfortunatly for the sport to become any thing it needs to collapse completely and be reborn with none of the people that are currently involved in running it. I know that is harsh as well and many will disagree but the fact of the matter is none of those running things now has any intention of straying from the methods they currently follow. why do things continue like they are? because no one wants to change them. I know this first hand from being involved in putting on a race. My wife Michelle was the promoter and after pushing through several things to make the race run smoother they all got shot down when the "sanctioning body" group showed up. their answer to not allowing the changes, "because that is not how we do it". when I pushed the issue of their way not working and they should try Michelle's way the said "No, this is how we have always done it". so lets all be honest about it, passion for the sport does not improve the sport. Carbonell does not really care what goes on as long as he makes his money, OSS is the same group that is stuck in their ways and is scared to make dramatic changes because "the racers may not show up". the end result is that nothing will ever change until the whole sport implodes and can be rebuilt by new leaders who can build a strong, functional organization.
and before all of you attack me for not having a thousand posts let me say I have been around or directly involved in offshore racing for 25 plus years so I do have some insight.

Matt Trulio

You make a lot of good points.

As for post count ... I've seen some insightful stuff from low-count people and dopey stuff from high-count people. In other words—it's meaningless.

Heck, I have a bunch of posts and it has prevented me from the odd dopey one.

Carry on.

Top Banana

You can never turn the clock back to what seems like better times. Guys from my era the 70's, always wished that we raced in the 60's when the real innovation was happening. Guys from the 80's always wished they raced in my era when there were real long races, like the Bahamas 500 which was actually 539 miles or the Long Beach to San Francisco race which was well over 400 miles.

As the Greek philosopher once said..."What is the value of the prize without the dust?"

Racers are racers and will race anything, anywhere.....the problem as you and many other have pointed out, is the sanctioning bodies.

My advice, take what you have in your era and enjoy it. The politicians of any era were never the real racers anyway, they just wanted the power. Racers are the winners in the end, if they get to do what they love.

Mike A.

Unification is not the answer.

jayboat

iTrader: (1)

That pretty much nails it, Charlie.

Matt Trulio

Fair enough and well put. As I said, if nothing I suggested actually happens things will just stay the way they are. And if that's OK with the racers, it's certainly OK with me. I don't have a dog in the fight so to speak. I just hear from a lot of racers.

Mike ... Why?

Interceptor

If the racers are fine with the current approach then all is well. If they expect bigger purses, sponsors, Tv etc then spectators in large numbers are needed which attracts the sponsors that pay the bills.