NATIONAL BOAT RACING ASSOCIATION

As president of OBRA , I have to make contracts with sponsors, such as chamber of Commerces, Cities and Clubs.  In our contract(NBRA), we promise to return to the site to put on a race if the weather prevents us from performing our race.  I wondered if the average racer was aware that the clubs had that clause in the contract?  If we get blown out there is nothing we can do to collect the tow or prize money, untill we have the race.  If we put one boat on the water our insurance goes into affect and we owe them the thousand dollars.  So please do not go out on the course if there is a possibility that the race is to be called.  At the APBA meeting, APBA's insurance company required the club not to allow anyone to test on friday or Monday.  Thursday testing is OK.  One of the most important part of our insurance is that all those participating, judges, turnboat people, ambluence people, sign a release.  Also, ApBA's insurance wanted a snow fence around the area that boats were launched...So, we need to fill our obligation to return to the race site, if that's agreeable to both parties.

Ok Doc explain why you can test on Thursday and not on Friday or Monday. What is the thinking behind this??

Larry Mac

They want to cut their risk as low as possible.  They are insuring you on friday and monday, but they do not want any accident to happen during that time...Now, if you have pickup boats station on the race course and an ambulance at the site and you told them you are haveing a test day, then it's ok.  This is APBA's new insurance company, who really didn't know much about our type to boats and seemed to know about unlimited and OPC more than stock or Mod.  I'm not sure if there is an extra charge for a test day..  They told their clubs , that if a member was out on the lake and accident happen or if they were testing and the officials were not there, then they the club would be libel, because it was one of their members and they would cancel the insurance...Not even reasonable...  I told the head guy, in sixty years of mod racing, I have not seen a claim.

Doc Miller at February 6, 2012 at 10:36 PM

They want to cut their risk as low as possible.  They are insuring you on friday and monday, but they do not want any accident to happen during that time...Now, if you have pickup boats station on the race course and an ambulance at the site and you told them you are haveing a test day, then it's ok.  This is APBA's new insurance company, who really didn't know much about our type to boats and seemed to know about unlimited and OPC more than stock or Mod.  I'm not sure if there is an extra charge for a test day..  They told their clubs , that if a member was out on the lake and accident happen or if they were testing and the officials were not there, then they the club would be libel, because it was one of their members and they would cancel the insurance...Not even reasonable...  I told the head guy, in sixty years of mod racing, I have not seen a claim.

I'm more confused than ever. You said that the racers ARE insured on Friday and Monday but they don't want you to test on these days according to your first post..

Larry Mac

Larry APBA have got themselves a real problem. Most of their own making. They had several incidents last year where lawsuits have been filed. Most of this is not the fault of the Stock, Mod, Pro. But as you know they have a lot of other stuff under the same umbrella. And from what I have been told they screwed around with the long time provider of insurace for APBA last year. NBRA has the same provider we have had from the begining with the same rules we always had. Just need to follow them to the letter.

Doc, as far as i Know NBRA does not an official contract. ODA uses an agreement form of their own. It does not have statement you refer to in it. I also have a copy of the form that OBRA used and it does have the language you refer too. As you know most of these kind of things are not worth the paper their wrote on if one of the partys choose to ignore them. Its lawyer time then.

Just my take!!  The one thing that needs to happen at every race is an ambulance should be there any time a boat leaves the bank ( Racing or Testing). In todays world this just needs to be in stone. I cannot speak for all of the races but when we have published testing date for Centralia we will test on those dates weather permitting. I can predict that there is a chance of the next days race getting called off due to a forcast but if you try this 9 out of 10 times it will do the opposite. Everything comes with a risk and sometimes you loose, its just the way it is.

Alan   

We do need to be on our best behavior..On our web site Hydroracer the western divisionals entry fee for the first class is going to probably be $90 bucks with second entry of $60..Can you say that sucks or OUCH and thats per day..

Entry fees at the NBRA Nats at Centralia have been $25.00 per class. ODA charges $25,15 10 at our local races. We pay tow & prize money,and still make enough that this year,we are purchasing a new rescue boat. Factory made to our specs and design. Also a new gantry made from light weight aluminum for the scales. No carrying your boat out of the water to be weighed.

It is no wonder that APBA is having problems recruiting new drivers with entry fees that high. Me and Keith have been to several APBA races in the past seasons where we felt that we had really been raped with entry and APBA fees.

All,

APBA is APBA. As far as I know, we have no changes in our insurance coverage as far as what days are covered...it's samo samo as it's been. We have not abused nor overused our liability policy and, as I've written for the next Full Throttle, we are at a point where we are going to have to look at increasing our liability...and conversations are going on to that end.

I'm not sure bringing APBA's insurance rules and regs into our conversation is wise, or productive... it has NOTHING to do with us.

Also, I'd remind everyone putting on races, any contract signed should be between the sponsors and cities involved and the local club. Any NBRA involvement in a contract will necessitate the consent and agreement of the Racing Commission.

Dan

In light of what ODA is doing with their contract, I think OBRA needs to look at it or get another one.