From IJSBA site:
http://www.ijsba.com/2014/01/31/ijsb...gs-cup-recaps/
IJSBA 2014 Opener Update With 2013 Hot Products World Finals Recap
January 31, 2014
Greetings from Half Moon Bay, California. It is near the end of January and we are kick starting off the 2014 PWC Racing season. Each year, the growth of duties in IJSBA has pushed back the recovery from World Finals. We had some additional obstacles this past couple of months, but, we are now on track to bring you an exciting new year that will offer the very best in personal watercraft competitions. Not that it will be easy to beat the 2013 World Finals, it had some definite highlights for the sport. There is a whole lot to talk about, as usual, so let’s not waste valuable reading time with introductory paragraphs. Please share the following news and information with your colleagues in the PWC Racing Family.
1. Happy Lunar New Year
horse
Our friends at Jettribe have sent us a greeting that reminds us that January 31st is the Lunar New Year. Known as Tet in Jettribe’s Vietnam office, and more commonly celebrated as Chinese New Year near the IJSBA headquarters, the lunar calendar starts the new year on the 31st of January. Frequently, the start of the year update is issued while making mention to the Winter Solstice as this turns from the shortest day of the year towards our longest day- which means more hours that we can ride and race personal watercraft. The Nations of Southeast Asia have been entering the sport in high droves. For this reason, we will are likely to be acknowledging more events in these areas( 2014 Asia Beach Games) and joining in the celebrations of tour competitor family as the International part of IJSBA further grows. Whether the New Year begins on January 1, or January 31, we have an entire new year of series racing from Europe, USA, Thailand, Australia, South America, and other places throughout the globe. With new faces, new products, and new ideas we all look forward to what 2014 will bring.
2. IJSBA Is Open Full Time For Business
The IJSBA phone has started ringing more frequently- another sign of the season starting- and we have been filling out more paperwork. This year, a lot of the staff caught a pretty nasty flu bug, at the 2013 Hot Products World Finals, that set a lot of us back quite a bit. The recovery from World Finals gets longer and longer each year as the event grows. The brutal windstorms exacerbated this situation and took some people out of solid commission before the event even ended, Blake Corning was one of those victims. I care deeply about all of the IJSBA staff, and their wellbeing, and have been trying to talk Blake into quitting smoking (some of you may remember my 2013 venting about him burning a hole in the seat of my Jeep). During a pre-event phone call, Blake got to laughing about something and sounded like the cartoon character, Mutley, which made me get on his case even more about his nasty habit. As it turned out, Blake had picked up walking pneumonia and needed as hospital visit during the later portion of the competition and came back and finished the event before he had healed completely.
The point of telling you this is to remind all of you that people are working hard on your behalf and the stresses of the sport hit the staff. We want you to know that we are on your side and, after periods of recuperation we are ready to give you 110% for another year. So, after a couple of furlough periods (which also helps the checking account while we are still licking our wounds from the World Finals expenses), we are here 9-5 Tuedsdays, Wedsnesdays, and Thursdays. We are usually open Monday even though we are don’t advertise it. There aren’t too many Saturdays or Sundays where we don’t return emails. Already, we have been processing permits, schedules, memberships, and other logistic supports for the 2014 season.
3. REMINDER THAT BACK PROTECTION IS NOW MANDATORY IN ALL SKI CLASSES
SKI division competitors, please take note that additional back protection is mandatory for all IJSBA Sanctioned Racing throughout the world as of January 1, 2014. So, if you didn’t have a back protection device on your Christmas list, you need to go out and get one before you get to the line. Please see the IJSBA Competition Rule Book to ensure your new back protection device is compliant with the requirements for body coverage. See IJSBA Rule 17.3.4.
4. 2014 Rule Book Change Period Has Closed New Rule Drafts To Be Posted February 5.
So, lets start this section off by saying thank you to those of you who voted and commented on the suggestions. Also, a big thank you goes out to those of you who sent in suggestions during the period where we accepted them. With that said, it was kind of a bummer to go through the same experience, again, of having to go through some of the hassles of debating rule suggestions after the voting period had ended and the results were posted. The time for these suggestions, and for debates about the rules, is during the period when it is open, not afterwards. We want to provide the new rules to you quickly, and the delays of having some of the post voting discussions prevents us from making that delivery. Once again, we ask that those of you who have a particular agenda for change be prepared in November when this process will begin, again. While we are shaking our finger at some of you, we also want cast a frown on some of you who didn’t return your votes. We received a sufficient quantity of votes where the outstanding ballots would not have changed the results of any items, but it is nice to have the opinion of everyone on the voting panel.
This year, we received a pretty small list of suggestions. We saw this as a good thing as it provides for a more stable and predictable environment for the near future of competition. Radical rule changes from year-to-year is not ideal for retaining competitors. Equipment will continue to change and evolve over the course of time and trying to reengineer the equipment that exists now may cause the rule book to become a complicated set of “if-then” modifications which have people making too many changes between seasons. The 2014 rule changes made good progress on good sense upgrades to prevent engine destruction without opening the floodgates of requiring a set of new parts to stay competitive to the first buoy. We set a cap on vintage racing displacement but kept handling assistance. This was a good move because it keeps vintage ski costs down without sacrificing the riding enjoyment of the watercraft. Also, we opened up more opportunities for four stroke engines in Ski GP classes without increasing the horsepower yield. Nice work to everyone involved.
Also, we would like to bring to your attention that a transcription error was made in the original posting of the rule change results. Item 15, increasing the normally aspirated four stroke displacement in Ski GP to 1640 CC, passed. When put in a spreadsheet form, item 15 had skipped a line to where the spreadsheet numbering no longer matched the item number. I copied the line numbers into the original posting. I apologize for any inconveniences caused by the information being incorrect for a couple of days.
5. IJSBA Apologizes To Vintage Ski and Vintage X2 Competitors For Mistakes During The 2013 World Finals Awards Ceremony
While I am apologizing for some mistakes, I want to make sure the community knows that we regret the errors that occurred in the Vintage Ski and Vintage X2 classes at the 2013 Hot Products World Finals awards ceremony. Up to now, the Vintage Classes have been run as a low cost class which was made possible by providing number plates only for the top ten participants. Because there were no trophies in front of the number plates, and administrative error resulted where some of the number plates were given out as surplus plates to persons who claimed one. When Vintage awards were announced some number plates were missing and could not be provided to the participants.
IJSBA apologizes deeply for this mistake. We have ordered replacement plates for the participants who did not receive their numbered award. Additionally, we will be offering a cash credit towards these classes, to the top ten finishers who did not get their plates, for the 2014 World Finals. Finally, we will engage in a publicity campaign for these riders so they get the exposure that they were entitled to at the awards ceremony. If anyone in these classes has not received their replacement number plate by now, please contact us because our records show this has now been resolved.
Vintage Ski and Vintage X2 will return as World Finals Classes for the 2014 World Finals. In 2014, the classes will be priced at the Novice/Junior level and will come with the corresponding trophy package. We will prevent this mistake from happening again. Again, we are very sorry to those who had their World Finals experience impacted because of our error.
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