A few phrase keep getting thrown around here. Things like lane, course, pack, spectators. All of that tells me one thing. This was a race. Pure and simple.

Oh, and whoever said this is open water with plenty of room. What are you smoking? You have obviously never raced. This was a tightly packed group on a very much enclosed race course. This is about as dangerous as it gets. I tell you that from experience.

For those that have raced in Key West, please tell me that this looks any different than the extremely narrow chute at the start.

Great question.

I ride within the limits of my environment. That pic was taken during a closed-course race, so yes, I was letting it all hang out.
When I'm riding in a non-race environment, I tone it down to avoid unnecessary risk for myself and especially for others.

+100

I'll answer that question for you. I was personally told by a buddy that was in the poker run that at the driver's meeting all poker run participants were to stay to the right of the lake centerline. In that case, it looks like a lot of drivers broke the rules before the accident even happened. Had they been following the rules, there would never of been the need to worry about avoiding on-coming boat traffic. It's been said on RDP that staying to the right of centerline is a normal rule at Havasu for boat traffic going down the lake also.

Oh and for all the people saying experience was a factor, didn't John Tomlinson run this exact same boat that flipped through a group of spectators at speed a few years ago on this same poker run?

We went by shortly after it happened and no helicopters tried to help due to not being set up for rescue just pictures and there was rescue boats there and I was told later that they were there fast was also told that they were ok just banged up. Someone said they got pinched in the turn and had to cross the wake and got air under them and that is what it looks like in the video.All of this came from just talk at the card turn in so we know how accurate that can be. That section was rough and it seemed like we were not spread out like other years and we were all running together and it was a washing machine out there just nasty water, I don't think we were bunched up for any other reason than we just stayed together to the first card stop. I have no idea what the skill level was and have no opinion due to that but we just don't need any more of these accidents at poker runs. This year we did not run as hard and gave way when other boats came thru and had just as much fun as any other year but I will admit that my first poker runs were looked at as a chance to race boats without being a racer and that is not the right way to look at them,we are not racers and we are not in raceboats.

Why don't you guys just nail it off the line. Looks like you are all sitting around waiting to see who has the balls to hold it wide open. You should do a Lemans start. This kind of rolling start makes it too bunched up. A Lemans start would let the pack thin out by the time you all get to speed. The the first boat or 2 could dictate the path if travel..

Better yet, have them swim out to the boats at the start.

The reality is we all know why this happened in black and white, Everyone can keep adding color to it, he got pinched, he cut across a wake. the gravitational pull of a mars jupitor saturn alignment overcame the frictional coefficiant of the hydrodynamic environment.... But the simple fact is we (myself included) are type A people. We take no prisoners. As long as ego emotion and horsepower overcome commonsense, selfcontrol and skill there will be another poker run wipeout and corresponding 40 page speculation thread and another and another.

I agree this will happen again. I think these events are a ton of fun but these accidents are part of what can happen. Not much to prevent them other then not having the events or taking the boats speed and enforcing a 70% speed limit. Puts a 60mph or 160mph boat in a safer envelope.

-Fast Boats
-Type A people
-Congested boating