Originally Posted by
Master Oil Racing Team
I don't watch TV Ron, except Fox News. If I'm home....I read books and BRF. BRF IS THE RECORD OF BOAT RACING!
I like the idea of a program with a couple of caveats. No solicitations of sponsors of the Nationals or the local community that would normally be putting money into the nationals. We don't want in any way to take money that would go toward that event. The first reunion, our group graciously contributed $1,000.00 to the sport we all love, but we don't want to compete for the precious sponsorship dollars these days. Still...the idea is with merit. There are potential donors out there to help fund the underlying costs of putting the thing together, and a program would be an excellent way to honor them.
As far as getting people to sign up early and give a writeup...forget about that. There will be a hard core group that will....then as we get closer and the hype drives up interest we will start to get a flurry of info...then there will be a bunch at the last minute that will send in stuff. The biggest group will be those that commit only in the final weeks and the ones that just show up. There would never be time enough to put together a program even months out. Not something that we would want to honor such an event. This is the sign Steve Jones and I stared at many, many times sitting in the lobby of Grunwald Printing in Corpus Christi with our program notes and ads while waiting on John Grunwald to see us. "YOU WANT IT QUICK, FAST, AND CHEAP?....PICK TWO AND CALL US BACK!". I do think though that we could do a program. just have to put our heads together to see how to make it work.
The only silent auction I have ever seen was at DePue, but I think your idea on that is dead on.
As far as the book goes, with today's digital images, quality internet transmissions, computer enhancement with quick editing, sizing, etc., printers, ease of looking at proofs and making changes alters the equation when printing. When Tim first contacted me he wanted to start on 2011 very early. For those who are too young to know Tim Chance, he worked on several publications before he started his Hydroplane Quarterly magazine. So Tim is the go to guy. I think it was November or December 2008, long after the first reunion and WAY before anyone considered the universally accepted date of the second reunion in 2011, that Tim E mailed me and asked me to give him a call. I was very excited about his proposal and we planned for him to come to my house, or possibly meet in San Antonio. The plan was to spend some hard time laying out the foundation for the book. We discussed some absolutes that must be included, such as motor builders, boat builders and what was the bedrock of alky racing from the early sixties to in the seventies. We both had a lot of similar thoughts, but the main thing about the individual racers, classes, boats, motors, states, numbers.....the things that racers want to read about themselves and exploits was the toughest. Sometimes, the guys that won the most are the hardest to get info from. It's really hard to get any meaningful information from 95% of racers. Some don't want to take the time, but for the most part...racers just don't know how or what to compile about their racing careers. So it takes a lot of hounding, follow up, then putting it together in an order that makes people want to read it.
That's just what I have found out on my own. As far as the mechanical part...I don't know. Tim does. And that's why he contacted me so early in the game so we could at least flesh out the general direction. We would both contribute photos and copy, but I kind of figured I would play the major role in financing (get it printed) while Tim did the layout and find the best print shop. Neither one of us got into this to make money, because we know Ron and Jimbo are right. We wanted to put together a class publication that people would want to own and look at and read...and pass on to their heirs. We wanted it to be independant of the reunion's drag on expense. Time is the factor now. I figured after this fall we were behind before we started, but if Tim thinks there may still be time....I'm all for it.
Tim....I may have to make a quick 400 mile round trip tommorrow. If I can I'll give you a call.
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