Offshore - the good old days
 

Seems like everyone has an impression of the good old days of offshore. When men were made of steel and offshore races ran offshore and out of sight of land in big water.

Those were the days when Open Class boats ran in the high 80s or low 90s at best.

Those were the days when no pleasure boat would compare to a race boat.

Those were the days when APBA was the only game in town.

Those were the days that drug lords ran the boats.

Those were the days when the racers were larger than life and people had heroes like Bob Kiaser, Joe Mach, and Tom Gentry to name just a few.

When did those days end?

When Al Copeland got John Carbonell to break away from APBA and start the Offshore Proffessional Tour? OPT.

When US Offshore formed becuase they had a better idea?

When the APBA sold the offshore division to the LLC?

When the races came in closer to the beach and navigation became non existant?

When personal boats became faster than a race boat?

All I know is, it was better in the past. What do you see as the pivot point when offshore started going downhill?

In my opinion, this latest crap with the worlds has shown that offshore racing has hit rock bottom...the worst it's been in 15 years.

Ron

Your 100% right

MIke

Ron,

You hit it on the nose.

All the big Corporations worry about their pockets.

Not the racers pocket or the racers fun and love of the sport.

Maybe next year the Jersey Boyz can do a 1 time race like the old days when the course was REALLY offshore and the outside leg of the race was 10 or 20 miles long miles long.

The Jersey Boys are the innovators of racers having a good time and not getting hurt in the process, while being able to go home and still pay your bills cause they are noot trying to suck you dry!!

Maybe some of the bigger groups can learn from this and make it about the racers and the fans and not so much about themselves.

Ron, Your a mover and shaker in Racing. Maybe through your vision some of these things can happen!!

blame it on the guy who invented cupholders, once cupholders started to appear in offshore boats it all went downhill...DOH!

Well said.
pat W
ps When racing became for profit and not for love of it.

BINGO!!!!!!!

Pat, you win the booby prize.

Maybe that's why things work so well at OPA. No body is making a penny off putting on races.

"Seems like everyone has an impression of the good old days of offshore. When men were made of steel and offshore races ran offshore and out of sight of land in big water."

Don't forget the one woman!

"Seems like everyone has an impression of the good old days of offshore. When men and women were made of steel and offshore races ran offshore and out of sight of land in big water."

Good call. Just like Sherly Mundowny (SP?) kicked ass in drag race, Betty Cook stole the show at the boat races.

Those were the Good ol days.

HOW ABOUT THE RACES PRE BREATHALIZER? THAT WAS A RIOT.YOU KNOW WE WERE ALL GOOD BY RACE TIME.FOR FUN AND GLORY!!!!!!!!!

Actually racing today is both. The LLC makes the profit cause the racers do it for the love of it.

I'd really like to get a look at the LLC biz plan.

Then open the books, Lets see them .



MIke

A very interesting post. I like Pat w's comment best. However, sanctioning bodies have to make money to survive. But I personally believe they should be run like a not for profit corporation where the profits are reinvested into the sport for better promotions. The more you promote your sport, the more fans you attract. The more fans you attract, the more sponsors you get. The more sponsors you get, the more money you take in for promoting the sport. A very positive cycle for everyone, especially the racers.

Okay, next year the race is TO Maryland, not in Maryland

:D :D

If apba offshore chooses it be a for profit business they are allowed. You do not work for no money. On the other hand.. just like any business if you don't like their product you can go down the street and find another. A business need to stay competitive to survive.
And yea I liked the good old days myself

John Carbonell had nothing to do with Offshore Professional Tour at first, It had everything to do with a guy called Mickey Markoff who approached APBA with a sponsor who wanted to give 1 million dollars in prize money to offshore racing, APBA turned him down, so at the Atlantic City race in hmm 87' or 88' it was brought to the attention of the racers in a very emotional meeting, from that was born the HFC Pro Series where racers had the opportunity to race in conjunction with APBA and win 3 times the prize money APBA was giving. The whole deal fell apart when APBA gave equal billing to a Japanese company called Kazi Kara and change the venue of the worlds from Long Beach (home of HFC ) back to Key West. OPT came from the racers ie: Al Copeland Tom Gentry Ike Batista and a few other big money guy's wanting to control their own destiny and bring in big money series sponsors, My My does'nt that sound Familiar

RON WAS THAT A CHALLENGE?
 

Messing with the wrong Boyz. My only question is how far offshore? Keep in mind even my wife navigates 100 miles offshore by herself.

Mickey Markoff has been producing the Fort Lauderdale Air & Water show for the last 10, maybe more, years.
Offshore racing hit it's peak at he World's in KW in 1993 or was it "94?
APBA/SBR/USORA.... all together for once, I'll never forget the sight of 140+ race boats on wednesday.

neither will I. I set up that race coarse for Bubba that year. worked with him for 14 years, then moved to NM had a heart attack & now I get to read all the baloney going on in the sport. Lee Mills tucked it to SBI a couple years ago so it was just a matter of time before Mike A. was next. and it's just plain old greed. SBI has the sites LLC the following, 1+1=good racing.

Geo, was that the deal that Al Copeland killed? I believe it was Coke that wanted to be the big sponsor and his fried chicken joints sold Pepsi.

I heard about that deal going sour.

The HFC deal was awesome and lasted for about a year. Was that a US Offshore deal or APBA?

Then the big money guys hired John to run OPT for them, correct? A few short years later when the money left, John was left holding the bag and formed SBR (Superboat Racing) to try and continue producing offshore racing.

Meanwhile, a group of disatisfied racers and race producers from (dare I say) New Jersey formed US Offshore and pulled the northeast racers away from APBA. Bill Gifford was a great leader and built the ranks until a nasty divorce took the wind out of his sails and US Offshore crumbled.

OPA has now stepped in (with the Jersey Boyz) to bring racing back to the Northeast. Of the three, OPA is the only one that has no dreams of grandure and has no one on a payroll. It's grass roots racing for the fun of it.

That must be why we all have fun!:D

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)