M.A.C.H. Series
Mid American Championship Hydroplane

On a cold November night in 1983, the Commodores and a few officials of the four conducting clubs around A.P.B.A. Region 6 met in secrecy in Cincinnati. A tough economy, rising fuel prices, inconsistent race sanctions, low boat counts and polarized regional clubs were pointing to one fact - Region 6 Inboards were in trouble.

Ray Dong - Marine Prop Riders; Tom Swindling & Bill Morrison - Northern Kentucky Boat Club; Pat Powell - Ohio Valley Motor Boat Association; Phil Kunz & Dave Bernard - Dayton Motor Boat Racing Association met to discuss the future. The first consensus and agreement was that the A.P.B.A. had a good structure and 40 years of inboard success, so there was "no need to reinvent the wheel". What they needed - was to find creative and innovative ways to conduct inboard boat races with an eye toward's the future to survive. The goal was to increase race team compensation, create an incentive-based point system for race teams to appear, protect limited class racing with consistent class lineups and assure race sites a strong boat count and quality fields.

They were looking at ways to devise a partnership between racers and race promoters.

What emerged that cold November evening was the M.A.C.H. Series (Mid American Championship Hydroplane). A new innovative point system was proposed by Phil Kunz that he saw being used for sprint car racing for performance points. But Phil felt additional points should also be added for participation. The combination proved to be a key element for it's success.

A refined class lineup system was also implemented to get more boats racing at one time and compressing the race program. The new system created incentives for race teams to appear by including some flexability and control for the boat racers when it came time for them to decide which races they wanted to attend.

Since inception, the new M.A.C.H. Series point format has been tested with only a few minor tweaks over the last 28 years. History shows, "imitation is the greatest form of flattery" and several of A.P.B.A.'s racing series have used a similar point system modeled after the M.A.C.H. series.

The M.A.C.H. Series was a genuine attempt to unite a splintered Region 6. The start of the 1984 racing season brought fresh optimism to the sport in Region 6. The success of the M.A.C.H. Series can be debated, however, one fact remains -- the M.A.C.H. Series is the longest running, continuous series in the A.P.B.A.

It is worth mentioning that long-time, former racer, Dave Sutton has been working behind the scenes in the record keeping of the M.A.C.H. Series since the mid 1990s by maintaining and record keeping all of the points accumulated by all the racers entered in the M.A.C.H. Series.

Many hours were exhausted to bring you almost 30 years worth of racing results. High Point listings are by year. One can simply jump to a time period below that they are interested in viewing -- or start in 1984 and check out all the years!
At the bottom of each page, you can click on the "continue on to next year" link to journey through the years.

1984 - 1989
1990 - 1994
1995 - 1999
2000 - 2004
2005 - 2011

Remember - If you would like to search by boat name or person, click here to search for any word used to build the database for Phil Kunz Photography or The Vintage Hydroplanes websites.

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