thank you #29 .

we all know whats its going to take but even with the OSS your not able to see the light.
you need one cat class and one vee class. i know most of the race boats by name and still couldn't keep track in KW. adpot the Class 1 rules for the cat guys and follow the P1 rules for the vee's. put anyone that doesn't fit into the production classes. cat lite and cat extreme into the cat class. and before you argue about boat lenght look at your courses. the little boats will run good on the lake courses and the big guys in the open water. we have to put our egos aside and do whats good for the sport.

as for mercury let em stay. the teams that wanna use them would be factory backed. and the rest can use their own engine builders.

Sponsors will come as the sport gets "organized" look at the huge sailboat race's that have been going on for years...their boring as hell...no one even sees them out in the ocean...but they get televised and they also get huge sponsors...aka sony / ect

Dave, The way I see it is the Merc 525 cats love the reliability of the package and dont want more power. The speeds seem to be fast enough.
The Merc 850 class has long life between rebuilds with great incentives from Merc. The speeds are 15 MPH faster than the Merc 525 class.
The 750 class has the advantage of having anyone build there power but dont seem to last as long as a Merc 850 but cost less to build.
The extreme cats just like the anything goes factor and insane speeds.
The Turbine cats like the extreme boats may be more cost effective (so I have been told) but also have blinding speed.
The P-1 class has its place for older less efficient hulls but are restricted to top speed in there bracket.

Now comes the request that the fans want. Less cat classes! Be advised that some of the teams in these classes will park there boats if they have to change power. Who would you all like to see run together and how would you tec it? The fleet is anywhere from 36'-50' in length. Turbine and extreme dont want to go slower. SCL 525 boats at 36' dont want to go faster (except one). Cat 850 has a great deal with Merc on there packages and love the spec sealed everyone has the same motor. The 750 guys would need tec above normal with out sealed motors or computer systems. Extreme is off 25 MPH than the Turbine boats.
It's our faults as race organizations allowing classes to be formed based on a small numbers of one off boats and giving them classes. On the other side if we dont allow them they will go to another organization and race there. We have allowed this to happen for one reason and one reason only. BOAT COUNT. What started as a exabition show on Saturdays with some way cool stuff has now diluted what we are. A RACING ORGANIZATION. On the other hand some would argue thats what we are A SHOW. I personally bought my boat to race as many other teams as I could weather I won or lost I was still racing others and always looking for more people to join our class. The more affordable the boat the better the odds are for a bigger class.
MD

One Boss ! ....oss !

do you wanna move forward or talk about.
yes i understand that the top cat turbine and extreme teams have tons of $$$ wrapped up, but have them race by themselves. those guys should have supercat teams also, geez, JBS's truck probably cost more than a supercat. as for the rest of the cats here in the states, unless the old peir 57 boat comes back WHM will be the longest. most everyone is running shorter boats 388 skaters and 39 mti's. these boats are closer to the cat lite and agian it confuses people. plus don't confuse overall boat lenght of a 50 mystic. its running surface is only 43'. i think?

one cat class set up like Class 1 the 850's can stay and the 750 could tweak there motors and run with the the SC boats. hp to weight. plus you would have to continually look at whos winning and change weights or something so everyone has a chance to win. maybe invert the starting lineup from who won the last race. no ones racing for big prize money so this way all teams would have a better shot of winning.

the tech issue for the 750's was just resolved when you guys decided to have a P1 type class. just have an officail go and watch the dyno testing. seal as many motors as you want. the teams would have to pay a reasonable cost for this to be done. and have points for keeping the same motor all year and get away from the high maintence 510 supercat motor specs or keep um since the racing will be based on hp to weight.

as a "wise man" just told me, you don't see NASCAR sprint cup, busch and trucks series running at the same time. and even better offshore is like throwing F1, indy and go carts in there all at the same time.

as for cat lite and SVL they can either find a home within the production classes and race the day before. with the last race of that day (saturday) being the turbine and extreme boats.

we need to have only one main class in vee and cat or it's just a show. i can't think of any other form of motor sports that puts up with a racing field of just 4 or 5 entries per class and sometimes just one!

oss is the best

My issue with just one main class is who will show? You will still be back to 5 boats for the main event. The existing teams have too much money tied up in there programs to do it all over again. If you go to class1 rules you will have even less. I thought the SCL and the 850 could combined but after a meeting with the existing teams they felt it was not a good idea. Reward the classes with the biggest boat count and try to build off that. If the larger classes get more attention maybe other teams will build there boats to race in those classes.
MD

How about OSS have another meeting and vote to allow (or not) the 368 hull into 850 class, and while we are at it why not also vote to allow (or not) 750 boats. In key West both the 750 and 850 boats were close enough around the course. I don't think there is that much tweaking of the rules to have parity with these boats, and with P1 rules happeneing the dyno facility is already there for the 750 engines too. I am sure this would bring maybe 4 more boats into this class, and there could be at least 8 at each event next year. We need more boats in less classes, surely this is a way to increase the 850 fleet at least. I know that at least Tony would be ok with this and I am sure the other 750 boats would follow. At least lets see how this could develope.

While we are at this why not allow hulls from 32 to 36 in Cat lite, surely this could open the class to many more boats, for now the cat lite class has become a one hull/engine spec class. Top speeds could be governed by prop rules like 850.