A must-read by Rich Luhrs, http://speedonthewater.com/commentar...e-of-what.html.

This piece likely will stir strong emotions. As the publisher of this commentary, I would ask that people try to respond with the same level of respect and thoughtfulness with which it was written.

Capsule. Easy peasy. Thanks again Matt.

Hit the nail on the head!

Good read Matt. Thanks. I've also always been puzzled by the "at least they died doing what they loved line" but sometimes it's just hard to say the "right" thing at times. One really just needs to remember that.

I hope his wise words will finally be heard, and taken to heart.

Rich's commentary was tremendous, and should be thought provoking to many, but I fear it will not be to those in a position to effect the necessary change. One thing is for certain - while fatalities will always be part of racing, obviously preventable deaths should not happen. And none of the three deaths this weekend should have happened.

Personally, I really like the message presented in the article. One unified offshore racing circuit and sanctioning body would be good for the sport in more ways than one. Sponsors and venues could pool there resources instead of dividing them. The rules would be unilateral, so it would be a level playing field. The sanctioning body could work with the teams to develop better saftey measures and all the resources could be pooled together.

Very well written and makes a lot of sense!!

Offshore racing splitting back in the day to all of these smaller groups has really hurt the sport. Look at what happened with Indy car and Champ cars.

Now they are combined and with new rules and safety for 2012, you watch the success of the racing division over the next few years....

Thoughts and prayers to all of the families and friends.
Sad week in Key West!

Absolutely, straight on correct. While you can never remove all risks from the sport, the "alphabet soup" situation has done nothing positive for the sport from a safety, competition or fans standpoint. While I feel there is little hope of putting it all back together again, I hope all the organizing groups involved will use these tragedy's to rethink what's really important and find some common ground. At least something positive might come from this mess if so.

The only way the whole sport is going to get safer is to have one set of safety standards. The only way that's going to happen is exactly what Rich suggested - unity. Too bad that one little word is so hard to attain. How may more do we have to loose because nobody can agree?