All that visit this board, are in one way or another boat and speed junkies! But Most have been turned off from offshore racing due to politics, lack of boats, etc. This past weekend was the Edison Offshore race for recovery in Beautiful Ft. Myers. The beaches were packed, the pleasure boat fleet was estimated at 400+. and Man it was a great race!
what will it take to bring in new fans, and most certainly the old fans who said screw it.

Please refrain from saying unite in KW at the end off the year we know that hell has a better chance of freezing.

would you plan a vacation around one??

Just looking for feedback

here are a few pics from the weekend

Coordinate all races around Air Shows....

The past weekends schedule the airshow was coordinated around the boat race, both days had boat racing before and after the flight demonstrations.

Pete I think what he ment was that there would be a lot less crowds there if the air show was not there.

Jon

Oh ya there is no way that I would ever plan trips around races. They are cancelled to often for me to do something like that.

Jon

Hey Jon,
I know what he implied, but 3 planes doing basic flight manuvers really isnt a airshow, while just using this past weekend event as a example, most went to the beach to catch rays, and watch a awesome race where the classes were won by seconds. It wasnt a high speed boat parade stretched out over 5 miles, with 25 boats in 15 classes. the races started at noon, the beaches and balconies were packed by 10 am.

I hope you find the time to attend a OPA, or OSS race in the future they are great.

You are 110% correct, OPA and OSS are a great time as well as SBI racing(any racing for that matter). But in FtL the racing started @ 9am both days with the beaches packed at that time also and I do consider the Blue Angels(which happens to be 6 planes, by the way) to be a great tie in. The Air and Sea show has been in Ft Myers since the LLC days thru the SBI days and now OSS, so I find it hard to believe that the whole show was around the boat racing, as in FtL. A bottom line answer to your question without you trying to read between the lines is, we as racers(including myself) need to drop our egoes and quit the pissing matches and "recruiting" over in the racers section. We need to run our races that best fit our teams needs and budgets and the fans will come back. We the racers have alienated the fans with our childishnish(sp) We have lost site of putting a show on for the fans, but tend to think that we are the show. I wish the best and more importantly safety to all racers wherever they chose to compete, because when the sun goes down, no matter what we are still just racers no matter what flag is flying over the pits that particular weekend. Pete you as an obviously biased cheerleader should promote racing not just OSS, for ex, Tim Sharkey, he promotes it as a whole no matter how stupid we look on these boards.

I for one can say that I am estatic where I am racing and will continue to go out and do the thing that I love and do my best to promote the sport.

Best of luck to you this season and be safe in your travels


Trent

If you would care to discuss this further by all means call me @ 321-508-3077

Hey Pete B

Great pictures of the races and the person in the first picture I also saw on the pier Sunday. We normally vacation in Fort Myers Beach and we do plan it around the races but this was our last time because our son will be in school next year so it won't work out. I know on Saturday nights new they talked about the race and said that more people will be there Sunday for the race then there are during spring break. I did miss seeing a parade of boats like SBI did when they use to race there. Where you out at the end of the pier or back with everyone else?

on the pier, many more pics of the race can be seen in the milling area.

I was out there in the spectator fleet in Ft. Myers. Hundreds of boats, lot's of partying, families, etc.. It was great but as I looked around I didn't really see anybody paying attention to the actual racing. Sad to say but the jets were getting the attention. In fact when the airshow ended a lot of people pulled the hook and left.
Until we can figure out how to put these things on in stadiums I don't think it'll ever change. To get the crowds it needs to be more like a festival with other events thrown in.