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[Miss BK]

There is a way to get more coverage in the magazines - it's called positive reinforcement.

And apparently that's exactly what these "other" guys are doing - writing to the editors and getting noticed.

Our sector of the powerboating world rarely keeps in touch with these magazines (but in the "old' days they did!). Until we change our habits and get to work, it will always be "the other" stuff that we see. It's all about how bad you want it.

[Cameraboy]

There is a way to get more coverage in the magazines - it's called positive reinforcement.

And apparently that's exactly what these "other" guys are doing - writing to the editors and getting noticed.

Our sector of the powerboating world rarely keeps in touch with these magazines (but in the "old' days they did!). Until we change our habits and get to work, it will always be "the other" stuff that we see. It's all about how bad you want it.

Val, I've played the game of leading the media to water, even handing them the cup - unless it's a small town newspaper, they won't drink regularly. So some of us that "got to work" have gotten a little frustrated. But, I'm not disagreeing with you on how the game has to be played. However, when you're racing, you have to choose where your time and money as an individual gets spent.

What these magazines want is someone to write the articles and take the pictures, or pay them to have it done. The old days of covering boat racing as a journalist are gone. And as you say, providing the article and pictures aren't enough - you're going to lose to the bottom line every time because they focus on what people are reading. So you have to make the contact, provide the material, and provide the reader feedback. That's practically buying an ad in the magazine. I don't think that falls under the traditional definition of journalism, but it's how corporate media operate. I personally feel that sucks.

That's a lot of effort. And there just aren't a lot of people that are passionate about boat racing that just want to do the promotion side - most of them want to race first. And that's our fault? (rhetorical question)

It bugs me when people make the generalization that boat racers don't do anything to help themselves in promotion. I've even seen a magazine official say that he called the APBA office for information "but they couldn't be bothered to get off their asses and respond". Know any boat racing publication staff that will even take the effort to surf to Web looking for boat racing events? You know as well as I do the information is out there.

Outboard racing made it harder to promote ourselves when we lost touch with mainstream boating. And we get farther away year-by-year. You can run 70 mph on a jet ski and over 90 in a bass boat without kevlar, helmet and a racing sanction. I think promotion now needs to focus first on the local level to get people interested and maybe involved. I don't think national/international magazine coverage does that as effectively. Especially when they live off of advertising from jet ski and bass boat suppliers.

[Skoontz]

Having been involved in the industry I am, our company has been written up numerous times in trade publications...I have had opportunity to talk to many of an editor, and in many cases, it's about economics and clout. When you had factory wars going on for example, as this was the time when writes came regularly in most publications, OMC says to the advertising manager, "We spend X amount of dollars in your publication a month, so we expect you will be covering alot of races this season, right?"

Merc said similar things, especially when Mr. K was behind the wheel, I have no doubt having heard about many of is antics ..... You can lead the horse to water, and cannot make him drink, but, when you throw the great motivator (money) into the mix, money that supports the staff of the publication, the horse is them willing to walk himself to the water, and drink.

I'm not saying that is a then vs now snapshot, but I do know how the game is played in the magazine business at least through my industry.

[Miss BK]

Yes, magazines as well as TV, enjoy seeing ready-made reports. As long as the images and the story is well put together (they do pay for these).

But in late August, I was asked to do an article on the Michigan Hot Boats social club. The MHB paid the magazine absolutely nothing, and didn't have to write anything either. All they had to do was encourage the magazine (over a period of months) to come to Michigan and cover their event - and they gave examples why their entertainment was better than poker runs/offshore races/drag races or any other boating event. These guys were really FIRED-UP! They didn't sit and wait for someone to show up.

And their constant communication with Hot Boat eventually paid off. Hot Boat sent both a photographer and a reporter to see what they were all about, resulting in a three page article (which covered outboards, inboards, IOs and jets) and a dozen pictures.

I've also seen first hand how POKER RUNNERS get fired-up and demand attention. And the impact from their noise is huge. When an POKER RUN article is published...they send letters! Their feedback has a big impact on whether there will be another poker run article soon.

So what I'm saying is, we are such a QUIET group compared to some other groups who spend all summer rallying this media attention. As long as we stay silent like this, so will the magazines and newspapers.

Another example of the silence: The APBA has a website with a coordinator that stays pretty much on-call 7 days a week (holidays too) to post information as soon as it comes in from clubs & regions around the country. But more often than not, there will be no e-mail in the coordinators mailbox. No race results submitted. No pictures. No pre-race info. And sometimes, weeks can go by with absolutely nothing sent to be posted. The same is true for the APBA E-alert, which now is sent to over 4,600 people!

So, here we have two free and willing places where we can get some great attention for our sport - but even with them being handed to us - these are rarely used. Other than Ross Wallach and a couple other clubs/series who do keep up the communication, our OWN site stays mostly silent.

My question is: Why? Why don't we write to the magazines like the other people do? When will WE get fired-up?

[Miss BK]

PS
When I was racing, I used to drag my boat right up to the front door of the local newspaper office. First, I'd call to make sure the sports editor was in the office. I got a picture and story written about my team every single time. I learned this from my dad, who was the Northern AZ ASA Softball commissioner. He had used these same tactics during his men's fastpitch softball career.

Yes, it was a pain and I could have done other things with my time, but I was trying to get a little promotion so I could keep my sponsor happy. And it worked.

True, it was a smaller newspaper (pop 20,000), so it would probably be much harder to get that done in a bigger city. I've never tried that. But the point is that I would have been covered in cobwebs if I just sat on my sofa waiting for them to find out about me on the Internet. That's not going to happen with a newspaper, but does occasionally happen with magazines. I've seen that occur from time to time.

[mercmack]

JUST LOOKED A MARCH ISSUE OF THIS MAG...GESS WHAT..NOT ONE AND I MEAN ONE WORD OR PICTURE OF A OUTBOARD IN THIS ISSUE..WHERE IS THE OLD POWER BOAT...

[mercmack]

Looking A Little Better, There Was 5 Pages Of Outboards In The April Issue...still Got A Long Way To Go Before I'd Subcribe To It..

[Skoontz]

Mercmac:

Unfortunately, the boating population, I mean pleasure boat population is changing to the cast iron hunk of junk hooked to a lower unit crowd very fast. Go to the river during season. You are just not cool unless you drop 3-400K on some oversized over powered yuppy float. 90% of the people who own those boats would not have the first clue as to what to do with them under full throttle, very similar to the clientele I have who own Ferraris. You have to have them just to have them... They just thunder around, being with the in crowd. Outboard powered boats can't hardly be given away. That to me is plainly stoopid, because of all the advantages an outboard powered boat has over an inboard, from fuel effeciency, to higher performance, to more room in less boat, outboards have every advantage you want to write in. Not defending Powerboat here, but, they print what is selling in the marketplace. If you were an inboard owner, and Powerboat wants to sell to you, that's what they are going to print because I'm betting they know their market and target markets. If there are few outboarders in the group, they won't sell magazines.

Very sad but true reality.

[flaursen]

I think you have to put horse before the cart here they took a chance and put in a couple great articles and they have gotten some a few great responces now they put in a bit more and have more outboard articles then I have seen in along time and all we do is complain about what they have done sort of bitting the hand that gives us food
more positive reinforcement the more they will print

Frank Laursen

[Mark Poole]

Just to get back on track.....Lee Taylor's "reverse" 3 point hydro was influenced mainly by wind tunnel testing. These reverse style hydros always seem to have very positive results in the wind tunnel. They are also very successful in RC racing. I am no hydrodynamicist but it is a fact that what works as a scale model does not always work in full scale. Taylor's team designed this boat shape that copied a 3 wheel land speed car. The fastest RC boats going right now are pushing 150 mph and they are not reverse 3 pointers. The sponsons are up front even though the boats are still very radically designed.

The ride surface angles on Taylor's boat were way too aggressive (steep). This is half the reason the boat crashed. The other half is the fact that he, for whatever reason, attempted to set the record on a far less than perfect day for it. With such steep ride angles the boat began to sponson walk in the rough water and basically rolled over, pivoting on the one forward ride point.

Personally I believe if the water speed record is to ever climb above 400 mph a 30 ft. boat with one jet engine bolted to it is not going to work. It will need to be much larger with more horsepower and more weight so it can maintain stability at extreme speeds.