I’ve never heard anyone say that the introduction of Super Cat in 2000 ruined the sport. A bit of a history lesson may be in order here. Just prior to the start of the 1997 season, APBA Offshore was bankrupt and on the verge of being sold off to SBI and USO. The ORC brought Gene Whipp in as category chairman and he saved the day, however he had to invest over $100,000 of his own money to get APBA Offshore out of debt.

In APBA’s final national race in South Padre Island in 1998, 12 boats showed up, and Gene had enough. He retired after the Worlds in Biloxi with only 68 boats in attendance.

Two open class boats showed up for the 1999 season opener in Fort Myers. By then, the courses had already moved inshore and were under 10 miles. At the second race in NH, the two open boats ran around on broken engines, battling each other at less than 50mph and barely on plane. The Super Cat concept was born right then and there as it was clear Open Class in America was dead.

Fast forward to the Worlds in 2000 and there were 17 Super Cats and 147 boats total. For the next three years, APBA averaged 85 boats at every race with several exceeding 100. Courses were shortened to 5-6 miles and extra turns, lefts and rights were added. Anyone who raced in Daytona and Savannah knows we raced in big water too.

APBA Offshore had secured a five year title sponsorship deal with GM, and was producing 2 hours of national television for each race. The sport was entering another renaissance.

The sport was crushed prior to the 2003 Worlds when several Super Cat teams lead a boycott of APBA Offshore to form their own sanctioning body, which quickly failed. It’s been all downhill since, until this year when OPA and P-1 joined forces. With respect, 20 years after it was conceptualized, the Super Cat class remains strong and largely unchanged.

In case you missed it, sanctioning bodies were running shorter closer to shore courses for many years before Super Cat was introduced. There were no course rule changes made in 2000, and our courses were generally longer than those from the previous years because we added more turns. Again, the sport was on its death bed prior to the introduction and promotion of spec racing (Super Cat, Super Cat Light, Super Vee, SVL, and the Factory classes). Closer to shore racing was not responsible for the sport’s decline, the 2003 boycott was, period.

As for returning to the old offshore courses, there is no commercial or participant demand for it. Permitting, safety, and insurance issues also make producing such an event very, very expensive, and logistically difficult. I understand the nostalgic aspect of your argument as my dad raced in the 1970’s, but without a huge sum of money to produce such an event, and a large prize purse to incentivize participants, the old way is simply not viable today.