Quote Originally Posted by Airpacker View Post
Bill, you really need to pull your head out of the sand. Performance boating is neither an exclusive "east of the Mississippi river" thing nor does it center around "offshore" boats. Not by a long shot.

There are hundreds of little outboard and inboard go fast ( lake ) boats for every single "offshore" boat in north America. Always have been, always will be.

Apparently you think if a boat is not an "offshore" boat, its not a performance boat.

I bet thousands of drag boat owners and racers, inboard, jet and outboard alike would disagree with you.

Same goes for circle boats, Formula one boats, jet boats both sprint and white water.

What about the cracker box and hydro racers? Are they not "performance boats" too ?

Then of course, there is that little place NOT in Florida known as Europe, and the middle east and Austrailia. All home to lots of performance boats NOT made on the east coast of the USA.

Remember where Reggies pad bottom came from. He stole it form a guy building little 100mph missles called Allisons. Surely a true performance boat but not an offshore.

Bob Leach's Eliminator and his Daytona line brought tunnel and Catamaran boats to the general performance boat crowd. 1000's of them. Copied by just about every west coast performance builder there is or was.

Roarke Summerford, designer and builder of the famed STV line of blisteringly fast outbaord powered tunnel V boats influenced many a boat builder to follow his lead. Do you believe that a 120 mph, 700lb single outboard boat is NOT a performance boat?

Just because a boat does not fall under the "offshore" boat banner, does not mean it is not a performance boat.
I've done poker runs, races and boat show ALL over the country. I'm aware of the amount of "performance" boats that exist all over the rivers and lakes of America. What I don't agree with is that these qualify as influential. Yes, certain design elements have been huge advancements in performance.

The bottom line is that the offshore category is the "superbowl" of the sport. Just as NASCAR is to the guys driving enduro cars around the small town tracks every sat night in every small town across America. Thats the top of the food chain.