Thinking about trying this

http://www.nationalpowerboat.com/aro...sland-2011.htm

Been asking some questions, and did get a "if you do I will do it" so we will see.

No canopied boats allowed in HORBA......

Who said we had a canopy anymore

I believe that is unless you have your own rescue helicopter overhead 100% of the time.

Yes, that is what I was told. Each canopied team would need there own dedicated helicopter that they would need to furnish themselves.

I talked to Billy yesterday, and said our boat would be ok with the hatch off.

[QUOTE]Considering the new potential for our economy, it is time for racers, sanctioning bodies, everyone to put the past and our differences aside (but keep the competitive spirit) and watch what Marc, and the other dominant visionaries, can do./QUOTE]

Just curious, Is this visionary or Daydreaming, If I am using someone else's money I could easily say visionary, when using my OWN money it's more like DayDreaming! When you look at what New State of the art boats cost to build, throw in travel, time away from business or work, and the return one gets. Its a fool's dream in my opinion.

Mr. Haggin dumped a lot of money into AMF/ Geico, Marc and Scotty were in the right place and the right time, They have been successful at promoting the sport, and Geico. Now the Question is where does the future lie?? Will Geico continue for 5 years 10 years??? Class 1 survives year in year out with millions poured in by people with billions or close to it. When you look at print media about Offshore or any racing for that matter it is at best 3 months old. and we all know the state of our favorite boating Magazines are in. IMO National Classes need to be reduced, and its not to take away from the smaller classes, but it is hard to compare, a super Cat National Champion to a P-??? National CHampionship title, Did the P-? not work as hard certainly not, it is just not at the pinnacle of the sport.

It might be impossible to do, these days, but "back then", we involved all the boating writers in the sport, from newspapers to magazines to TV. When I was at Donzi, we "clipped" (got clippings from around the world from papers, etc). We used a forklift to move them. When the stories are out there, people read them.

[QUOTE=Pete B;3301955]I think you may have that backwards. I believe it is much harder to win a National Championship in C5 than Super Cat. There many more serious competitors in C5 and they never race alone. Most spec classes have just become an exhibition.

I also like the notions of:

•One sanctioning body fed by regional clubs.

•Two classes, one V-bottom and one catamaran, at the national series and "world championship" levels and as many classes as necessary at the regional club level.[/QUOTE]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this the ORIGINAL format of the APBA back in the '80's? There was a National circuit of Superboat, Open, Modified, Pro-Stock and Stock, and also regional circuits of A,B,C and D classes, along with the smaller of the National classes. Lot's of print coverage and even some TV coverage. It all seemed to work pretty well with pretty terrific boat counts and good competition, until somebody tried to build a better mouse trap. Now we are back advocating trying to get where we were more than twenty years ago. The more things change......

Tom
Total Marine