A friend of mine, Chris Pookie, President of the Toyota Longbeach Grand Prix, use to have offshore race's in conjunction with the car races. He would love to bring the event's back , and asked me if in my opinion would there be enough teams willing to make there way out here for the week long event?

So boy's how many of you guy's would travel ALL the way to Los Angeles for it?

Everyone's opinion is welcome, and anyone who would like to get involved , let me know so I can put you in contact with Pookie or vice-versa.

The dates for 2005 are April 8-10, so offshore could have weekend befor or after.

CASSI,

No question about it, a boat race tied into the Toyota Grand Prix would be huge even though it would be dwarfed by the Grand Prix itself. Talk about having all your motor heads in one spot. What an awesome idea. What a great way to get visibility for the sport. Who knows, there might be some sponsorship spillover.

Long Beach has always been a financial challenge, but might be very doable with a much larger field and support from the Grand Prix promoters. I'll talk to some of the racers out here and let you know what they think.

J

Provided we have not recently flipped the boat, Tim and I would be there with the Signs for Less One Design #99!!!

It's an event the president is totally willing to put on, the only thing is he want' at least 40 boats and he want's to know if all you "celebrity teams" from APBA ,OSS, and SBI would show?

Anyone who would like to discuss one on one pm me and I'll be happy to get you in touch with the write people.

I believe in the early 90's John Carbonell sanctioned races out there, San Diego and Long Beach and I think the car race was the week following his race in Long Beach.
Why don't you just guide him to the SBI phone number/website/or APBA's

and who are these celebrity teams he wants.......I haven't seen any celebrities at any races this year, much less in race boats.
Just a suggestion!

SBI already does something like this around the Miami Grand Prix.

Contact APBA, SBI or OSS, without this coming from the top down, you'll be very disappointed with the turnout. PLUS someone needs to act as the local promoter to build a fleet of safety boats and co ordinate the land operations.

Putting together a new race site is a hard job. Someone has got to have the time, patience and knowledge to get through all the permits and political entanglements.

I am confused. Chris Pook, founder and former president of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach, resigned in 2001 to become president of CART. The current Grand Prix Association president is Jim Michaelian and the event is owned by Dover Motorsports. Are Chris Pookie and Chris Pook the same person?

Chris Pook's father use to run it, and Dove Motor sport's does own it. Everyone seem's to be getting there panties in a bunch about this and possibly the right person would get in touch with whatever sanction they were interested in. For some reason SBI stopped running in Caifornia but now the Grand Prix people are interested, plain and simple.
As for celebrity teams they mean:
FIREWATER
BACARDI SILVER
INSTIGATOR
MUSCLE
RIO ROSES
JERSEY BOYS
THE HULK
OUTLAW
ETC. ETC. ETC............
Like I said no one need's to get all defensive, they have plenty of teams in California, but this was something they wanted to put together for ALL RACER'S FROM ALL SANCTION'S!!!!!

Great.....but what about docks? We went last year and had a dock in the fishbowl. They said that there was going to be a lottery in January to try and get a dock space for the Grand Prix. What a pain!

Anna, We're just a bunch of guys from Jersey,you put us in the same group as Celebrity Teams how can we refuse! Talked to Smitty, we're in. We'll talk to rest of The Jersey Boyz. I'm sure Lightning Jacks will come. Augie