Hot Duck

But for those that don't know any better, they will read his ad in an upcoming issue of one of the boat magazines and say "wow, Fountain made a clean sweep in that class" and they will be impressed. We all know better, but some will be misled. You have to hand it to Reggie though, he will use this win to his advertising advantage any way that he can.

Downtown42

Why is everyone afraid to race with Fountain? Maybe there would be more boats but seems they rather do their own thing in some new league.

I guess after all the races they do win, most get tired of losing and won't show up. I can understand that. Cat Killer has opened some eyeballs.

Hot Duck

I can tell you first hand why we left SBI a few years ago. We were running F2 when all of the boats were required to run the Merc 500EFI (or carb). All of the engines were supposed to be 100% factory and sealed and all boats were required to buy so much fuel on site so that everybody was running the same fuel. I can tell you that the fountain engines not only sounded drastically different (even though we were all using the same engine/exhaust setup), but they smelled different too. It was blatantly obvious that they were burning race fuel, not the fuel from the truck that everybody else was running. The sad part is that when a complaint or protest was made, nothing was ever done about it.

Ask Smitty and Anthony about their mix up just this year. They bought a Fountain that had recently won a title and was completely unchanged from when it won. They ran the boat and were doing well only to find out that they had illegal engines, which was unknown to them. They were evidently led to believe that the boat was 100% legal when they bought it, but it was not. Since the boat was unchanged from the previous season it only leads me to believe that the boat was illegal then as well. The sad thing is that the team was allowed to keep the title from the previous year while Smitty and Anthony got caught in the middle of the mess thinking that they were OK.

My bottom line is that there is not anybody that minds loosing a FAIR race to another competitor, but nobody wants to loose to a cheater. Now I will give you that probably not all Fountains are cheating, but there are probably quite a few that still are. Some teams (Like Smitty) may not even know they are cheating, but whoever set up the boat knew that it was not legal.

When we were racing SBI, I think the organization looked the other way concerning the cheating because Fountain was a huge sponsor of the organization. I honestly think that is why so many boats left SBI and went to APBA back then. Then you see SBI join with APBA not long after that rather than crumble to pieces and disappear. Again, to get away from the crap (and the organization management), the racers went their own way to form OSS. All they wanted was a pro-racer organization that would allow a fair playing field for all. Once again, this is just my personal opinion on how I saw things happen. It was at this point that I quit racing because I was tired of all the bullsh*t.

Take a look at was OPA has done. They are doing bracket class racing where the classes are based on capable speed. To keep the teams in check and to be sure that they are all playing by the rules, OPA puts a sealed GPS box in every boat. You break out of your speed bracket and you are penalized or put in last place depending on the infraction. This makes the racing fair and you see how quickly their boat numbers are increasing. Again, the racers just want a fair, pro-racer organization where they can go head to head and do it on a level playing field.

OK, I need to stop now before my blood pressure gets any higher. I will tell you that Fountain builds a fast boat and there is no denying that. They have just gotten a bad wrap over the years for some shady and questionable actions.

You initially asked why everybody is afraid to race with Fountain. I take it that you are talking about APBA/SBI. I have to flip that around and ask why those guys won't come to race in OPA or OSS. Just curious. I am sure that OPA would welcome any Fountain, or anybody for that matter, that wants to race.

9 Lives

Do you know what was illegal about the engines? Displacement, camshaft, etc?

BobbyB

The heads were milled down.

Ted G

iTrader: (1)

and had relieved bowls.

MarkMathews

Heads were milled as per SBI specs. OSS/Merc replaces heads during a rebuild.

Who's at fault?

Smitty for not reading the fine print?

OSS for accepting SBI sealed motors?

Fountain for selling the boat to Smitty wthout explaining the rebuild process in detail and not knowing if it was truly legal at OSS?

You decide.

Were the relieved bowls the reason for the DQ? Seems to me that that came much later down the road.

Downtown42

1.....I did not, nor did you babysit the engines 24/7 since they bought the boat. How can you realistically say the new owners didn't do something to the engines? Why didn't the new owners ck the motors before the first race to make sure they are on a fair playing field. I'm not accusing the new owners of anything but how can you say the original owners cheated? If the tech guys were under the table, then I'll agree with you.


2....Sounds to me after this weekend, the new league has some serious problems right now. Why did a respected Bob Bull pull out and he was qualified to run?


3....Why is that? Where is the proof of cheating. Anything documented or is this more heresay from sore losers making excuses?


4.....Fountain was here 1st and loyal to those he plays with. Why should he jump ship and follow others. That's not right.
Maybe if others could follow his example, hang in there and work things out instead of a bunch of........., we wouldn't have 14 different World Championships on the same weekend.

Skater beat Fountain fair and square. Did Fountain say they cheated because they won? Will Fountain ban Nigel next year because he is a threat?

I too get tired of the ranting on Fountain. If some teams cheat, document and ban them. Heresay and talk doesn't prove squat to me.

I've been a turn boat and put alot of time in myself trying to promote offshore racing. No, I have never had enough money to race boats, sorry about that. I am very disappointed in the way some race guys, whom we should respect and admire, keep this sport in the same state as 15 yrs ago. What a shame.

MarkMathews

Actually, WHM didn't get first. Sadly though, the OSSSC issue tainted the title for Nichols Offshore who won the Championship (paraphrazed from Gary's post in the milling area). Suffice to say, there are still problems in every sanctioning body. OPA has gotten pretty close on the parity, but it will always be an uphill battle when you can have a 40Ft. Cat (with god know how much power), running against a 35 Ft. Vee bottom. Or a 50 Turbine V running against whoever.

Ted G

iTrader: (1)

Actually the results this year in OPA racing show that parity is almost flawless. A 35-38 vee Fountain (On the Chip) beat EVERY boat at Ocean City. And if I'm not mistaken the 50 Turbine Vee (AMF) has never won a race, regardless of who he was running against. And you can't beat the GPS, it will foil you every time and has performed very well this year. Are there still discrepancies and rule issues, yes, but very few and I haven't heard anyone say they didn't have a great time.

And the 40 Skater was running PX, not against any of the Vee Fountains, and God, Mike D'Annabelle, and I all know how much power is in it