TGOR

Pete,

First of all, my pleasure.

Second, you have an excellent point. The P1 rules are in their infancy and as a few of the folks at the Portugal race told me...motorsports is huge in Europe...so they have a different market in which to expose the sport. So possibly in time their boats may become less competitive among each other and they'll be forced to change their rules as well. Maybe it's the nature of our sport...rules need to change to accommodate the changes in technology. I do agree, time will tell.

Sean

TGOR

Gino,

From what I've heard, I would think the lower boat count in P1 is due to the cost. It is significantly more expensive to run a circuit that encompasses the travel of P1. We could probably best equate it to us running a circuit all across the U.S., not just the regional areas our organizations focus on...and I don't see a lot of our U.S. teams going coast-to-coast. But if that's all there was, do you think our boat counts would be as high? Also, although I was not able to confirm what it costs to be associated with P1, I do understand it's expensive..but the few folks I talked to agreed it was well worth it. Look at the exposure P1 has...world-wide...what manufacturer wouldn't want that exposure? I also know P1 is probably not for us "grass roots" racers either.

Also...the year of the boat is irrelevant if the horsepower to weight ratio is the same. Although new technologies in hull design can make a difference.

Now having been to the P1 World Championship and our Key West, they don't compare. As soon as we entered Portugal we knew about the race (equate that to entering the State of Florida). Their race village had sponsor displays and a kids zone. Oh yea...I don't think the helicopters circling their race course were safety choppers, but instead camera choppers broadcasting the race live to the big screens at the race village, the pits and on the equivalent of their boardwalk with the play-by-play from announcers. Maybe P1 gave me a vision of what offshore racing in the States could be...or maybe a reminder of what it was.

Sean

Team Gallagher Offshore Racing
SBI/APBA P5-99
www.tgor.net

2 Trick Rick

The Claiming rule really help slow down the cost in Amateur Motocross. You had Factory backed 15yrs racing full on “works bikes”... That all changed overnight when the AMA implemented the claim rule were any other racer could “claim” another bike for twice the retail value or something along that line. I’m not sure if it would work in boat racing but it may. Have 6 Different claim prices for each class…

So who do I make out the check to for 1 of Crockets Motors…

THEJOKER

You'll make the check out to Tyler Crockett and to Joker Performance Boats for the new hull - haha. All good feedback here guy's and once again not trying to start trouble or make anybody mad. How can we grow a professional motorsport when it's bracket racing? In other forms of motorsports bracket racing is amateur.

Yes OPA had the best boats counts but it's not what I would call anything like 1999-2003. I can remember 100+ boats at races and the drivers meeting took forever just to do roll call.

Why can't we have a class with:

1. Mininum weight (which i believe is an art form setting up the boat)
2. 500 hp limit and torque limit.
3. A solid claiming prop and engine rule.

I'm only suggesting this to 24 to 30 ft open cockpit boats. The big dawg , big dollar guy's can keep their rules. The GPS guy's can also keep their place. Surely somebody can make this happen. Obviously I couldn't but I'm ready to jump on somebody elses plan.

We have Tyler , Innovation and Pfaff that would step up I'm sure.

louietherigger

Hey Joker,
Wazzup, Wahoo and Strictly Business are class 2 and all have 525's. For us to step up our game we have to become better racers and dail our boat in to the max, a wrong prop choice or set up can lose a race. We have run with Cats, V-hulls with big power and in the end class 2 has leveled itself off with a nudge or 2 from Smitty, some teams went up a class, some went down and all are very competitive where they wound up. There is always going to be controversy over who is building the better mouse trap, GPS no GPS, rough water, calm water to me it's all good, rough water run slow and get beat up, calm water run fast don't spin out or break out, its a challenge anyway it goes. Your right with the playing field, its the most important part at this point, Louie

THEJOKER

The boats you mention are canopied and don't even relate to what I'm talking about. 24 to 30 ft open cockpit , grass roots racers is where I fit in.

Top Banana

Okay.....let me step into the middle of this.

It is only an idea that the old guys at HORBA have been kicking around and it still has a lot more development needed, but we kind of feel, that you can have your cake and eat it too.

After attending a few races, we noticed that on Saturday, everyone uses that time to dial in the boats and get ready for the Sunday afternoon races.

We are toying with the idea that we could have 4 classes.......just wait and hear me out.

Each class would have a spec boat in a specific size.

The boats ( hulls and decks ) would be sold by HORBA at a specific weight. The teams could then take them and rig them to the rules, using whatever they may have for equipment, new or used.

Class S would be 24 foot single engine, sterndrive or outboard.
Class T would be 30 foot twin engine, sterndrives or outboards.
Both Classes S & T could only use a small block engine with one spec carb and a spec exhaust system.

Any drive, except #6's.

Class Open would be 35 feet with twin big block sterndrives, with one spec carb and spec exhaust.

Any drive execept # 6's

The races for these classes would be held on a regular race weekend on Saturday morning, starting at 10 AM.
Classes S & T race for 120 miles.....200 Kilo
Class Open race for 180 miles.....300 Kilo

The course would be along the beach for 30 miles, out into open ocean for 15 miles and back the other way for 30 miles and then in for 15 miles to the beach again.

This gives a 90 mile distance. For the Open class, they would do two laps.

For the classes S & T, after the first 90 miles, the remaining 30 miles could be made up by a 15 mile leg out to a checkpoint boat in the ocean and back to the start / finish line.

Race time could be between 3 and 5 hours depending on conditions, plenty of daylight remains in the day. If you run into trouble you are only 15 miles offshore at most.

The 4th class....Historic, would be run on Sunday morning at 10 AM for a distance of 60 miles ...100 Kilos.

Any Historic race boat could compete. Only participation awards are given for Historic race boats, as they would be of such various engine HP and boat lengths, they could never be made equal.

The regular races could go on their normal schedule. Sunday afternoon. This open ocean stuff would just add to the fans enjoyment for the weekend. We are not trying to take anything away from today's racers, we are just trying to offer more....there may be some teams who would consider racing in both.

These open ocean races would be held under the regular race body sanction of whoever was running the races that weekend, all fees etc would go to them.

Obviously, these races could only be run at ocean venues or Great Lakes venues, that would allow a course out on the open lake.

This is the kind of open racing the sport was founded on. It is a great time, wide open running, if you can, over open ocean courses where you can't see land for 360 degrees.

This type of racing always allowed more people to participate. It is still a rough idea from HORBA, but we are continuing to work on it.

The photos below represent the designs and look of the three classes. All hulls would be non step designs.

Open Class would look just like this, twin engine big block racer.
Twin Class would be a 27 Magnum stretched to 30 feet with a deck design that would look just like this old 40 foot Cigarette design.
Single Class would be this hull with a Top Gun like deck.

Outboards would be bracket mounted.

And by the way, we have already thought about the guys that want to have bigger step boats and bigger engines and drives.....no problem, you can race on Sunday afternoon !!!

HORBA

www.historicraceboats.com

fastedy

111
1 weight
1 engine
1 drive

I truly belive this combination is the answer to most of your questions. It dosn't matter who's engineit is, just that its the same engine or spec's for every engine. 496HO as it comes from mercury or an engine from someone like these guy's
http://www.1800runsnew.com/NLM/perf-....html#Base_540 or equivelent. or build your own engine
to specs like the old "A" Class , hell, there's enough HP500 out their.

Eddie

THEJOKER

I'm right there w/ ya Eddie!

2 Trick Rick

Intresting, but were right back to buying a new boat.. I already have 2 ..LOL