Ron it was Markoff that brought in HFC's money, in return he wanted the rights to market all APBA national offshore events,and handle all the promotions, at the time APBA's marketing skills were zero. when APBA turned him down he went to the racers and told them what he had proposed that is why a meeting was called in Atlantic City, I remember Raja Rogers in tears addressing the racers, Because the worlds were to be held in Long Beach Tom Gentry put up $10,000 to secure the venue, so it was to be called HFC/Gentry Turbo Eagle world championships , if I remember correctly Gentry would give $250,000 and HFC $250,000 for prize money and staging the event along came APBA and said that they had $10,000 from Kazi Kara and wanted to give them equal billing with Gentry and HFC ,they both told APBA to pack sand and so the deal fell apart. As far as Copeland's deal I think it was Pepsi that gave him $500,000 for racing so HE switch his stores and told all the franchises to do the same. The problem with putting on an offshore race is you need so many volunteer's and favors from local officials and businesses, you need the local offshore club to set things up long before any national event staff arrive on the scene, with OPT you had staff arriving in a town 3 weeks before the event trying to get everything set up and having no local help, If at every offshore event you had to pay the going rate for the cranes alone you would be broke in no time, this is one reason OTP did not survive

Didn't Al Copeland have Coke/Diet Coke as a MAJOR sponsor on his old Popeye's Boats?

Yep---I enjoyed offshore racing back in the day of the 80's with Betty Cook, Al Copeland, Bob Kiaser, Joe Mach just to name a few. I always enjoyed going to Saugatuck in the early 80's to watch the races and then they also had them at Grand Haven at Grand Isle Marina----even Don Johnson and Chuck (last name?---he's the Karate movie star) would show up at those races. Many offshore pleasure boats were far and few between back in those days. Especially around St. Joe where I was living at the time---there were only a small handful of offshore boats.

Anyway, when the offshore races were in Grand Haven, a few friends of mine would trailer their boats over from Chicago up to Saugatuck for the weekend and boat from there up to Grand Haven. Many other boaters did the same thing.

I agree, it's just not like it was back in the 80's or even in the very early 90's.

I think that Dave (Kilo Kat) has the right idea to how the sport could develope. He has shown everyone how to do things the right way.

I have not seen anything on normal TV about boat racing since we blew the deck of of Felix's boat in Norway.

I understand the part about making money. I do not understand the burning bridges part. Look at some of the people that are no longer racing offshore right now.
They were doing it because they loved it and they still do. Forest and Felix for example. I see Forest racing in prototype and Felix in Trans-am.

Has anyone asked why they are no longer in offshore?
pat W

Isn't that the way any successful startup corporation is run? I'm sure you weren't pulling money out of your software company the first few years in business and look what happened. It is a huge success.

Actually there were more boats and a higher "peak" in the years 81 through 87........ Network TV....boats from all over the World......and at least 150 entries in 5 to 7 classes at Key West and/or Atlantic City.

Today's trumped up, watered down statistics are a shadow of that era.

T2x

Mike, if OPA opened the books I don't think you would know what to look for or understand what it all said anyway but just for your info a couple of the guy's had to go into their pockets this year just to get OPA going on it's own and then "deeper" just to keep it above water. This is what you and a lot of people don't understand, it takes "MONEY" and long hours to put on a race/show. It's hard and time consuming, and thankless because you can't please everyone! Just for the record, OPA doesn't have a payroll. (Mike, that means no one gets paid)