Pro and amature classes. That way everyone gets a trophy or a flag. There will be a lot of amatures if JT is racing. Maybe some of the *****ing will go away. I'll buy the trophy's if my stuff is legal,:D
pat W

Bingo!..........

In an earlier thread MMwalters said he didn't know why Nascar had the inside track on TV and fans.......

Mike just gave the answer......personality development. Earnhart fans against Gordon fans against Mark Martin against Labonte' etc, etc....and people care. Put these same guys in tunnel boats or Super Cats keep the sponsors and the behind the scenes story development and the fans would follow....as long as these guys stayed in a SINGLE class.

Before there were "spec engines Nascar rose to prominence on names like Petty, Waltrip, Fireball Roberts and Cale Yarbrough........ driving high powered street cars.

The competition "model" followed the development of these personalities and is a separate and distinct issue...and is not the source of the success.....it is a "value added" issue for owners and spectators.

The "model's" purpose is to limit cost and improve competition......... butb of and by itself....it's boring.

The personalities ....fill the seats.

Offshore has no real rivalries...and the ones that do exist... JT vs Jerry...... Bill Mauff vs Hugh Fuller.... are basically seen only in the pits or discussed over a beer by those in the "know".

The TV shows can't build on them because the myriad of classes create rivalries all over the place with no rhyme nor reason.

Hence we build no fan base............

Shane you may rather watch Factory classes...but if the average couch potato could watch Gordon, Jr., Mark Martin, The Labonte's, Awesome Bill, etc...race boats ..do you think they'd rather see them in Factory One Warlocks.......or Super Cats?

T2x.......... agreeing with Fever Mike.

T2x,

Although I already know what your response will be, my answer to that question is I would rather see them in F1 or F2 Boats. Why? Because that extra speed means nothing on TV or on shore for the most part. The high flying, hard hitting, bone jarring bumps, jumps and air time make for more exciting racing especially when in close quarters than does a 40 foot cat gracing the wave tops at ease. Don't get me wrong, youand I know it still takes a tremendous amount of skill to run those super cats. But when viewing the racing it amounts to little excitement.

Shane.................agreeing with myself!;)

One thing I forgot to mention...Look at the foundation that NASCAR was built on. The personalities that T2x mentioned were racing off the shelf style cars. Just like F1 and F2. In some cases they were actually street cars hopped up. So maybe a little of T2x and little of my idea might actually yield some results!;) Team work, imagine that.:)

In fact.......I'd rather see them in Tunnel Boats......

Maybe, I have a prejudice against pleasure boats but to me an idle viewer prefers rail dragsters to stock bodies, hydros to monohulls...and real race boats to runabouts.

The main thing we can agree on.....is put them in ONE type.....not 30. I've lived first hand the years of wasted effort and lost TV impressions as we (myself included) struggled to get sound bites that created some form of coherent story line. I've been in V/O's where the announcers had to run the same footage over and over in a vain attempt to put something down on the audio that untangled the jumble we were faced with. The term "deck to deck" has been repeated to death......and there's only so many "WOWEE's" you can inject......as you cut away from big cat to small vee, to outboard, to Super boat, to One Design.......To Baja commercial.

T2x

T2x....thanks for the comment...nice to see i'm on your mind. :D

Personality
 

T2X, I agree with you.

NASCAR fans are crazy and they are fanitcal about racing. Also, everyone knows about the Viagra Car, or the Budweiser Car, etc. Look at Tunnel boat racing, it was pretty popular for a while. Everyone know's the Miss Budweiser. That boat made a name for itself and attracted fans.

Racing has changed a lot, and btw I think APBA is a sinking ship. What happens when you sped $500K on a new rig and APBA decides to change the rules on you so that your setup is illegal? I know of a lot of guys who left the business because of things like that.

My company sponsored a boat two years ago and it turned out to be a waste of money. Why???? The races didn't attract people, and it had no marketing value for our company to spend that kind of money again. Like they say, "Build it and they will come". If racing can make corporations money, I am sure there will be big sponsors, which attract $$$$, and in turn attract fans etc. etc.

Just my opinion, not sure if its the right one. But just my opinion.

Panther

ok Fever Mike I gotta call you on the BMX comment. I've been racing BMX for 20 plus years. When I started Kinetic I had just turned Pro in BMX too. There haven't been any rule changes to speak of in the history of BMX, talk about a sport with very little technology, the only thing thats really changed is now almost every kid is on clip in 10-speed shoes. Oh yea the is also 2 organizations in the BMX world too, they also schedual races ontop of each other and generally just screw with each other.
P.S. when you are feeling better I've got a seat in the 24 for you on ANY weekend.

Boy NPSA that is OOOOOOLD!!! There are still guys that try to race gears it's not really worth the trouble. You can legally race a mountain bike in the cruiser classes no in the NBL and ABA . I heard about some guy getting caught at Sarasota ( The OLDEST running track in the country 25+ years) with some type of spring loading device in the rear hub. Where as he would sit on the starting gate and pedal backwards to load it and some how when the gate dropped it was like a sling shot????? That got banned.

t2x how right you are, and thanks for the complement ! i feel i have arrived in offshore . shifter thanks you are right to , i know nascar scucks i used to work in it i know first hand , but some of the things they do to day to offshore sucks worse, x dem prop size sucks and im'm sory 160 is a hole lot faster than 110 if you cant see that you are blind what would top fuel dragerst do at 110 vers 300 can you tell the different sorry guys we cant run 300 no more it un safe and x man can run 340 so we are going to slow him down to 300 and see who wins bull **** they would be no race fans , if the slow them down to 110 would they the smaller classes are nice for me trying to get into racing but what do people go to see 75 mph 160 mph who has the most fans and i liked seeing the old racing better