At the boat races we encourage families to come and experience the events. Yes there is always parties and drinking going on somewhere but its not mandatory to participate with your kids. My kids (16 and 18 now) have been exposed to the events and boating and I personally feel they are years ahead mature wise then many of there friends back home. They can see way worse on facebook and you tube and you wouldn't know it. If you haven't been to a race lately you would be blown away by how many motor homes there are with families in the pits. I love seeing all the younger kid/young adults hanging out and working with the teams. Its all good clean all American good o'l days of growing up like when we were younger. IMO

Face it dude, your kids are more mature than you are........

Our Son is about to turn 16 and has been doing mostley local poker runs with us for years now and he is a very mature young man and loves all things boating especially high performance boating as much as you me and the next guy. He has been to Tickfaw with us the last 4 years now and looks forward to that trip every year with us!

We figured getting him hooked into a sport like this (which he fully is), he wont have money for other teenage crap like getting into drugs, etc.
He has driven every boat we have owned from our cruiser, warlock cat to our last 353 fastec and all our friends truck him with their boats as well and has pretty much driven all theres which consist of things like a 47' Benetti to a new 399 Deep impact with quad 400's (which he probably has close to 50 hrs of seat time in already), 35 Donzi ZR, etc! Needless to say he is hooked and is an awsome responsible driver which as a parent is awsome!

Now when we got the invite as a family (son included) to do the key west poker run for the first time this year and knowing what the nightlife is like, the wife and I had some discussions on whether to take him or not. All our friends that went live and think the world of our son and Ultimatley we decided to take him. and honestly, I am so glad he got to expierience this run with us, have no regrets and would do it again! We made awsome memories that we will all take to the graves!

Yes there are times where he was bored or say the body painting thing was a bit inappropriate for him so when that instance came around the one night and all the people we were with wanted to watch, he and i took a walk around the docks and checked out all the cool hardware that was there. We had some awsome father son bonding time looking at all the boats, etc.
Couple of the people we went with arent real big party peeps so when we wanted to go out for a night on the town and they wanted to go back to the house, they snagged him and took him back so we could have a night of fun, etc.

The way I look at it is if the people you are boating with dont mind that a mature 15-16 year old is with then its up to the parents to do their job and parent as needed when doing trips like this!

In all reality, he didnt see anything during the key west poker run that he hasnt seen on our local lake on any normal holiday weekend at times either. Or probably online for that matter!

So with this all being said, I dont think the poker run promoters necesarily need to put an age limit on it but parents need to do their job! I personally dont think we would have taken him to KW if he was say 7-11 or 12 but as kids get to be teenagers, driving and mature like our son is, thats a little different in my mind.

Plus, isnt the goal to keep promoting this sport and get the younger next generation into it so it keeps going after we are long gone?
Just my .02 for what its worth.

races are kid friendly IMO and are put on with the city they are in to assure that.

A bit different of a environment then a lot of the poker runs (not all).

I think the article was geared more towards the pre and or after parties. As long as you’re not treating it like a race it’s great to see kids at/during the actual run. Boating is our families number one hobby, but there’s some get togethers they’re staying home.

Dumbest thread ever! Need proof? Lucky Strike, Jr and LS3...........those "kids" were shooting the bikini contests at Shooters and posting the pics!

Need more proof? Dan K is running Outerlimits Powerboats right now and he has been around powerboats/poker runs for decades.

I wrote out a big paragraph about growing up as a family doing poker runs with Mom & Dad, went to look for the LS3 Shooters pics and lost what I wrote, so here it is in a nutshell.

Our family started doing poker runs in 2005, I was 17ish and my brother is 6 years younger. That was the best couple years IMO for us bonding as a family. We even did KW then too. It’s a great time for parents and kids to spend time together I believe (10-16 year olds) if they like boats. As we’ve gotten older we probably don’t spend as much family time as we did then. Mom did every poker run with us too....that’s her in the backseat next to me in the the last photo.

We would never have even thought about damaging someone’s property, but Mom & Dad brought us up right. That’s strictly a parenting issue IMO, but I’m not a parent either.

As far as young kids seeing anything at poker runs they shouldn’t....we grew up at Shooter’s on Sundays....they had things going on way worse there then anything I’ve ever seen at a poker run, guess we were just lucky to be exposed to that stuff at such a young age 😁

damn I miss those floating reporter / shooters (bikini) pics.

Seeing how I was 16 when I put the blower on the old outlaw, I’d be pissed if I couldn’t attend an event. I get what they are after, “drinking, night life”. But the day time boating is what the event is focused on.
correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there a recent thread about power boating dying off In younger generations?

I don’t like the things I do because my father exposed them to me after I was 18 years old....

All that proper grooming for LS3...
...and he goes out and buys a damn fishing boat!!!! SMH!!