Members of the Florida Powerboat Club set course for the Southernmost city.
T
he Florida Powerboat Club recently marked the traversing the continent to come to Florida to do this event. We also host some of the best people in the nation. People 25th anniversary of our annual Key West Poker Run.
Somewhere around 2002—before the event was even 10 years old—we were up to 150 boats, and it’s never let up. But what’s even more significant than the number of registrations is the fact that this is a 400-mile poker run, the longest course of any poker run. Most of the boats will start in Ft. Lauderdale or Miami and run 170+ miles. Then they’ll do some running around while they’re there. Then they’ll go back. By the time it’s all said and done, we will have clocked over 400 miles on this poker run. Multiply that by the number of boats that attend every year, and the numbers become pretty staggering in terms of how much participation we’ve had. Every year, at least 25% to 35% of participation are newcomers. That’s simply because it’s what I like to call a “bucket list” poker run. Regardless of how far people have to travel, this event is on their list. They trailer in from as far away as California or Washington or even Canada—people are literally
54
S P E E D B O A T | March 2018
85973_SpeedBoatMar18 _054-57.indd 54
like Mark Fisher (who is one of our sponsors), owns Deep Impact Boats. Naturally, he’s here to represent his brand. But long, long before he owned—or thought he would own—boat companies, he was an avid participant doing the run in 2000. He’s never missed it since the year 2000. We had a winner of a fantastic prize this year. The prize was donated, as it is every year, by a company called OffLease Only. For 10 years in a row they’ve donated or given us a vehicle; typically it’s a Mustang convertible. If you don’t want the Mustang, you can take a voucher that’s worth $20,000. This year, Hal and Missy Johnson of Michigan, who attended in their 39 Nor-Tech center console, won the grand prize with the best poker hand. They won a silver metallic Mustang—representative of 25th anniversary of the event. Stu Jones is president of the Florida Powerboat Club. speedboat.com
2/5/18 9:20 PM