Glad to see the creation of a professional class, however I am a firm believer that paying to be part of that class is a mistake. You can't buy professionalism or class. At least it does include a code of conduct, but in liu of the cash payment, or maybe in addition to it there needs to be other governing rules and events. Things like the teams must be present and in uniform in the pits all days of the events to meet fans. Teams must have "hero" cards, participate in all race parades, and even participate in dinners with the fans. Without interaction with fans and sponsors then the pits just becomes another boring boat show.

Well as to the philosophical portion of your argument let me point something out that seems to get overlooked..... I buy a $250,000 boat, pay registration fees, entry fees, collect sponsors, get crew to the races, pay for accomodations, fuel, upkeep, have to pay for your choice of Co. to certify my motors, etc, etc. I think that the financial "gut check" argument isnt working here. I have a stake in what happens at APBA.

The red flag that keeps popping up is the $5000 figure. First there was talk of having to pay a penalty for running the Merc motors, now $$ to be a "pro". This raises some bad gut feelings about where this is headed.

I want to race, make no mistake. I am not a fool though and I will not be the first guy, or the tenth guy to pony up cash on top of the other cash to race. Let me see that other teams are going to run my class and are paying the membership and then I will consider paying also. There is this "mexican standoff" that is going to happen because I speculate that nobody will want to be the first to pony up.

The other thing that concerns me is that by giving decision making to the teams that pay the "pro" membership may possibly exclude other teams that race hard, that care, and that cant afford to lay out allot this $$. This would possibly put things back into "wallet Racing" mode with the big$$ teams creating the rules to benefit them and creating a distinct advantage. The little guys get no TV coverage, sponsors go away, and the gap widens. Do you agree??

Lastly Mike, as I am sure you are aware I am the new guy here. I want to be a part of an organization that puts on first rate events, that makes safety a priority, and puts forward an image of this sport that is fitting. I also want to see what I am buying before I cut a check. The bottom line is that there are more guys like me out here that would like to be a part of the sport but will not buy a "pig in a poke". I have concerns based upon representations from some local politicians here in Daytona about last years race. In fact there was an air show 2 months ago where Embry-Riddle asked some local boaters to put on a demonstration as part of the show. When the city heard this they thought that there was an affiliation with APBA and said "absolutley NOT". After multiple assurances that APBA was not involved we were allowed to participate. I dont know what happened last year but I do know that Daytona is not on the schdule this year...... The motorsports capital of the nation. These things need to be addressed.

Brett

Let me get this right???...you would like more money from us and we STILL have not been paid for st.pete, no trophy from st.pete and no national trophy yet!!

"money where their mouth was"....ok,,,so please send my check and trophies like you said you would!

does not the word "professional" by definition mean; Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer.
Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football????

Point of clarification - I am not laying blame. If you are talking about actual equity investment does that mean that shares of LLC can be purchased??

It stands to reason that the "underwriting" of the sport for the forseeable future will come from the racers.

I have been involved on and off since 1993 as a Team Owner, and it seems to me that the ONLY reliable income stream we have had over the years has been the Racers and Owners, and an occasional Sponsor.

Investing in the infrastructure is a good idea. If you can couple that with some form of UNIFICATION, then it becomes a great idea because we can build a much stronger, valid and sustainable infrastructure if we are investing in a single effort vs. two or three different ones.

OSS has some good ideas, APBA has had some good ideas and SBI has had some good ideas, all requiring Capitalization, racer support and manpower (or Womanpower) to execute them, and sustain them in order to validate the business model.

I for one have no problem at all investing in the infrastructure, I see it has having a direct positive impact on my overall "program". We all know the importance of TV, most of us would like to have an environment conducive to some form of serious marketing effort relating to Sponsorship for our individual teams.

My preference would be to only have to invest in ONE infrastructure, rather than several.

We all have substantial investments in our teams, the proposed fee seems like a small price to pay for some security, some degree of control and an "Insurance policy" for a place to race in 2004.

Gregg Reichman

With all of this BS going on, I would think that teams should be jumping the APBA ship and running to the SBI side of the fence.

Mike,
I understand the need to raise revenues and the need to pull the "professionals" together into one group. There have been some comments made about the investments teams have made to race, the $5k is just a very small percentage so I think this really comes down to revenues to the LLC. However, a business model where revunes comes from the racers will not work and there will be no substantial growth. Without generating revenues from outside sources the path of offshore will never change. Generating revenues from the outside sources is no easy task compounded by all the "issues" that surround the sport. So the question really becomes how to fund bringing the sport to a professional level so generating revenues becomes possible?

Gary,

We were on that road until the APBA fight, the Mercury fight, the Lee Mills fight and the boycott drained the LLC of its resources and its Members of their willingness to fight by themselves.

Take my personality out of it for the moment as I think we have all established that I am a bull in a china shop, a lawyer, an @Q#$@#$hole, etc.

Let's just take a look at the business plan that we developed and for the most part successfully executed for the past 4 years.

1. Develop the racing product into a legitimate motorsport. Most would agree we did that.

2. Develop the television product into an entertaining network quality broadcast property that draws significant viewership, excellent advertisers and good ratings. We have done that too especially this year. SPEED's decision to move us into a great Sunday time slot is proof positive of that. Plus, have you noticed the quality advertisers that are appearing in our shows and the increasing number of non-boat racers who say they see our shows on TV?

3. Develop a solid event marketing business with well produced events, a consistent schedule, and quality venues.

We have done poorly with the scheduling aspects of the event business but certainly the quality of our events are much better than just a few years ago. Also, year five of the business - i.e. 2004 - was when we expected to begin seriously developing the event business.

I would also point out that John Carbonell has done a far superior job on this third aspect of the business and currently has a model that works well. I believe that is one of the reasons why so many people have been advocating unity so loudly of late.

Our success with numbers 1 and 2 produced GM, clearly a flagship sponsor and one we could build upon. The plan was actually to promote the GM sponsorship to other non-marine related companies and increase the revenue base accordingly.

Mercury/Brunswick should have been the next logical group of companies to take a part in our series and still is the most logical next step.

One of the best people in our sport has an incredible relationship with Anheuser Busch but he cannot be expected to push very hard to expand that relationship beyond his own program as long as the turmoil surounding the sport exists.

The above plan is solid and has been working. I think it still can work especially if some semblance of unity can be established.

The racer investment, however, is necessary now but only as a short term solution, and here is why: With all of the uncertainty and damage which has been caused this year, our momentum has come to a screaching halt. We are not going to bring in new sponsors this year.

The sport needs immediate capital and the people most likely to make that short term investment - think of it almost like bridge financing - are the racers and other passionate enthusiasts with close ties to the sport.

With enough money infused into the sport in the short term, the racing product can be maintained, the tv product can be maintained, and the event marketing business can be developed.

If that happens and GM continues to receive value for the next two years then we can secure the next level contract from that great company and other divisions within that company. Moreover, we send the message that this year's troubles were an anomoly and have been rectified. We can re-establish stability and credibility too which could and should lead the companies we were talking to a renewed interest.

Now if you add some form of workable unification to the mix, you can develop the outside, non-marine money into the sport.

But I can say with absolute certainty that OSS will destroy the sport and set it back 10 years. As Gregg says there is simply not enough equipment to support all of the different series. As a sport consisting of multiple clubs like poker runs, yes. As a professional sport with significant outside money coming in, you can forget it. It is an unrealizable pipe dream to believe otherwise.

Let me also say that if the sport loses GM you can forget about any significant company touching this sport for a long, long time.

The leaders of OSS do not care about sponsorship, television or prize money. That is the old recipe for big money club racing where cubic dollars from the big money teams controls everything. THAT most certainly is not the answer.

Mike

i have one question ( as a small time racer) where do the p classes fit in?? everthing is SUPER SEIRES, we run 6 races last year won 3 were leading in 2 and broke. will this 5000 dollars give us tv time so we can get a sponser to move up? we got 2 min. last year! or will we still be nobody that make up half of the boats at a race!

mack p5-10

Hey Mack.......

We will still be nobody. Even though we make up half the fleet