Press Release 'battle On The Bay"
 

As most have already heard, this years race went from the Battle on the Bay to War on the Shore! At this point to tell the whole story would be enough info to write a book. Long and short of it our race has become a political pawn, and people are trying to stop it. The documentation needed to hold the race is submitted to the Coast guard for approval. The one they sent in was not accepted and the Coast Guard did not issue the permit. We have spoken to the Coast Guard and we are going to resubmit the document for there review. We have done this successfully for 4 years and we a confident it will be approved. Friends of offshore that are posting Local news info should realize that 99% of what they write is inaccurate and slanted towards our opponents. If there are questions please ask me before posting.
We have by no means given up, we are doing everything we can.
Thanks Louie

Thanks Louie for all your efforts! Is there anything we can do to help? When will you know if the re-submitted application is accepted?
Thanks,
Bob G 606 Lock'd Up Bandit

Go Louie go! We are all behind you. Thanks for your efforts so we can go out and have fun. Looking forward to a great event.

Joker Powerboats 611

Good luck uncle louie we have your back hope to see you friday.
you guys need a award for what you are trying to make happen.:drink:

Keep up the Hard work Louie We all know you and your cew have spent countless hours and $$$$ putting this together and we are all behind you.

Mike O
531 WHOZ YOUR DADDY

Go get e'm Louie!! Keep the faith, see you on Friday!!

Do we need to send Augie to visit the mayor? I see a few black Caddy's showing up in front of city hall, just so we can have a talk. You know how that goes...:)

I know Louie and his crew has worked endlessly on this event, but there is still one answer we need answered, is the race on? I know they might not be able to answer this right now, but we would all like to know from someone other the Newsday, OSO, etc. This answer is very important for everyone traveling to this event. I hope its on and I can't wait to see everyone this weekend,
Chris

To answer the question the best I can right now is that the event is on. 1) Friday night boats on main street , Sayville. 2) Saturday race village is open for viewing the boats and meeting the teams, Antique boats and cars, live music and Grucci fireworks. 3) Sunday is race day, here's were it gets tricky, the news papers say the organizers have failed to submit a suitable Incident Action Plan. the issue here is that we the organizers do not write the action plan, but we do provide information towards the plan, which we have done flawlessly just like we have in the past 4 years and the C.G. disapproved it. Well this doesn't seem too fair to us and we have contacted the commander at the C.G. and she has agreed to let us repair the IAP We probably wont have an answer till later in the week. We will keep everyone informed as quickly as we can.
My 1st race with the OPA was in Camden N.J. the morning we were leaving it was raining 2 inches an hour with no sign of letting up. I rallied up a few Long Island teams and though they were reluctant to go due to the rain, I told them, " the worse thing that can happen is we drive on down there and if its still pouring we hang out under the tent eating burgers and dogs down a few beers and tell boat stories" well the rain stopped we raced and took 1st place! that's kinda hard to top but if the rain didn't stop I think we would have still had a great time. I have raced every OPA race since, never missed one. I'm not gonna miss this one either. thanks for the back up, Louie

Go Louie Go!!!

For the guys that race and don't have the (honor just doesn't seem like the right word) burdon of putting on a boat race, we never get the signed CG Approval until the week of the race. This type of last minute BS has happened before, usually doesn't make the papers, but somehow we always manage to pull it off. This time, it's just being done in public.

Get the boats ready boyz, OPA is going to Strong Island this weekend for another party at Louie's house.

My Son And I Are Looking Foward To Being In Long Island. I Have Had My Battles With The Town Of Wallkill Over My Trucks. Town Battles Are Expensive And Exhausting! My Prayers Are With You Louie! If Ron Reads This - Thanks For The Pictures. My Wife Saw Them And Thinks After Twenty Years In Trucking, That I Must Have Inhaled To Much Diesel To Be Doing This!
Jeff - #623, Country Service Auto Transport

Louie,
anything we can do(I mean ANYTHING at all!) please call me and I will make it happen!
Johnny

Louie, Thank you for answering me so quickly. I can only imagine how hard you and your team have been working on this AWESOME event. We will see you there!
Chris

The clams are ordered, The Mayor has been sent a "Request" and all The Boyz are ready! The Race is on at Louie The Riggers House...no stone has been left unturned. I will see everybody Saturday night, Arriving with Mama Wazzup after work. Louie and The Crew, THANK YOU for all the hard work and Bull $hit you gotta put up with every year...But for our guy's IT'S WORTH IT! Thank You so much and I'm sorry I couldn't help you out this year.

Keep up the good fight Louie !

come on guy's bring the PARTY! to LONG ISLAND the worst that happen's we hang out at FIRE ISLAND !

Folks this stuff happens all the time, just not usually so public. South Great bay, is on overtime. I spoke with the CG as well. Louie and company have done nothing wrong. Sabotage is acurate. Unreal, when you look at the economic impact to those little villages. I am sure heads will roll over this one. See you all there, Smitty.

Great news, glad to hear its a go, my bro is coming up from Florida to watch as well...should be a show!

I spent the Wednesday between St Clair and Port Huron with Louie. I can't say enough about how much effort and head aches he has put into this event. On just that day, he was on two conference calls and at least 10 other calls for this event and this was HIS VACATION. He even let his lunch go cold while he was on a conference call!

No matter what happens, Louie has all the racers backs and is only helping his city's businesses and citizens.

Louie is a real life Chuck Norris :coolcowboy:

I hate to bring up bad news, but has anyone checked the latest advisory for Hurrican Irene??? Its forecast to hit right at the race venue.... SUNDAY mid morning.

Man do I feel you you Louie. not only is he dealing with permit problems, now it looks like hurricane Irene will be in LI on Sunday as cat. 1 storm. :mad:

A week ago it was going to hit Palm Beach, the track has it moving more and more east with every update, I think we'll be fine....PS I think we race in a Cat 1 last year in Patchahogue lol

Ain't no stinkin' hurricane gonna stop The Boyz at Louie The Riggers House Of Pain! We have all kinds of "Off The Wall" events going on all weekend, Jersey Boyz Style at Louie The Riggers House. The Rigger put WAAAAAAAYYYYYY too much Time, Heart and Soul into this event for ANYTHING to spoil it.

I guess a lil Earthquake won't stop it either.:eek:

oh ....wait I forgot ..OPA only races on flat water and rivers ..were not OFFSHORE racers and Long Island Sound never never gets rough....... (See pic)

Hats off to Louie and crew for his efforts. The epitome of doing whats "best for the sport." Proud to be on a race course with him.

Used to rough water..... looking forward to it!

Looks like the hurrican is slowing down. Now it wont get to NJ until Sunday afternoon.

As of today the cg is holding up are (the jersey outlaws)because of Hurrican Irene. We race in NJ on sunday in Parkertown.

Mike

So are you saying even a Hurricane is in no hurry to go to New Jersey. :party-smiley-004:

No, I'm saying that it saw Augie leading a line of Black Caddies heading south on the Jersey Turnpike and it banged a hard right to avoid NJ completely. Smart Hurricane.:lolhit:

PS - Spoke to Louie late today, after he had some good meetings with the local fire Dept and Coast Guard. He feels very optomistic about getting the permit, but as usual, that won't happen until later this week.

Aint no hurricane stopping Louie!

Never has !

I think a few years ago there was also a Hurricane that threatened the event but it kept just far enough east that they still got the race in....

And last year's storm made for some very cool images.... :evilb:

Some of us have a LONG drive, it would be nice to know for sure. I know that no one can control the weather, just saying.:angry-smiley-038:

What he said,

Fastedy, Russell drove the Pantera up earlier this week. Come up early and I'll take you and Mark to some local hot spots. As far as the race, it is what it is! We all know that Louie and his team are killing themselves getting this race off! So that should be good enough for everyone to make the effort in showing up!

Furthermore, I think that we all need to show our support of Louie, especially since this race has received all of the bad press lately! (race being canceled, no permits, etc). What if one of these saboteurs reads these posts and see's that boats are thinking of not showing up? Than what! Do they win? @%^#$ That!

Its awfully quiet on here....
so whats the latist?? This huricane cant be helping the cause of trying to get a permit from the CG:angry-smiley-038:

This is prolly gonna sound like a dumb question and i'm sure there is a good answer for it....i just dont know it...

The way i understand it, the permit is good for sat and sun(assuming we get one)....why dont we say the hell with practice on saturday and just get the race in....then get the heck outta there before the storm hits on sunday??

i dont know about the rest of ya, but i think the storm is gonna be a sure thing(i hope I'm wrong). If were gonna race in it...good! bring that S&%T on....but no offense to any of you guys, its kind of long drive to come hang out and wait for a storm...haha

we appreciate everything Louie and crew has done so far, and hope to see you all friday...

Jake
555

UPDATE

Just spoke to Louie and he's now 99% sure that we will recieve a permit from the Coast Guard.

OPA Staff is heading to Long Island as is the TV crew. We are prepared to race. You should be too. This should turn into an EPIC Tv Show. They started filming the weather channel from home two days ago.... as the storm races toward the race site...

One thing is for sure, you know we'll all have a great time at Louie's house this weekend.

like what Lefty555 said. street party friday night,race saturday.just a thought,but Louie where all here to support you and your team for all your doing...

We're good with that! its already starting to build out in the bay! just got back from a little cruise and boy it was fun!!!!

I just sent the "VIG" over and an offer, YOU ALL WILL RACE ON SUNDAY! Enjoy.