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Traction Products, Inc.
Weismann Marine, LLC.
June 17, 2007
Tony Marcantonio and Mark Kowalski piloted their 388 Skater to the front of pack and never looked back - beating the reigning UIM World Champion Steve Curtis decisively. Taking the checkered for the first time in the new series, Tony and Mark showed the competition which drives they should be running - Weismann's !
The J.D.Byrider team was racing the OSS series before switching to the new Offshore Pro Series. The reason why they changed series is because after finishing second in the first race of the 2007 OSS World Championships in Destin, Fl, they were disqualified for the boat being 3" inches too short! The rule that used to exist before that race was basically 'the boat has to be 38 - 40 feet long'.
So consider this - J.D.Byrider had passed tech for the Worlds and also in the previous 5 races! And the Super Cat teams all agreed to allow the boat to race with our drives!
So why did the boat really get disqualified??
Because this boat was the only one running our drives and because the J.D.Byrider had a good chance to win the championship. Clearly that didn't go down well for our competition again! So the rule was overwritten onernight by the cheating powers-at-be and we lost the World Championship and the coveted US-1.
The last season we were legal to race in cats and the last championship we won in Super Cat was the 2000 APBA championship. That winning boat was the DON Q skater with our Weismann DrySump #6 drives.
After we were banned, the Serralles family quit Offshore racing. And ironically - the boat with the drives were sold to the J.D.Byrider team!
These are the very same two drives that we originally drysumped in 1993 - and they are 14 years old!
During the Worlds, an announcement was made for the next season, all the OSS Super Cats would have to run spec 850 engines and drives- made by the same manufacturer no less. Well most of the teams said "to hell with that"- and OPS was then formed! This new series is an Open Series where you can run whatever you want - it is designed to allow the racers to race for fun- and it is succeeding in a sport where there exists three other sanctioning bodies - OSS, SBI and OPA. The racers have become so fed up, they are all switching to the new series!
This problem we have been facing is nothing new. This has been going on since the end of 1996. Our major competition promotes that - " They are first on the water" - well, that can only be true when they eliminate us from the race.
For more details check out this press release from last year - 10 years later, OSS bans Weismann #6 Drysumps!
