With the recent cancelation of the Toronto Grand Prix and Havasu Offshore races, the American Power Boat Association has made the New Orleans Grand Prix offshore event a national-points affair. The news officially was announced to APBA members via an email this afternoon from the Florida-based sanctioning body.
Though the number of races/drop-races desired by each class varied from seven to eight events with one to two drop-races, all classes agreed through their Offshore Racing Commission representatives that the APBA National Championship Series should be decided by no less than six races, according to the email.
The result was an eight-race/two-drop format for the series, with Toronto among the races included.
The sequence of events that led to today’s news actually began following the annual January APBA meeting in Reno, Nev., when the new Louisiana and Arizona-based Havasu Offshore events were announced as regional points contests. When both the Toronto and Havasu happenings tapped out this month—organizers of both races plan to launch them next year—New Orleans was selected as the national-points-event replacement…