seen this in GD
 

received this e-mail today. Soo, i don't know if it's my buisness to announce it. I thought it would benefit anyone who had made plans to attend to get this news quickly. though.Special thanks to everyone who tried to make it happen.
From a sad race fan.
Hello Racers and Race Fans,

It’s not easy to write an email like this because of the message that it
carries.

The Fall River Race is officially CANCELLED. We will try again next year.

The Fall River Race was to be a part of the annual summer festival that would
have had you racing in front of 200,000 people that pack the streets of Fall
River each summer during the festival weekend. The boat race was being
positioned as the highlight of the weekend.

This race was fully funded with General Motors and GMAC as the title sponsors.
The town wanted the race, the mayor wanted the race and the racers gave their
full support but the Coast Guard had their own concerns and denied the permit.
Stating issues of homeland and harbor security, a convenient catch-all-phrase
that can be wielded without any real merit under the guise of National Security.

We filed the permit within the required 135 day time frame prior to the event
and tried to work closely with the CG to remove any and all concerns about
safety and security of the harbor. We got caught between the officer’s vacation
time (three weeks) and his lack of checking out OPA’s reputation for running
safe races at other locations, the easy answer was just to say no to racing.

Smitty was prepared to do battle with the CG as he had done in Camden two years
ago, which led to an approved permit but today at noon was GM’s absolute
deadline. They needed to know TODAY so that they could plan their participation
with car displays and spokes models.

Working with the Coast Guard can often be difficult, especially when it’s a new
race site like this one. For that reason, Smitty is putting in a permit TODAY
for NEXT YEAR.

The Coast Guard has been known to hold off on approving permits until just days
or in some cases hours before the event. This is unfair to the racers,
volunteers and fans that have to make travel plans weeks before the event. This
has to change, and it’s our intention to pursue the issue until the Coast Guard
sees it from our point of view and understands that more lives are affected than
their own.

OPA is truly sorry for this inconvenience to all the people that have worked so
hard to make this race happen and especially to Walter Collins for his
relentless effort. There is nothing more we can do for this year, but next year
will be a different story.

Moving on to the Maryland races in September. We have Coast Guard approvals in
hand for both the Ocean City

Re: seen this in GD
 

yup got one of those too

Re: seen this in GD
 

Sorry guys, It is hard enough to fund these races, only to have the rug pulled out from under you. This one was going to be Big. John Franko of Sonic Boom and Walter Collins of TKO deserve your thanks for their efforts. I rolled the ball up the political hill as far as I could. It all boiled down to a retired CG, now civilian, Hump that was too lazy to get off his A@@. I am going to Ocean City MD on Tuesday to get a game plan for the SEPT race. I have the permit in hand for this one so gettum ready. Smitty

Re: seen this in GD
 

sad news....I hope the CG has a terrible vacation........... Keep up the good work OPA!!!!!!!!!!

Re: seen this in GD
 

I know the guys from Sonic Boom are no happy. That was one race we did not plan to run, and John talked us into doing it. SORRY GUYS. The only good thing is that you now have a year to make it happen for 2007.

see ya in Ocean City

Re: seen this in GD
 

nice effort guys, to bad the cg is that way sometimes
mike