ryoung99

Frank,
I agree with the proposed change.

It is a joke that guys can take F2 boats made to run close to 90 and slow them down to 79.9 and think they are running on an even playing field.

Take a good look at APBA last season, the best finish any single engine boat had was 2nd place (one race, Scott Utah's Just Pray). The bigger boats with big power and small props made all of the single engine "affordable" boats non-competitive.

Now with that stated, out west we ran against two 30+ footers with twin engines and beat them both our our 24' Reindl. One of the boats was a stock 35 Foutain with 502's (very heavy boat with interior still in place) and the other was a 42' Apache with big blown engines (top speed was 75, this boat was a tank). So it can be done, although the Apache would have killed us in rough water.

The fact that Sonic Racing was allowed to race P4 with a boat that was an F2 boat the prior year was almost offensive. While I harbor no hard feeling toward them, as they were but playing within the rules, it was not exactly in the spirit of a "run what you brung class", as their boat was capable of much much more.

My .02.

Rick

Fast Shafts

I also like the idea of the length limit.

AugiePensa

Q-Ball, here's a little lesson in racing. Typhoon(White Boat) MD. race, on my ass the entire race and I'm talking about 5-10 feet tops as Mission Impossible was ahead of me for 4 laps(A P5 Boat) until they broke and Simply Awesome right on my ass. Lets go to Point Plesant, Typhoon (Black Boat) 1/2 lap lead, That's 21/4 mile lead on the 38' twin engine condo in 3-4 foot seas or how about SuperBoat, John lead 90% of the Bricktown race in 7-8 foot seas as well as Jesse James????????????????How about The Wild Card Boyz kicking my ass in Bricktown in a 24' boat with 7-8 foot seas. I'll do almost anything they ask but remember..."On Any Given Sunday" Your gonna Win or Your Gonna Loose. I think it's all in the turns, everyone would catch me on the straights but in the turns Kevin would put his arm in the water and that was it....we were gone, but MOST of all it's who stays Together and finishes the race which we had a problem doing last year as we were ALWAYS balls out trying to catch the other P4 boats. Hey Q-Ball, thats a funny one...We were balls out trying to catch ALL THE SMALLER BOATS. I guess the theory of 38' twin engine vs 28 single engine doesn't really work... unless you've built your 38' to do 120 mph which is CHEATING. Cheating is NOT in my vocabulary, sticking an ice pick in your eyes is but not cheating. So I'll put it to you this way Frankie, whatever is good for the sport and all the guy's(and Ladies) is fine with me. Augie

BRUCE SEROFF

Q-Ball

The smaller boat will only prevail in calm water if its top speed is equal to or greater than its larger competitor. It has a greater ability to cut the turns and accelerate out of them. All this means nothing if the larger boat is really capable of more speed and uses it in the calm water.

Until you can police top speed, you'll never level the playing field.

Lets use Typhoon vs. D S O T as example. the 38 is cabable of 80+ and so is the Kryp. If the Kryp gets a good start and maintains speed through the turns, Theres no reason why he shouldnt win over the 38 in calm seas.

I dont think we would lose boats with a rule change, I think we would gain. Because many faster P-5 boats would move up with boats of the same size and open the door for slower smaller P-5s that may not have come out . And many smaller faster boats like a batboat would come out to race P-4, when they may have sat out if they had to compete with a 38 in big water.

So, Im actually for the rule change, but how does that affect the P-3, P-2 and P-1 classes?

bajathrottle

i would love to see the change! i think it would bring out more boats. because everything in p5 now would move up. opening up for the smaller one like our old baja.

BRUCE SEROFF

Augie,

for the sake of not getting into an argument, you really cant make those comparisons. The boats you mentioned, including mine are over powered and we all know it. The Typhoon boat, while 10 feet shorter can only compete with you in big water because they have tons of experience and they can run that boat to the edge. They still have to work very hard to keep up with you but they do it. Mission Impoossible and Wild card are both much faster than your boat, and smaller. They need the extra power to keep up with you in big water. They only beat you in the brick race because you had kill switch problems. Until you compare apples to apples, you'll never know where you would finish. GPS will help but will not cure the problem. I think most of the faster P-5 boats will gladly move up as long as they did not have to compete with your battleship and others like it. Theres no way a 75 - 80mph 26- 30 footer will compete with a 80+ mph 38 in big water. thats a fact.

Qball

Augie, I'm not throwing stones.... I'm just trying to get people to stop thinking with the mentality that a smaller boat has an advantage in calm water when they don't...

Wazzup Racing

My opinion as an SBI racer, P 5 could definetly use a length limit. The twin engine Vrs. single engine will always be an issue. One thing everyone is overlooking, is the fact that in order to be in the game you have to finish the game. We all know about breakdowns, The twins have double everything to keep together for an entire race, quite a handycapper. Typhoon, merc stock power, vrs DSOT, twin 650 custom power on bravos, Hmmmmmmmm. Where are the odds, you would have to bet on Typhoon. The worlds Wazzup twins vrs that Italian Diesel. single dusted me watch the video. Bracket Racing is what it is. Build your boat to run at the limit of your class, forget the BS and lets just go have a good time. Never been to an SBI race that wasn't a blast.

Ryan Beckley

You have to start with top speed best setup. Propping down is BS. Run your boat in the class it should be in. We all know how fast our boats are and pretty much how fast other boats are. The guys that are running theold F2 boats in P classes are the ones really balling up the little guys. Unfortunatly I think alot of that was done to please the manufacturer who was trying to promote a new class. (Like we need another) Trust me I got hosed by 2 38's cutting my off at the start in St Pete. And by a 37 ALL year. Sack up and run your boat in the right class.

Gordo

You all make some great points. Having raced much of last season in P-4, racing a 26' Corsa, (previous Factory 1 and "A" class boat) with a GM Vortec HP3. Having "been there done that" I'd like to throw my .02 in here...
Like it or not, The outlaw classes started out as "local" class. It was intended to be an entry level series to allow folks to "run what ya brung" in order to get a taste of racing with whatever boat they currently owned or ran. Of course, over the last few seasons these classes have evolved into larger classes with boats that have been built specifically for a respective bracket. Some of the things I learned in P-4 last year were that a large twin can, and will out accelerate a smaller single. A smaller single can and will turn inside of a large twin in a sharp turn in calm water. This is possible the most important point... A large twin will destroy a small single in rough water, BUT, top speeds being equal, a small single will still only run with a large twin in calm water at best. Remember, we all have a speed limit.
Last year was my first year in the throttleman seat with a new driver. Fortunately we both learned quickly and raced well together, but there was no way we were going to beat the 38 Sonic. While it may have been frustrating, it was still well within the rules and we congratulated the Sonic team as well as the 38 supercharged TopGun each and every time they won.
To address another point Augie made, we raced in some small but nasty washing machine slop in Milwaukee. While we watched the supercharged Sound of Thunder and F-2 Sonic battle it out just in front of us, we also walked away from a number of others with more power AND motors, including a 28 Donzi with Pro Charged twins, an older "A" class boat with twin outboards, and a few other highly respectable teams. On the last lap, Augie had a mechanical failure which put us in second place. Like Smitty pointed out, "breakdowns" are much more likely to be a factor when you run hi stress motors. The last lap is the one that counts, and it's all part of the game.
A few years ago, the APBA P class racers agreed to give up prize money in exchange for much lower, (affordable) entry fees and limited TV. It's cheap racing, and it's fun. But, if you try to "fix" outlaw P classes, you stand the chance of eliminating as many boats as you might gain. Maybe if A and B classes would have survived, this would not have been an issue, but B class disappeared and A class is hanging on by a thread.
I realize my position is not a popular one, but as far as APBA is concerned, Think of the Outlaw Performance classes as feeder classes to the Pro series.