North of South Haven, cool place, been a while but used to spend a lot of weekends in that area.

Actually, it's south of Grand Haven, between Holland and South Haven.

Home of the Coral Gables Offshore Challenges in the 80's. Old style, 155 mile races.

I'll bet somebody can post pictures: LOTS of big names back in the day.

Why it's next door to Douglas MI :lolhit:

Jeff,
Skater is only about 75 miles from Michigan City.
Will the issue be fixed in time for you to get the boat down here next weekend?
We'd LOVE to have that beautiful boat in Michigan City.

Sorry to hear albout all the problems you have been having. Amazing that the best stuff money can buy doesn't last.

Post your results with skater. I've heard many stories of other manufacturers boats going there to be fixed correctly.

It's a Skater Nation!

They fixed my Apache 41 twice: after races in Chicago (hull crack) and Coco Beach (explosion).

Boat left Skater better/stronger than new.

:drink::drink::drink:

Thanks chief

You know, there is a 17 y/o chick racing the svl fountain...maybe you should look into that... :evilb:

Skater will take care of you!:ernaehrung004:

That's awesome. Keep it going. I won the worlds in P class at 18. I believe I am still the youngest world champ, but I would love to see that beat.

Best of luck!

I am now your biggest fan. I have been ripped up to hell and back for saying the same thing. To call this oval racing offshore racing is an insult to you, me and the rest of us that actually raced offshore.

I agree, but and there is a huge but...WE HAVE NOTHING ELSE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:party-smiley-004:

smokeybandit - thanks I guess??? I assume your dad is Kurt?

Oh really?? :p


SmokeyBandit our dads know eachother...in fact mine rolled a 24 skater trying to catch yours lol

No. I raced with Kurt. I drove, he throttled. My father owned the team.

My dad died in 1992. Might not be who you were thinking of. I raced with Kurt Berger. He drove and I throttled. My dad was Mike Weinstein, and I am Robert

I couldn't agree more.

i guess rally racers could say the same thing about nascar...or for that matter the generation of nascar racer's that had no idea what it was like to race on anything but dirt.

audacity

It is called "offshore" racing because it was meant to be raced offshore in deep water with navigation as an element of it. It's like the marine weather forecast - there is coastal, offshore and high seas, no one with half a brain could ever make the leap that most of today's races are "offshore" in any spirit of the words "offshore racing". If you think the sport has evolved so much than make a new name for it and drop the "offshore" call it "insight of land racing " - ok that's a joke!

You mention NASCAR, how has it changed? They always went round and round and they still do only the equipment has changed. Drag racing still goes in a straight line and endurance racing pretty much stayed the same - the equipment has changed not the foundations of where the sport was born. Offshore as you guys do it today has changed from the principles it was founded on it was created to be endurance racing.

Don't get me wrong and I will tell you I am jealous as hell of the boat and of you for running in it.

I just think they the big turbine boats in general are out of place and do no good in the overall formulation of a viable sport just like the old NHRA days when TV Tommy and a couple others were going to multi-engines cars. They had to be shut down in order to keep the sport alive, a few really cool cars would not ensure the sports survival it takes a large enough amount of cars running head to head that are similar (sort of) to dad's everyday driver to keep any motor sport alive, boats are no different. Reggie like him or hate him had done very well doing that as has Cigarette, Scarab, now Outerlimits, and of course Skater for cats with their outboard 24's and 32's changed Offshore racing, not the courses but the boats people used - those guys have kept the sport alive not 1 or 2 exhibition boats like you run.

Joe Gere

I'm going to make an adjustment to what I just said, Geico is an exhibition boat as far as I'm concerned (I'm no one) but they are different, they are a "show" people come just to see them. If they raced UIM 1 they would still be as big a draw and people come to see them because of their show, all the trucks, the cars, boats, girls, etc if they ran any other class they would do it with the same zest and have the same effect, it's not the turbine that makes them it's how they do it - my 2 cents.

people come to see the geico boat because it's fast as all he-ll...even looking at it from shore...

right now geico is holding this sport together! this is not my 2 cents! fact id they put a ton of money into making this work; whatever sport you want to call it!

I also agree geico brings in a ton of people to every event. It is really to bad you guys couldnt run in St. Clair that would of been a great show. The turbine boats is what a lot of people come to see.

If one boat is "holding the sport together" then you have no sport. With that statement you imply if Geico gets tired and decides to quit then racing goes by the wayside and you with the JBS boat just pissed away allot of money for nothing.

Do you not see how this is bad for the sport?

If Geico ran in a competitive class they would still be a big draw, they could compete with 2 boats like many of the Euro Teams used to do and with the way they run their operations would still probably be the team to beat.

If you are all convinced that the sports hangs on because of the Geico turbine boat you better just burn your race boats to the waterline right now because Geico will not be there forever, just like Popeyes, Spirit of the Amazon, Jessie James, etc, etc. You need to be able to sustain racing with out them or you have nothing.

it was a great show when geico and bud were running neck and neck at 180mph. to place it in perspective; geico and us raced deck to deck in biloxi last year as we went through corner 1 at 193mph sliding sideways! here in st.clair we setup to run at over 200mph deck to deck!

to quote someone: "i'm selling death"! LOL

Joe S -I like you! I'll buy you a cold one should we ever meet!

so please do enlighten me and mr. haggin for that matter. so all the money that geico is directly sponsoring the sport with is meaningless?

i have raced and beaten geico...but i have seen john haggin and the geico boys do more for the sport than anyone so far in the history of it! fans have no idea how many times the ball is dropped and he is there to pick it up!!!!

HJ:....thanks!

Joe S, you said Haggin is holding it together, I say if that is all that is holding it together then the money he's put in is meaningless because the sport on a whole has no following other than to see the Haggin show.

Haggin has done great things of course but he will go away someday also and then what? If the sport needs his money and needs his boats then what will happen - no more sport?

Look I hope I'm wrong, I hope people flock to seeing two giant boats run side by side (sounds like drag racing doesn't it - LOL) - I hope you're one of those two boats, and I hope the sports gets enough boats that each of the 22 classes has at least 3 boats in each so everyone still gets a prize!

You're out there I'm not, I wish I was again! So don't take what I say to heart and don't turn into me sitting at a computer Saturday night watching your kids play Guitar Hero wishing you were somewhere else!

Good luck get the boat fixed and let's see what you got!

geico is trying to make it something bigger than it has been....they have put their money where their mouth is! he is doing everything he possibly can so the sport can be not only self-sustaining but profitable. there has been talk of us doing a two boat jbs vs.geico 10 mile drag race that is deck to deck side by side for the speed record! even starting at opposite ends so we pass each other at 400mph 15 feet away form each other. JH has a vision and so do marc and scotty. jeff and i do too! jeff and i are racers. i have raced 3 different professional disciplines now.

we have talked about racing from one country to another in open waters. whatever is takes for tv to take notice. and on that note the "build it bigger" with geico is the most popular and most aired episode to date.

having spent weeks at turbine school i have learned so much! the manuals are written at a 6th grade level. my model t53 study guide is something every racer getting into one of these boats should be able to pass the tests in it!

EDUCATION or should i say the lack of it has hurt our class and the sport!

with that said i do see more turbines in the sport. they say "unlimited hydroplanes" ....yeah, they are LIMITED! with what i now know i can build and rig a supercat with a turbine to make 1000 hp a side and have it run all year for WAY cheaper than a 1075 merc! it would not be a 703 either. FAA spec is 1450 and we r pushing them to whatever; say 2000... there are generators in the field producing over 1000hp with massive dynamic loads on them! they run for THOUSANDS of hours!

IMO Geico is not completely holding the sport together, but they are the "Godfather" of the sport right now..If they went away the sport would still exist but it would lose its biggest draw and biggest contributor. As far as comparing racing today vs old time with the huge courses, no comparison. Nobody these days would go to a race when they can't even see the race. If you go to a big track Nascar race and you have bad seats, you can't see squat, imagine 10 times worse than that. (I'm not comparing boat racing with Nascar, just giving an example). Everybodies lives are so busy and jam packed with stuff, nobody is going to go to watch a race that they can't see. Hell, you can't even get half the racers to the race because their lives are so busy ( and lack of funds also ). While I'm on the "lack of funds" subject, racing boats is extremely expensive. No comparison to 20/30 years ago. Yes salaries go up, but not at the rate that boating expenses have gone up. I always tell people that are getting into boating for the first time, " congrats on your new boat, good luck, but remember, buying the boat is the cheapest part about being a boater". Good luck to all and Godspeed. P.S. Remember, I'm just giving my opinion

"IMO Geico is not completely holding the sport together"... who is?

again geico is writing checks to keep it going as of now! i can tell you our entry fees are not enough to pay for it!

i was interviewed by VS this past weekend and had cameras in our pits...as cool as we may think this sport is they were paid to be there! and who do you think wrote the check.

ps...i made money running poker runs. i made money racing F2. i know others that have done the same. it can be done. but to pull it off the amount of sacrifice is astronomical.

Don Aronow was real Offshore Powerboat Racing. So was Ben Kramer and team Apache. (And I'm not going to get into that whole Aronow/Kramer thing. All the players are in their permanent positions.) Today it is smaller water and higher speeds. Some of the best cat designs have tremendous quality throughout. But, truth be told, with the high speeds in rough water even the best cat powerboats make poor airplanes.

[QUOTE=audacity;3172403
ps...i made money running poker runs. i made money racing F2. i know others that have done the same. it can be done. but to pull it off the amount of sacrifice is astronomical.[/QUOTE]

It can be done...again. And the time is right too, and not in spite of the bad economy, but because of it.

Turbines are boring to watch compared to piston powered boats. Impressive speeds and reliability from the turbines but its about the noise that brings the fans to the shoreline. Compare the sounds of blown injected alcohol grand prix hydros to the unlimited hydros. You can feel the power and speed from the piston boats. People use to come running when the unlimiteds fired up not anymore.

Let's face it. Boats like Geico and JBS are definitely cool. I think my problem is that I never looked at this from a fans perspective, but rather an "offshore" racers perspective. I know that we did not race to impress the fans. We raced to win. There always seemed to be huge crowds. Much larger than at the current races. I guess if fans want a demonstration instead of an offshore race, then that is what the market demands. So be it.

I'll add one more thing since I guess I started going down this path.

Can anyone really answer what fans what, I see what JBS wrote but do they want that? I think the boats are less important than the whole show itself. The show is in the pits, involvement with the town etc, etc is what makes the race successful and makes come out. I can tell you as a youth race day in Pt Pleasant was nothing, it was going to see the baots before the race, walking in the pits, see the engines etc. - Kings Grant Inn!

I think people like the piston boats, I think liked the 4 engine monsters more then they can relate to a "jet engine".

I really doubt that the speed of Geico or JBS going by the crowd is more exciting than 5 class 1 Lambo or big block powered boats going by. I don't think from shore you can tell the speed difference all that much but if you have 5 or 10 large boats it would be exciting!

Case in point, in the Apache section there is a thread about "how many Apache's are in NJ" - read that thread! This is why people lined the beaches and still raise their head from the sand and look out to the sea today.

By the way - can we hear why the turbines blew up yet or is it still under wraps?

JBS did not have Turbine Marine Supervision when the damage was done. So much for sunglasses, custom race jumpsuits, and a 15' picture of his head pasted on the truck. KaBoom!

Look, don't throw stones at JBS, they did what did and they have to pay the price. I think they suffered enough all that money, hype, boats, trucks and then to be broken like they are, they feel bad enough - at least they are out there still, that's more than I can say so my hats off to them no matter what.

My only beef is I think the sport is no longer "offshore" and is headed the wrong direction. I don't think the visions that some of these people have today are any different than 20 years ago when similar visions for Offshore Racing started the fall of the sport in my eyes and it has yet to return and probably never will.

Is that a bad thing - only time will tell!

I see it differently. JBS is the one throwing the stones at Turbine Marine. Turbine Marine was not allowed to inspect the "damage" afterwards. Then all the anti TM rants. Probably end up in court.