AugiePensa

I want to start off by saying that this team and crew are about the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, stand up, honest and TRUE SPORTSMEN, here we go. All the Bull $hit surrounding the OPA Cambridge, Maryland Race this past weekend it was refreshing to know some people don't speak with a forked tongue. In our class (P4) we had eight boats, everyone faster than ours but all year long we had bad water which gave us the advantage being a larger boat. A few of the crews (4) told Kevin and I NOT to follow them (as they were going out to play as the points didn't mean anything to them and they all knew we were going for the P4 Divisional Title as well as the Overall Championship of OPA with the Bad Boys 38, Kurt and Tony P. only 2 points behind us) They didn't want us to break down trying to catch them. So the race goes on and we are on Steelin Times A$$ the entire race, everyone else had better than a half a lap on us, behind us were Eric of Hocus Pokus( about 2 minutes) and Kurt and Ozzy who blew a drive and were out of the race. Well the race ends with Steelin Time ahead of us by 5 seconds and Hocus Pokus about 3 minutes behind us(Eric had problems with props or he would have kicked our a$$) Back at the docks we learn everyones GPS had them all breaking out except Eric and Myself (Stellin Times GPS read 67 mph so they were supposed to go to the average lap speed on THEM ONLY (my boat GPS Read 79.2 and OPA's Read 78.7) Ron from Steelin Time showed me his hand held and the one on his boat, both read 80.5, he said I guess you and Kevin won which kinda got us excited because a first or second would have given us the Overall Title no matter where the Bad Boys 38 came in but it was NOT TO BE. OPA threw out ALL THE GPS's????????????????????????? and said we broke out, now remember...we came in 5 seconds behind Steelin Time...they got First but didn't break out, Hocus Pokus got second and CMS Racing got third( Their GPS read 87) and us forth. Nobody can explain anything to us and I was told that's how it is. Here's where my appology comes in... Al from CMS Racing told OPA he would not accept the third place trophy because he knew he broke out and had them give it to Kevin and I. We love you guys for your honesty and thoughts but that's not what it's all about, it's friends like YOU that make it worth while for us to race so Please ACCEPT an appology from Kevin and I for not stepping up to the plate and handing you the throphy back Sunday Night. It's their (OPA) game and rules and if that's how we ended up you should not loose the prize money or the Throphy or the Recognition of the TRUE Champions that you are. Al, it's guy's like you that keep us coming back to play. Kevin and I will be sending you the trophy back with a lot of great memories of our year racing with you. We will also let OPA, The CBPBA and Ron P. know what we are doing so they can correct any publications, articles that may misprint false info.THANK YOU, Augie and Kevin

berns29scarab

spoken like a true gentleman...high 5 to you guys !! see you in camden i hope

Phantom1

First class. How are you feeling Augie?

BRUCE SEROFF

Kudos....I applaud you as well and all the other guys in the class.
You handled the situation as best you could, givin the circumstances.

gmhdfan

driver53

There is no one like AUGIE first class............ rat bast@rd

TomR

Augi and all my OPA friends,
As disappointed as the Sonic Boom team was that we broke "Again", We were more disappointed at the way the race scoring was handled by the officials!!
I think that the end results were not a true indication of the winners.

I hope that this whole thing can be worked out, so that next year we don't have this problem!! This is an issue that will greatly effect the future of P class racing and the desire of teams to want to participate!!

I maintain that everyone should setup the boat to run 2mph over the class top speed. Then have qualifying runs with one inspector on board, in place of one crew member to run two top speed runs, avg the top speed and as long as it falls within 2 mph buffer your in, if you exceed the 2mph buffer, than you are bumped up!!
This would make for balls to walls racing for everyone, without having to be concerned with going "Too Fast"!!
Going too fast when in a race is doesn't make any sense!!
As far as the variables such as fuel, the runs could be done with the boat fueled for the race plus a little added for the qualifying runs.


If it is decided to continue to use the GPSs, we should have some sort of a secured mount attached (screwed or bolted) to the transom area of each boat. The transom of the boat has the least amount of movement. It would not be hard to do. As far as the rules, it should be that if you break out, you are placed in last place! If there are more than one boat that breaks out placment could simply be determined by how much each boat broke out by for the last place finishings. At least you would still get points for the season, but not rewarded for failing to meet the criteria of the race!!

As far as the issue of using avg lap speeds, if you are that good that you can maintain your speed why should you be penilized???

AugiePensa

Hey Al, just to let you know OPA has not come up with the final scoring of the race, how they are going to do it ect. I understand how much pressure is on Kurt and OPA and I for one would not want to make any of those decisions but I'm sure they will be the right ones so stayed tuned. Little Cesar says he'll have everything done in the next two days.