skaterdave

rick i was not asking or talking about any other class other than class 100.

2 Trick Rick

Oh... I was asking if all the class would be willing to align there speeds with SBI.

I'm cool either way

Pros: Class unity that may encourage some SBI teams to come up north and race.

Cons: I just bought new props..

TYPHOON

Im my opinion only. The reason its so hard to set up a boat to a class is the water conditions we race in. Your perfect set up prop in the bay on a calm day with no chop will put you over if you leave the dock and find yourself in a 2 foot chop on race day. The same set up will produce aprox. a 2-3 MPH greater speed. So to think its as easy as picking a prop on your rev limiter and you wont break out forget it. Class 5 boats are all capable of 80MPH or darn close. It would make it a lot closer to wide open throttle racing for this class. It would really make the teams run at WOT in the ocean. With a max of 30 feet it would be hard to get much more than 80 MPH out of that size boat and have reliable power to finish. Many teams already have in excess of 600hp.
Why would a canopy boat in class 5 have more of an advantage? In my opinion, its a disadvantage as long as top speed would still be at 80 mph. It takes at least double the team work and trust factor to get that puppy around the course." YOU CANT SEE" and there is that split second lost here and there communicating in the turns. Yes it is safer but definitly not faster! Most run a higher X dimension to achieve the speeds they get in spec racing but it comes at a high cost of control. A open cockpit Extreme has the same speed as a canopy Extreme with the same power so whats the difference.
Im all about growing the class and having it as fair as passable with good competition for all in the class. Things are going to be tight next year and getting a full class of boats 10-15 will be hard. Does class 5 want more competition?
MD

HighPriority

Randy, the only reason I feel that canopy boat should not be allowed to run with open boat in class 5 is the well know fact that the canopy boats are much safer, and in big water there would be a huge advantage over a open boat less than 30' in length. Ok i will spell it out (your ba//s get much bigger in a canopy) In the upper classes this is not as much of a advantage because they are running against boats a lot larger than 30'.

In my opinion only.

skaterdave

the canopy boats would be definately safer and would let those in the canopy boats possible run over their heads since they would feel safer

yes i understand that with a tail wind or some chop the boat will run faster. hence this is why you would test more than one time on the "perfect" day and have a few setups for different kinda of water.

phragle

iTrader: (3)

That is easy to think, but having been around various forms of racing since I was about 4 years old, once you are off the forum, on the course and the adrenalin starts pumping, their are only 2 things that dictate how fast you are really going to go...

1. is how fast you need to go to keep the guy behind you, behind you

and/or

2. how fast you have to go to get in front of the guy infront of you

Wahoo ATV

Why change our speeds for 8-10 SBI boats? Most will not come to an OPA event just because the speeds are the same. Our speeds are much more logical. As far as breaking out, it is good. It keeps everyone on top of their game. I would bet that everyone, except Two Trick Rick, can run .10 mph over their number. If not you are leaving something on the table.

As a Class 5 owner I would not want to see the speed change. It is just more investment in props and time. Build your boat for the class not the class for the boat.

2 Trick Rick

HEY, I seen 88 gps speeds before (granted that was on the trailer down I-75.

But your probably right about changing the speeds Dean, why would a bunch a professional SBI racers want to come up and get the ass handed to them by a bunch of back woods northern boyz anyways..

HighPriority

The penalty now is last place points. In class 5 you will not get a trophy or money because there will be 10 to 12 boats placing in front of you.

scottc

Hey Randy, you always have new ideas on how offshore racing should be, my question is why don't you make your own org and make the rules the way you see they should work. It could be called Randy's Way racing org. We all agree that none of this is perfect but very close. OPA has done a great job on makeing it as fair racing as possible. OSS and SBI have also done their verisons of what they seam to be fair. In turn it gives the teams, owners and racers a choice of what they see as fair. I don't know what the answer is but it appears to me that OPA has the largest boat count at most of there events. That kind of says alot. Changing things every year cost money and let's face it, there is not that much return on the game. I hope that one day we can flip on the TV and see something like the NASCAR of boat racing on the weekend sports channels almost every weekend. As it has been asked many times before, can't all the heads just sit down and make this a big sport with one name.
Untill then we all can choose what flag we want to race under but can't see it on tv or follow who is the real world champ.

Just my .02