Another class 6 thought - But what about lowering the boat reg. fee from lets say $500 to $150 and lowering the driver/thottleman fee from 100 to $50 pr. person and than making class 6 a trophy only class? Or maybe a small purse, to help pay gas - 500 / 350 / 150; Try and get the first time racer involved and keep people from sandbagging.

As I'm typing this I do realize it would punish ligament class 6 teams (Under Tow comes to mind) Teams with small boats and small power, but like I said this is just a thought.

I'm not sure I like the elimination of the purse in class 6, but
how about a single event registration fee of $150 that covers
boat & 2 crew members. Then a local guy can race without
paying for the season. If he runs another race he has to
pay the $500 boat plus crew registration minus the $150 he
already paid for a single event
The key issue for class 6 is how to keep the hp within reason
for 26' foot boats. (The 26' limit should stay). I definitely
don't want spec motors. But I don't want 700HP either.
Rich
Undertow 611

First off P class racing is not spec racing. OPA was built on teams with older boats looking for a place to run because they were no longer competitive in spec classes. With that being said we have a lot of odd ball hulls with different set ups that we must fit into 6 class's. To attract and keep people coming back YOU HAVE TO FEEL YOU HAVE A SHOT. Its worked great up to this point but now is the critical time to to make sure the racers feel good about there class. Its easy to get 3-6 teams to agree when we started but now we have class's with almost 15 boats. I can promise you it will get ugly behind the scenes and finger pointing and bad mouthing other teams with this many or more boats if we dont have conferees calls and keep that warm feeling. Everything needs to evolve in time when we started we just wanted as many boats as possible to show and we had to be more flexible. Lets try and keep the cost down for this type of racing with the best return on investmet as possible.Building bigger HP is NOT the answer. Class 5 boat are approaching a SVL cost in a spec class.
MD

As I was typing I thought about you guys, maybe just enforce the “entry-level” equipment rule were teams with 600, 650 or 700 plus HP should be moved up to 5. But I do like the Single event fee idea.

How can we effectively (and easily) determine the HP of a boat?
I'm not trying to a wiseguy, I really don't know. Do we form
a class 6 committee that makes a determination at each event? I don't want to add to the work of the OPA staff or
Smitty. Is self policing the answer? or does that just lead
to trouble.

Rich
Undertow 611

A smart tech guy can get real close on the hp of any engine by just looking at it.

I think you can whistle test a motor and also find out compression fairly easy. If you know cubic inch and compression you should get in the ball park. Inspect the motor at begining of year and document it. If ANY team in class feels they want it checked again pay OPA $100 and have it checked. It better be the same as it was in the first race unless it was changed and the whole class is notified. Have a max on cubic inch and compression.
I for one am keeping my stock Merc. 525 and plan on kicking all your butttzzzz.
MD

This is great in theory, but very hard to make fair for everyone. Take Class 2 we had great racing this year and had boats with 525s, 750s and 850s. Extreme had the biggest motors but were only competitive in the really rough stuff(they are now in Class 3) The year before, OTC had similar HP and played with the class. It needs to be an Accelleration time that is measured. That is all that matters in OPA. Any protested or obvious big HP gets run and timed to a set max accelleration time for each class. Then you can build anything your check book allows. I personally feel that top end breakout is useless, if you boat can break out before you are 3/4 of the way down the long straight, you should be moved up in class.

I am very confused that people complain about the cost of hp then turn around and say it should be a spec class with a Mercury motor?! I personally think the competition starts with the turn of the first wrench! Maybe I'm a rarity but the thought of a spec engine bores the hell outta me. I loved it in supercat years ago when there were multiple engine builders supplying engines. Mercury build a GREAT product but limiting racers options isn't the answer.

With all this talk of sealing hatches, compression tests, etc. one thought comes to mind..."kiss: keep it simple stupid". Nothing to offend anyone only that OPA has thrived because of the rules and I think alot of the boats are out racing because the class division by speed gives everyone the feeling they have a shot even with dated or odd equipment. Everyone has a home here.

Another thing that just does not sit well is how you can say put a boat strictly in a class based on theoretical WOT speed? I think with the right prop every single boat could break out of their class...having a 30' boat that runs class 3 speeds does NOT mean they should be placed in that class. Running the top speed does not mean you're going to have the acceleration needed, and the short boat length is not only a potential disadvantage but a safety issue. You have to take into consideration the entire rig in my opinion.

I like the amount of input this thread is getting. Sitting back and wondering is not going to benefit anyone. That said I do respect OPA's rule about the rules locked-in for X amount of time. I just think that we need to open to "evolution" not changes of the rule book. After all that's what got all of us walking on two feet!

It seems the P-Class teams are beginning to realize that it’s not about top speed anymore. When the P-Class racing structure was developed you would watch boats running in a Class that it took everything they had on their best day in perfect conditions to get up to the top of their speed bracket. Then came along the tinkerers and their big horsepower, high RPM motors and they can easily hit their top bracket speed in matter of 6-9 seconds and hold that speed all day long. P-Class has evolved to what it is, a high horsepower, fast acceleration game for racing strategists. This is not all bad, along with the evolution came some really exciting and close racing in every Class.

I don’t think that any new rules based on mechanical controls are the answer to the perceived issues the racers are facing today. We have the technology in place to control speed and acceleration without spec engines, dyno testing, rev limiters, or any other mechanical restriction.

The current use of GPS to control top speeds provides the information to also monitor and control acceleration. Average acceleration…which is determined by the change in speed divided by time can easily be determined with the data we are already recording and using to determine breakouts. Simply drop the data into a spreadsheet template and read the average acceleration over a given time at any point of the race…If you don’t know how to do this...ask your 10 year old son, daughter, nephew, or niece to show you how.

To give you an example…lets say the Class decided that no boat should be allowed to have an average acceleration factor greater than going from 60 mph to 80 mph in less than 15 seconds. If you subtract 60 from 80 you get 20 (the change in speed). Divided 20 by 15 (time) and you get an average acceleration factor of 1.33. You can then apply the allowable acceleration factor to every GPS reading recorded during the race and any boat that exceeds the acceleration factor at any time during the race is penalized accordingly.

Application of acceleration controls would let each team run whatever equipment they want in any size or type of boat they want. If a particular boat has a high prop slip factor, they can prop their boat accordingly, if they have big horsepower, they can set their max RPM and size their prop accordingly. No matter what the boat/engine/drive/propeller combination you use…if your performance is with the allowed criteria…your legal.

Controlled acceleration, combined with top GPS speeds eliminates the need for any other type of rule for any Class. It’s clean, simple, doesn’t cost anything to implement, and you can not cheat the data.

The only advantage possible is to do your homework, and learn how to set up your boat so you don’t go too fast….or get there to quickly.

Something to think about…..