Just one clarification, APBA does not make money from the sale of insurance.

The President of APBA's wife is the agent for the insurance company that APBA requires you to purchase the insurance from and ironically, she is the only agent you can purchase this particular insurance policy. As I said, APBA does NOT make money from it, but someone get the commission checks.......

Xtremeracing- Let’s take your first topic: I do run my own business so I know a little about this. If someone came to me & said; "Join us & you will make more money because you will have more customers, thus more business. Even keep your current locations & current rules". Meaning we would more have fans because we would be running together at our different event’s. More fans means more sponsors which means more money. Kind of like a franchise.
Topic 2: Martin S-P1, APBA, OSS & Pacific Offshore have all joined forces therefore ABPA does have teams & they do supply us with a staff at our events. They even do the all our paperwork, and they do it right.
Topic 3: Clubs must purchase insurance from someone therefore there’s an agent. Would you ask your agent not to make money from your policy because they are your neighbor? The cost of purchasing insurance thru APBA is even less than if we purchase directly from K&K. It saves us allot of money that can then be spent elsewhere.
The benefits are simple: No matter what anyone says, the laymen (meaning the city officials) know APBA & what they stand for. It makes it easier for us race promoters because we get to throw the name around & it does hold power. The cities are more willing to give money to someone know or have at least heard of over the years. Think of this as an outsider looking in as the cities do.

Well good luck I hope it works out for you, I guess time will tell. Sounds like u have a good plan stay the course.

I would consider duplicating the OPA model. Since POPRA doesn't have a large fleet of existing race boats, I would only support the 1-6 Classes. Any other class would be exhibition class that paid an Org fee and per race fee. A portion of the race fee would go back to that class as a puruse only if they brought 3 boats to that class. Otherwise thier fee would cover the additional insurance costs and crane fees.

The 1-6 Class model with limited fees would build your fleet and having identical rules would begin the Unification everyone is asking for. If you aligned with OPA Smitty may offer insurance and share a national title event. It could be a win for both.

Dean you come up with a good brain fart every now and then.
Not a bad idea i should have come up with it.

You're never going to have the heads of each racing circuit come together and agree to share or transfer ultimate power and control to someone else. And the current set-up reminds me of the infancy of auto racing. Multiple leagues and type of race cars on the same track. But if we want to see our sport move into the upper echelon of respect and spectatorship, the racers need to migrate together, adopt one of the sanctioning bodies, form the regional divisions and solidify into few classes.

Some boats wold be blended into a class where they are out-gunned. But when it is time to replace the boat, they move into a craft better suited for their preferred division. Change comes over time.

But we all have to think about human nature. And that goes to my first point. No head of a sanctioning body is going to share or diminish their control. It has to come from the racers/membership. Until that happens, until the racers unite and make their move, things will stay as they are the this discussion is worthless.

Point well taken, the racers are as much part of the pro lem.as they could be part of the solution.

Maybe someone should call Mr. Batista. He is one of the World's richest men and at one time really loved the sport. Perhaps with the right business plan he could be convinced to throw a few bucks at it.

No one is asking anyone to give up any power. We’re simply looking for a way to unite (think of the franchise or the UN?). Again, I believe that if we can all run under one body then that will give us the ability to get big sponsors involved, which will get us more money, more fans, more venues. That’s what we are all after, right?

I recommend the racers form an advisory committee representing the interests of racers. Do not assume I am referring to the racers forming a union. However, the purpose of the committee is to do their research and formulate a game plan for the long term growth and benefit of the sport. They should consider what would be in the best interest of the racers, fans and sanctioning bodies allowing for the most excitement, growth and eventual revenue the sport can generate.

These racers need to represent a cross section of all current classes AND not be beholden to any one sanctioning body. They will likely find that the best course is the one I outlined in post #55. The committee needs to figure out how to best achieve the outcome with the easiest migration pattern for race teams and the most fair structure of the unified sanctioning body. Perhaps the sanctioning body should be privately owned, for-profit like NASCAR or not-for-profit and run by a consortium of racers.