Dunkirk race
 

I've read from several sources on Facebook that only 3 boats showed up. Wix and Simmons Marine brought their 2 boats. What a terrible turnout. RWO should be embarrassed. I feel bad for the city and fans. It's not a good outlook for Key West or Clearwater. RWO needs to partner up with OPA or something, otherwise they won't be around next year.

Yep, I drove over yesterday afternoon. At 2:30 just three race boats and a Cigarette pace boat. A newspaper article reported that that was all there was for the Friday evening parade. An official was quoted that they expected an additional 10 boats were expected. I hope so but a driver I talked to hinted that politics were involved. Why can't these organizations get there ****e together? If weather is good I might throw the Velocity in and run up lake to watch tomorrow.

Padraig

What politics are involved? when you're first race of the season is in the waning days of summer how many people do you expect to jump on board??? in KW 2017 RWO said they had a schedule for 2018 , they had 2 races, Mentor and Dunkirk, they threw their name in the hat for KW, knowing they had inside connections and buried SBI, but had yet to establish a true following. OPA/APBA/P-1 came to a agreement and teams liked what they seen. empty promises don't fill the pits! and loyalty goes on long way!

Yup. The OPA/P1/APBA championship series has been doing well. 60+ boats at each race. Next up is the roar offshore Ft. Myers race for that series. The racers uniting under one body has been a great thing for the fans at those races.

Pete, I have no idea what politics were involved. All I know is what was said to me by one of the few teams that were there yesterday.

Padraig

The Dunkirk Fyre Festival..... its off the hook yo !!!

Only 6 boats here now

It seems as if the race teams have spoken. It is unfortunate for the sport if the Dunkirk, Clearwater, Key West races don't deliver what RWO promised, it hurts the sport as a whole. However, in the case of KW, if they had done any due diligence before awarding the contract, they may have been able to foresee this result. As for Dunkirtk & Clearwater, they as well should have done some investigating. As racers, we want to race. The APBA/OPA/P1 union has given the teams a solid 6 race national series as well as the OPA races for the bracket classes.

Time will tell what 2020 will look like, but 2019 was all APBA/OPA/P1 so far.

Also I've noticed how the RWO social media is. They don't reply to questions or comments. They barely have any information about the teams or races. OPA and P1 posted tons of stories, videos, and photos to their social media. The coverage from OPA/P1 has been great. I barely see anything from RWO.

The only thing I wish OPA would do is update their website with a new listing of the teams. They still show the 2018 boats. Is SBI completely dead now? I haven't heard a thing about them in months.

I'm so glad OPA is doing great this year. Their Michigan City, Indiana race was awesome. The most Michigan City has ever had with SBI was a 25 boat count. This year they had 54 boats! Hopefully OPA continues to get better.

FYI from a local newspaper.
https://www.post-journal.com/news/lo...es-grand-prix/

Padraig

Don't worry, in December the lawyers will start getting it straightened out.

A four boat parade !
Each spring there is a Asparagus Festival in Empire, Mi near the end of May. It's a fun event to celebrate the harvest, grilled asparagus and beer are the key offerings The parade is small composed of the little league team, fire truck, ambulance and Kazoo marching band etc. They go around the block twice to extend the parade. Ed

Rain and thunderstorms all morning so didn't pull the boat and tow to Lake Erie. Anyone at the race? If so how many boats? Nice now, maybe I screwed up.

Padraig

It looks like only 7 boats raced. I was surprised to see Cleveland Construction Racing again. Too bad they didn't have any competition..

What type of boat is Team Extreme?

We already made plans during the Clearwater race to be elsewhere. Never missed a race since it started here but not showing up this year to see it fail and be mad/sad about it.

SBI died several seasons ago when john got ill.he ran great races for a very looooong time.
He was set in his ways ,no doubt.

So with sbi really out of the picture its left to OPA p-1.
50 -60 boats per event.If you like p-class racing then this org is for you.

I still would like to see a spec ONLY racing org.
supercat
superv
stock outboard .

OPA has supercat and class one. Both spec classes. There’s also a cat/outboard class I think is spec. The old svl is a spec class i think it’s called superstock or something now. Plenty of spec classes in OPA. Others are size/speed/engine limited. Very competitive racing all around.

if that's what the patrons want . well success is at youre door .enjoy

Team Extreme is a 35 Fountain.

It looks like RWO is deleting negative Facebook comments about the race. Hopefully they have a better showing for Clearwater. The rumors are that there was a large purse for each class? How does that work if only one team competed in each class? Do they get the entire purse?

The idea of a spec only series is nice in theory, but the business model closest to what is going on with APBA/OPA/P1 would be NHRA. You have your spec classes as well as levels of sportsman classes (bracket classes) running together to put on a all day show, not just a race or two. Makes it more of a event for the city/town as well as more excitement for the fans. It would be ridiculous to do all the logistics, funding, planning etc.... for a race with 25 boats when you can bring 50.

Such a sad state of affairs for the Mayor and Council of Dunkirk NY to get sucker punched like this.

They signed an agreement in good faith with RWO and expected to have at least the same boat count or more than the previous year and due to either apathy on the Racer's side or RWO truly doing the wrong things in management of this event, the City ends up looking bad.

Because the average Spectator that saw the social media posts or print ads came to watch a boat race. And what the got was far from that.

I had a NY Buddy of mine do a recon run down there Saturday night and he texted back, "Confirmed, 3 boats in the dry pits, recommend you find something else to do Sunday as this is a non-event"
I hated to read that message but was glad he sent it.

Yep too bad for the City of Dunkirk and Westerners NY. I live about 45 minutes away and one of the mfg plants I used to manage was in Dunkirk. Nice little city and good friendly folks. Also has a nice protected harbor.

Padraig

Thanks, I didn't catch the beek. It sure whipped Cigarette Hawk's tail down the final stretch to the checkers!!

lol