Quote:
Originally Posted by dowdy
your garage in wiltshire,not a honda dealership is it,by any chance?also,honda are not paying for the series it is the likes of scott who are paying for it,do you actually know what honda charge to race in their series?as far as honda are concerned it is a self financing glorified advert,probably making a profit for them now,looking at the latest charges to join in with the racing.they want 30k of my mate andy musgrave to bring it to phwellei on may 10/11 as well as charging all the competitors fees.rip off. i could run this series for 50 years at this format and be a rich man at the end of it all.
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Ive raced in the series now for 2 years, and have to say that it is a great atmosphere, well organised friendly but competitive. You can spend as much or as little as you like - but everybody always misses the point on here- its a one type series - everybody the same. You cant compare a batboat to a honda 225 or a phantom, or even a 150 to a phantom 21.
All the engines are mounted in the same place at the same height, all the props are controlled (yes a 225 will go over 70 and ive been in one with a 3 blade cleaver on it!) - but not in Honda legal race trim. Both classes have a minimum weight of 1120Kgs after racing - much heavier than classIII or OCR. Apples and Pears.
As for the engines, they are a consumer engine, this is not Merc racing stuff. Ive also got merc racing stuff, and it looks bombproof in comparison The whole point was to prove they could be raced. Which they have done extremely well. Im running a 2004 150 with over 300 hours on it, and it still dynos 153 HP at the prop - took us to 6th in the championships last year and that was with 2 retirements. 1 cause i broke my navigators arm (note to diary: must lose some weight for this season) 2. Battery box ripped out of floor of boat - in 2 seasons - 38 races including basics- no engine related failures.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to maintenance - a lot of people do just turn up, then wonder why things break.... and because Honda are very generous and give everyone a 2 year race warranty on the engines, the guys in the race truck get lumbered. The guy in the red boat wonders why the guy in yellow one is quicker, could it be something to do with the fact he spent 2 hours polishing his hull before it was dropped in the water? who knows.
Also, those people know who they are, but those that try to "bend" the rules tend to come unstuck mechanically - for instance using very thin out of spec oil to get a few more HP - Oil sensors then dont work properly and tend to back the engine off in rough water) and those that throw the bottle of octane boost in from halfords on the way to the race tend to find the ecu cant adjust that far and end up in an rpm restriced mode....
As for Phantoms - love em - if I had room id have one aswell with a 2.5 efi on it. I really enjoyed the Plymouth event last year where OCR, Honda, V24 and class III all were racing at the same event.
Honda dont make money on this, in fact I believe it is quite a sizeable investment - One observation I have never seen mercury (although i love their product) offer that size of investment to a series, or offer a race warranty!
I just want to race, Honda suits me very well at the moment, however when the cats finished - probably a Honda boat for sale at the end of the season!
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