Sunny Isles beach
 

Lets discuss what you would like to see. Prize money or travel money.

Travel/Tow $$$
Bob G. 606 Lock'd Up Bandit

Sunny isle beach
 

BOTH BABY:signs069:

Prize Money, need to show a profit. HaHa

Because of the distance, travel money makes more sense.

This is by far going to make more sense to most smaller teams. I think the big guys dont realy care.

IMO

I second the travel money.

I swear I'm not trying to open up a can of worms, however, before I can honestly say either or, how much would the purse be(since it varies from site to site) and also are we talking Orange Beach figures when it comes to travel monies or are we talking a couple of hundred? Not to be to anal, but its really hard to say w/o having the complete information....

What did we do in Orange Beach? From a 50k purse, pay every boat that takes a start $1000 and from the left over money, give it to the first place teams.

SIB Purse is 35K - take it from there.

Prize money

If you could talk with my boss and arrange some time off for travel. :drink:

I did and made her an offer she couldn't refuse!

Watch what you say Ron! Thats not true. Remember?

I dont mean to get off topic here, but since Trent brought it up, What's the purse, how is it divided and most importantly, how long will it take to get paid? Money is extremely tight this year. I know we don't race for the money. But the money helps us race.

I made this suggestion before. Why not divide the purse by the number of boats and pay it out accordingly. That way the class with the most boats get the big piece of the pie.

Example
35,000 purse divided by 35 boats = 1,000 per boat

class 6 -6 boats, = 6,000
class 5 - 10 boats, = 10,000 purse
class 4 - 7 boats, = 7,000
class 3 - 3 boats = 3,000
and so on.......

Travel. See you guys there

Thanks for the incomplete answer! Since I am advised to "take it from there" ok heres a stab at it

35k purse established, based on the fact that OPA offers 13 classes that equals out to a purse of $2692.31 per class

With you stating the OB scenario, 1000 is 2% of 50,000 so therefor 2% of 35,000 equals out to $700.00 per boat

I apologize that I had to assume, but I asked a solid question and requested concrete answers and was instructed to figure it out for myself.

With the above scenario, TnT will gladly vote for the travel money. If you should chose to give a concrete answer to my aforementioned post, then we would be more than happy to re-evaluate and cast our vote to where it would be in the best benefit of the 98% of regular OPA race teams that will have to travel approx 20 hrs(or more) to make this event.

Trent, let me help you out here.
Last year Sunny Isles pd 35K, I added 10k to the purse, because the SVL's and the SS wanted to come. Paid purse 45k
This year Sunny Isles has 35k , and I will add the money for the SS class. Ryan Beckley got in touch, and we told him we would pay the class. Havn't heard a word from the SVL's so the rest goes to the 7 OPA classes. 35 divided by 7 is 5k a class.
Not all classes have to take the purse the same way. Some can do purse some can do travel. Money will be pd in Sunny Isles. Smitty

if anyone can help you get time off 2 Trick Rick, It definitely has to be me......Arrangements have been made but I must warn you, judging by my screen name your reputation will never be the same, lol how ever you can always take Augie's deal but i cant say for sure which one is the lesser of the two evils, LMAO:daz:

How about paying 80% of the purse money to the teams in the way of Tow Money. Then take the 20% and pay just the winners in each class.

That would give 28K to tow money divided by who shows up and then the 20% give $1000 to the winner in each class.

How's that work for ya?

Man I'm ready to F@#$%ng bust, I'm come on here time after time and read the same S*$t over and over again. I just have one question, how many people on here have actually done something to improve Powerboat Racing? I hear the same thing year after year, 1st from the racers, how much are the purses? do we get gas money? hotels? food? television? parts for our boats and even more stuff I'm too embarrassed to mention. How many here have really and I mean really courted a sponsor or sponsors? 2nd is the race sites, the municipalities want to know who's paying for the Cops, Firemen, Ambulances, Patrol, rescue and salvage boats, the environmental people, the sanitation people, insurances and there is more believe me. 3rd the incessant *****ing and moaning about the sites, there too far, I didn't like my spot in the pits, the hotel is 3 miles way, I mean WTF? I though we boat racers were tough? lol
What I'm driving at is if you live in an area that has a race site and you are a racer how about helping or offering your services, and maybe someday this sport will rise to what it should be, until then I will do what needs to be done. Thank you, Louie

That sounds good Ron, most want to know definatively what to expect.

Louie,I know its hard to see it this way but if you take all the complaints as constuuctive criticism,then alot of people are doing something to improve boat racing! lol.AS far as the purse,what is so wrong with asking what we are gonna win? I,m sure we all know that we are not gonna make money at this sport but it sure helps when you take any amount of money home with you.Why is it so wrong to ask when we can expect that money?I cant speak for everybody but I use that money to help me get to the next race.Courting a sponsor? As a matter of fact I have.Unfortunately they were a little dissapointed in what they recieved compaired to what I promised.I only promised them what was promised to me.fortunately enough we had a good year and were able to keep our sponsors but with much less enthusiasm.Needless to say,there will be more money coming out of my pocket this year.Television? of course were gonna ask,thats the first thing a sponsor wants to hear.This year I will certainly be more careful what I promise.Parts for my boat? Well? Why wouldnt we ask? Teague Marine was announed as a new sponsor for the series,He sells parts.Wouldnt it be safe to assume that part of that sponsorship might have something to do with parts.Optima Batteries jumped on board as a sponsor and offered free batteries. (thank you very much Optima!) I have not purchased any other brand since and hopefully you all are doing the same.
As far as getting a race put together,I dont know how you guys find the time to do what you do.And the patience to deal with all the major headaches involved.If it wasnt for people like you, Smitty,Mikey,Brad and anyone else involved in putting these events together we would have nothing.Complain about a racesite? Dont think I ever have.I have never been to a bad OPA race.Ok,Sunny Isles and Orange beach are a little far but I made the trek down for both of them and they were worth every penny.
Louie,remember Constructive Criticism.Please dont bust on us now.We are looking forward to that new race site on Long Island

Amen!

So let me ask a simple question. How stupid do you think we look, when Optima calls wanting to ship batteries, and I have to say, I only have four registered teams. Here is an 80 thousand dollar deal, and you guys cant even register. Allan spent two weeks getting all your paperwork mailed to you, Ron and I spent four months putting that deal together, Total lack of respect. If you want the sport to grow, do more than expect.

hey smitty, i am here 100%!!! Let me know if there is anything i can help with!!

I know Bud, you were the first one registered in 3 months ago. Thanks

And the crowd grows silent.

The crowd is supposed to be silent when the Emporer speaks.:drink:
Seriously, didn't mean to tick anyone off, just trying to make plans/arrangements for Sunny Isles. It's nice being one of the "four".

Thankyou Bob

Louie and Smitty, I can tell from our teams POV, your efforts do not go unnoticed or unappreciated

Scotty B

We'll be there to support OPA and Optima. Thanks for the opportunity Smitty and Ron. " 41 Epic Performance Yachts Pace Boat"

I think we registered, if we havent let me know...were here to help my man

Johnny

Louie,

Since I opened up this can of worms, I'll respond. I apologize that you blew up and I'll make it up to you when we see each other in SIB.

Simply put, this thread started off with a simple question, "Do you guys want purse money or tow money?" Ok great, people come on here and pull out their poms poms and say what they want then for some unknown reason my phone lights up and racers are asking me what the numbers are. I'm a stupid plain old racer, I am not a member of the OPA staff. I come on here and say ok you want us to make a choice, what are the specifics? Then the initial response I get answers to 25% of it and I am told to "take it from there". In return based off of that number and looking at the class count from 2010, I busted out my calculator and came up with the numbers shown in my previous post. In essence, I had to "ASSUME". It cracked me up when all these guys were saying tow money, tow money... What if by chance the purse was a million dollars and the tow money amount was $10.00? :lolhit: Guess they would have been screwed....

Concerning what I have done to improve powerboat racing.. I will let my actions over the last 10 years in this sport and 5 years as a team owner do the talking for me and let you and my fellow racers decide. Its really not my place.

As far as really really courting a sponsor. Thats easy, I am a sponsor based team, no sponsor- no race. Right now we're scrambling as I still have use of my OPA boat, but have no backing due to the "YouTube" video from the 2010 awards depicting how the tv broadcast would be, then the complete opposite happening, he wont spend another dime for us to attend races.

I met with you in St Clair briefly to see if my traveling side show would be beneficial to your site, you said yes, I brought and went where you wanted me and our team had a ball. Every single site wanted the display except for SIB wanted $1000 to bring it in. Ok no problem, we'll leave it at home for that site. I deeply apologize that I couldnt make your banquet this year with me having to get two boats ready to race now, but two(2) of my team members were able to make it, so I hope that kinda makes up for my absence.

Moral, If you want the racers input give us the specifics to work with, by no means should you ever let us as racers "ASSUME" anything. Tell us how it is in black and white and if it works for our teams, then we show up, if not we stay at home... simple When I received dollar one in sponsor monies, Uncle Sam came a chasing, therefor it became a business. I need complete information in order to make the best decisions for my team(business), just as I am pretty sure that Smitty doesnt make a decision on smoke and mirrors with his marina and you dont with your rigging/crane business.

As I have said to Smitty everytime we have talked, "if you need anything from our team, dont hesitate to let us know" The same goes for you Louie!!! Smitty did return my call yesterday and he eleaviated any and all grey areas concerning this matter. One of these days we'll all realize that these public forums are great for announcements, but never for discussions. But when an announcement is made, be specific!!!!

Trent
321-508-3077

LOL I started some ****! Scotty You and the Geico Team have always been there to help, both in bringing us the top offshore team in the world and tremendous financial support. My question is why should you be the only ones? Did we drain the spunk out of John Haggin by constantly putting the bite on him? I hope not I miss him already. I'm not pissed at anyone and I would ask no one feels pointed out or at fault. The economy is taking a big bite out of us all and I would vote for gas money for all teams and trophies for the winners. This keeps the financial playing field even for all teams and helps all the teams rather then a few. It solves the money dilemma of the huge gap in numbers between say class 5 and class 1 or 2. My opinion.
As far as Teague Custom Marine? Bob Teague does more and gives more then most will ever realize. All of our teams help with parts and or manpower when another team needs it, we've seen it in the past.
Optima Batteries is a new sponsor and it was made clear that an early registration was required to secure the batterie(s) that the teams are required to run in your boat for free, now most teams have to buy them, WTF? Smitty, Ron, Augie and the crew worked hard to make this "Sponsorship" deal work to help bring us TV and what happened? I mean should Smitty fly around and install them in our boats while Ron fills out our paperwork? lol
Let's get the season going and as race teams lets look to kick this up a notch by helping the people who volunteer their time and efforts by at least registering in advance.
Thanks Louie

PS Trent thank you for bringing the Hydro it was an awesome addition to the boats on Friday night and you have always been there to help in anyway you can ( even lent me your compressor in Orange Beach to fix my bike flat lol.) You and everyone else has the right to accurate information, problem is sometimes the sites are still raising money a week before the race to cover the purses and if it comes up light Smitty catches hell. If a site is struggling do we cancel the race? If we did we wouldn't have to many sites. Sorry if I seemed defensive, as a racer I know first hand how much this stuff can cost I just wanted to get across the idea that we are all in the same boat. Louie

OK, group hug:)

So do you like 80% to tow money and 20% to purse?

Or how would you pay it out?

Ron,

Upon my conversation with Smitty yesterday, he said that it would be up to the classes upon our arrival as to how we want to do it. Lets let this go and when we get down there it'll fall into place. However if you and Smitty sit down and decide on something, you whip up your good ole press release and give us the "specifics" and as I said above, the racers will then decide. You guys are in charge and no not all the racers will ever be happy so do what is in the best interest of OPA. If we dont have OPA we dont have a place to race.....

Dont we have A class rep for each class? Cant this be decided by each class and then the Rep for that class make the call to OPA regarding what that class decides?

And again i think most if not all smaller teams will vost for the TOW DOE

Prize money or tow money,Sunny Isles is a great event, and defintately worth the trip.We are also very fortunate to only have to pay annual registration fees and not additional fees for each and every race.Despite difficult economic times,there are many positives for OPA .OPA has a staff of VOLUNTEERS that give up thier time and money so that we can race!Each race producer also has a staff of VOLUNTEERS that do the same.Remember to take time to thank these people at each and every race.OPA has a great schedule planned for us that offers varying water conditions to help level the playing field.There are also a number of new teams planning on racing the OPA circut this year.Lets do whatever we can to help make thier racing experience as enjoyable as posibble so that they keep coming back.It is also great to see sponsors like Teague and Optima supporting the OPA.Lets make sure that we all do whatever we can to help them maximize exposure and increase sales.

We all need to work together to continue to improve OPA.I know that I am willing to help in any way that I can.

Cheers!! lol:ernaehrung004:

Well said!!