Adrenaline Junkie

Thanks Bob. I am planning on being at the LG run again this year.

Once Chuck starts his insane poker run every weekend schedule again this summer - his wife will start sweating him again and he'll have the "Orange Crush" sold before the LG run...I don't have any inside info or anything .... just speculation

And with the canopy - I'll be ready for the rain...

sissy

Hey nice ride Adrenaline Junkie. We would love to have you come to this years Swamp Run on Oneida Aug 2nd. I know Chuck will be back this year.

thisistank

Your boat looked awesome on the water! Great lines and the colors work well with it! My wife said it was the nicest Eliminator she's ever seen!

And yea, the water on the north side of the lake was BIG on Saturday afternoon. We secured everything in the boat and took advantage of it! White caps, 4-5 foot chop. We ran past Windsor ramp, GETTIN' IT! The Cig loved it!

Adrenaline Junkie

OK - warning this is probably going to be a long post. I am on my way home from Havasu, and am currently stuck in Chicago O’Hare airport - so for those of you with ADD or don't care about one man's experience at Desert Storm 2008 - bail now – hit your Back Button.

I met some people that I have interacted with on these forums and caught some abuse about being verbose and having too much time on my hands. Yes, I used to own a publishing company, and recently sold my computer company so a bit of both are true.

1. First - for anyone that has any passion at all about Performance boating this is a must attend event:
a. I have never seen more performance boats in one place in my life. There must have been thousands of them out on Friday and Saturday. Even the little deck boats there have loud big blocks running in them and would violate most of the noise ordinances we have in the northeast.
b. The lake itself is beautiful. Dramatic mountains and canyons - steep shores enabling you to beach your boat and save your drive all over the place - really cool.
c. Lots of industry icons attending. Guys like Tres Martin, Bob Teague, etc...all there - cool to see and wrap with guys that have been around the block.
d. Naked Turtle - ok any boater will love this bar. Has an open air tiki hut type bar along with an inside restaurant....complete with a sandy beach. You can actually just pull your boat up onto the beach and depending upon how long your boat is still have 4' of water under your drives... Really convenient - and being able to hang with other water nuts, drinking boat drinks and seeing all the cool hardware pull up while also being able to do beach activities like volleyball, etc.. - would love to have something like this in upstate NY.
e. The phenomenon called "The Channel" is impossible to describe. Picture a windy river channel that is about 1 mile long, 50 yards wide and has sandy shores all along it that people can pull their boats up onto. At various places along the channel there are parks, restaurants, hotels, stores, town homes, the London Bridge spans one section and you can actually walk into town from portions of it. It is one of the best people watching environments I have ever seen. You can pull your boat up there, and be parked next to a menagerie of different boaters. Some sections have young families with their kids jumping in the water having a great time, while other sections have young Southern Cal hotties dancing on the backs of their boats with their girlfriends wearing nothing but a thong, pasties and a smile. And if that isn't entertaining enough, it's almost a ritual whereby people that aren't parked in the channel, cruise through the channel to either be seen, or look for friends of theirs. So you can just hang there for an hour so and see hundreds of different boats and hundreds of different people float by you. Pretty interesting.

2. A few observations that we made that might be helpful for people coming from the northeast that may be used to a different style of boating:
a. Be prepared to handle a density of boats that you've never seen before. Picture thousands of boats, most crammed into a 25 square mile area (around the island where the Naked Turtle is, and the channel, Thompsons bay, etc...). I have never experienced this kind of density of boaters in my life. The challenge is those boaters range from seasoned trained performance boaters that have run the pro circuit or are still running the curcuit to Johnny never boated that is renting a pontoon boat for the first time and since it's made out of steel he feels like he is in a tank and both he and the pontoon boat are indestructible. I personally was almost hit 3 times by renegade pontoon boats - once while docked at the London Bridge and 2 other times in the channel from guys not quite sure hot to maneuver through tight environments (no, none of these times were my fault..). As the owner of a new boat in new waters, this provided for some stressful moments for me.
b. The culture there seems to revolve around most people trailering their boats in for the day or the weekend. This causes for some challenges. Most of the people we met were from Southern Cal (great people by the way) that come in several weekends a year - and either keep their boat in storage in havasu and put in when they arrive, or trailer it in with them each weekend they come. The challenge is, there is very little rigor around dock space and dock assignments. This caused for some drama. Even though most of the Desert Storm Poker Run events and action centered around the Nautical and the Naked Turtle, we opted to stay at the London Bridge to have a reserved slip. We didn't want to travel all that way and without a rig to haul out (I had Eliminator ship me my new boat to Havasu), we did not want to have come in for the evening without a place to keep the boat. Well the London Bridge doesn't assign slips, they assign the right to any slip you get into first come first serve. This took a little getting used to and caused some un- necessary stress at the end of the day. What we were used to is a dockmaster that looks at the size of boats that will be there for the night and applies a little science to assigning slips to boats based on their size and the size of boats coming in. Here it was anarchy - where the boat drivers who arrive first decide what slip they want to be in. You might have a rental pontoon boat taking an end slip and force a 30+ foot 10 foot beam boat to an inside slip that only has a 12' finger and 10' of width....or you might see 2 36' boats facing each other on the outside slip allowing only about 6'-8' between their noses for other boats to sneak into the inside slips - caused for some pain. Saw 2 melt downs while I was there - unfortunate and easily avoidable - on the weekend they had a couple of guys out there trying to direct traffic which eased it a bit, but they were dong it as people came in as opposed to having assigned slips which would have avoided all those kinds of issues. People who hadn’t gotten to the Nautical prior to Wed afternoon and staked out their beach claim with a Sun Tent and chairs in front of where their boat was going to be were probably out of luck.
c. The women are hot! Where we come from most of the women can hide in warm clothes for 9 mos of they year. It was very apparent to us that most of these women were used to wearing little and did their best to make sure they looked good on display. Ranging from college age party animals, to MILFS that ventured down for a girls weekend - both of which were great to look at and fun to party with.

Adrenaline Junkie

OK – now on with the re-cap
1. Arrived on Sunday 4.21 with my wife and kids to the London Bridge. Chris Hamlin from Prestige Marine had been doing work on my boat the week prior on behalf of Eliminator to fix the few things that needed attention when I took delivery the week prior – he had put the boat in for me and had it waiting at the docks for me and the family at the London Bridge. Chris spent 18 years working for Mercedes Benz and took the bend over backwards customer service focus from Benz to the water. He’s not a dealership and just focuses on boat service and is authorized by all the big players, Merc, Ilmor, Imco, Livorsi, etc…for repair
2. Brought the kids down to the boat – they were seeing it for the first time – and really liked it. Out of the 6 boats I’ve had this one is her favorite….It better be!!
3. Took a 90 mph cruise down to the dam – showed them Steamboat Cove and Copper Canyon – my 10 year old son wanted to jump of the Copper cliffs immediately – mom wasn’t too psyched about that so we pushed on.
4. Went over to the Naked Turtle parked right up front – Sun-Tues was very quiet on the lake (the calm before the storm). Wife loved it for 3 primary reasons:
a. She didn’t have to lift a finger to dock – we just beached right there.
b. Great atmosphere, boat drinks, food, Jimmy Buffet music…etc…how could you not love it.
c. Kids had a ball running around the sand beach playing football, etc..
5. Headed back to the London Bridge, kids swam in one of the 3 pools had more fun.
6. Rooms at London Bridge were set up quite well for us. They have their own kitchen, etc…Was expensive, my hotel/dock bill for the week was $2,100 – ouch! But was probably the right choice for how we used it….needing kitchen, needing a dock, wanting a pool for the kids, etc…
7. Monday we spent the day at Steamboat Cove. Kids had a ball swimming, and playing with the Chiuaua (“yo quierro taco bell”) that one of the other boaters had brought with them to the cove. Finished the day at the Naked Turtle again.
8. Tuesday, after a big breakfast at the Metro (right next to the London Bridge on the water) we went over to the water jungle next to the Naked Turtle. There is a little roped off adventure land in the water for kids big and small (I had a ball in there too). It had big slides, trampolines, climbing walls that were 25’ high – all in the water to provide for some fun. It was $5 per half hour and worth it. Then we ended up back at the Turtle where mom and dad enjoyed boat drinks a little food and the kids had some virgin daiquiris.
9. Wednesday, I started Tres Martins Performance Boating class. For those of you that haven’t taken and are running a boat that does 70mph or greater, I’d strongly recommend it. It was well worth the money and the time. I learned some extremely valuable stuff even after being a boater for 16 years. Primary topics include:
a. Safety preparations
b. The Science of the hull (both cat and Vee) which set the stage for the rest of the day – put some context around what you were going to learn.
c. How your boat communicates with you based on it’s behavior and what you learned about the hull design.
d. How to properly trim, tab, turn, accelerate, etc….this was the part that was most valuable to me…

We then had to take a written test at the end of the first day – only 30 or so questions – all but one of which were multiple choice – I aced the test…  Ended up being a full day – didn’t wrap up until about 5pm. Went back to the London Bridge swam with the kids, then went down to the channel where my 10 yr old sun had a ball feeding the pigeons from his hands. At one time he had about 20 perched on his body as he fed them…
10. Thursday morning got up at 5am with the family as they were taking a shuttle to Vegas to play there for two days (they had never been) since I was going to be tied up with the poker run stuff the rest of the weekend. 11am called Tres to see if he was ready for my in-water test on my boat. He hadn’t eaten so I joined he and his instructing partner Brad for lunch. Both are great guys. Ran into Brad on several occasions at some of the local watering holes…Tres and I got into my boat (he was driving) and headed south to Havasu springs. He wanted to learn how the boat handled. He took me through about 30 mins of him doing maneuvers with him driving and pointing out specific things that he had taught in the class. Then we switched places and had me do them. High performance turning, trimming, tabbing, into the wind, down wind, obstacle avoidance, etc….he had me run through them. After about 20 mins I had satisfied him with me being able to successfully handle these maneuvers. By now we had ventured all the way back up to Havasu City and were west of the island, so I turned around and we began to head back. I was cruising about 50 mph since there was quite a bit of traffic in the area when all of sudden we hear a noise and a pretty solid vibration could be felt. Within 3 secs Tres had already reached over and backed us off the throttles (even though I was driving) – and said, I think you just threw a blade. So I raised my drives and sure enough ¾’s of one of my 5 blade labbed maximus 34’s was snapped off. Tres asked me what kind of props I was running – I told him, he took out his cell phone and called Jeff from Mercury Marine (who had their truck on site) and any labbed 34 5 blades on the truck- he said they did and so Tres and I pulled into the Nautical, jumped in Tres’ car, and high tailed it over to the Island hotel which was about 2 miles away from the Nautical, because I had temporarily parked my boat in someone else’s spot on the beach and wanted to get in and out of there before the drama started. Tres had them put the props (I bought 2 – wanted the matched pair to avoid issues) on his account and is billing me. I noticed they were 15 5/8 diameter, I asked the Merc guy if they were the right diameters for my boat and he said yes, the should work fine…We borrowed Mercs prop wrench, a block of wood and then Tres and I went back to the boat and changed the props- said our goodbyes and was back on the water within 30 mins of beaching it.
11. Got a call from my buddies – they had just arrived, and were waiting at the London Bridge. I told them that I would be right there but I wanted to test these new props for vibrations, etc… So went for a quick run. No vibrations, but noticed that while running down wind, it took a bit longer to accelerate up cruised down to Copper Canyon got up to about 80mph – then headed up back towards the channel, up wind and spun her up to about 108mph (I had done 116mph with the other props just a couple of days prior in Havasu, and 122.9mph with the other props in CA. But figured I just hadn’t had time to trim it and tab it appropriately.
12. Noticed I was down to about an eighth of a tank of gas. Went into the channel, picked up my buddies at the London Bridge and headed over to Havasu Marina for gas. It was 4pm PDT and they were closed!!! Brad was there also with a student he was taking through their water test and was also shocked that the gas docks were closed at such an early hour on the eve of their lakes major poker run. This was a bummer – the drivers meeting is the next morning at 8.30am, and the parade through the channel starts at 10:15am, so I figured my only shot was to get up early, get in line at the gas docks around 7.30am (since they open at 8am), tie up at the havasu marina, have my buddies fill up the boat (neither of them are capable of driving the boat) while I run from the marina over to the nautical (about a mile run), listen to the drivers meeting, then run back to the boat and shove it off of the gas docks before was get in the way of others needing to gas up. Lesson learned – if you’re not trailering your boat and hauling out each day, be sure to fill up between the hours of 8am and 3.30pm at the Havasu marina.

Adrenaline Junkie

13. By now the Nautical cove was really impressive. Outerlimits, Skaters, Nortecs, etc.. lined the beach and the sounds were unbelievable as people were firing up their motors, etc…really impressive. Those coming to Havasu, could consider the Nautical if it is not a holiday or event weekend – pretty cool being able to beach your boat right behind your room and walk over to the Naked Turtle – however, if you’re coming in for Desert Storm or some other big event weekend, and you’re not able to get in several days before the event and reserve your beach spot with a sun tent, and a sand spike (by the way I purchased my sand spike at West Marine right in Havasu, and it is a must if you’re going to Havasu)- you’re better off going to London Bridge or reserving one of those condos on the channel w/beach space.
14. Tied up my boat at the London Bridge then went to the downtown street party. This was pretty cool. They blocked off about a mile of one of their main streets where about 30 boats were on display. Some gorgeous big time hardware on display. Many that you see all over the trade rags. Team CRC, Bud Light, etc…I think my favorite graphics were “The Mamba” It was a cool green and black set up that was really wild. It was a Vee, and if I remember correctly it was a Laveycraft, if I am wrong, I am sure someone will correct me.
15. Headed into Kokomos – which is an outdoor dance club at the London Bridge. Wholly moly – smokin’ hotties getting crazy on the dance floor. Grinding each other dancing in the cages surrounding the floor, etc. “HELLO!!!”
16. Executed the gas up plan – got up early and were at the gas docks by 8am and ran over to the drivers meeting while my buddies filled up the boat. Got 2 calls from my buddies during the drivers meeting because even though the gas docks weren’t crowded yet, the owner was wondering when we were going to shove off – understandably so – but I got back to the boat well before any of the heavy gas dock traffic started – thankfully one of the guys I took the Tres class with (Chip from Southern Cal – keeps his boat on Havasu – cool looking orange DCB with whackers on the back) was at the drivers meeting with his Rhino and he ran me over to the marina. We shoved off and just floated out in Thomsons bay for about 45 mins as all the boats began to fill Thomsons bay. Spectators and participants filled the bay. It was enormous. You couldn’t travel 30 feet without bumping into another high performance boat. I believe 260 boats was the final number of entrants – I actually saw them turn away a guy that tried to register the day of the event because they were full. Probably a good idea.
17. They group us into 12 classes by speed. I was put into Group B – boats running 110-140 mph ‘ish. Group A had the big dawgs (20 boats per class). The rumour was that Team CRC (in Group A) was planning on breaking the 200 mph mark – I had heard he only made it to 198 mph – wholly crap.
18. By group we proceed through the channel. There is not an inch of space on the channel. There were hundreds of boats all lined up along the channel waiting to see us parade through the channel. We proceed at a slow pace for about 20 mins through the channel. Once we get to the other side, they are going to start each class separately. The 2 fast classes (A &B) will head south about 30 miles to Havasu springs for the first card stop, while everyone else will head North.
19. Group A starts first they roar up on to plane and have to follow the pace about 5 miles south to Copper Canyon.
20. About 5 mins later, our group starts. The pace boat starts waving a yellow flag. We all jump onto plane. Bob Marley is playing on our stereo….but we can still hear all the roar of my group. We proceed side by side (20 of us) behind the pace boat cruising at about 50 mph. Bob Teague is the driver of our pace boat – the speed gradually picks up to about 80 mph as we pass Thomsons Bay. Once we get near Copper Canyon the flag drops and so do the hammers. Everyone is jockeying for position. Adrenaline is pumping big time because there is a lot of action in a narrow space. As I begin to make my move towards the front, there is a 33’ Elim w/900’s in it off of my starboard bow, and I am watching him as try to take him over. I notice as I am coming up on him he has a full boat and never makes eye contact with me – so I am not sure he sees me – sure enough I get within about 30’ of taking him over, and begins to veer right into me – I back off the throttles and look to my port side to make sure it’s clear and veer off there. I decide to back off – stay near the rear and let things settle down. I am traveling about 95 mph now but the bulk of the crew is well over 100 mph. Once we get past the narrow part of the lake, I get on it and run in the low 100’s and over take a few boats. The video helicopter finds me and hovers all around me for about 5 mins shooting me from left side, front, back, right, again and again – it was crazy….can’t wait to see that video.

Adrenaline Junkie

21. We get the first card and the rest of the starts are on your own, so you kind of miss that race feeling. For permit reasons they couldn’t do restarts…it was definitely safer, but the start after every stop is a more adrenaline inducing format…but understand why they did it – especially after I almost got bumped.
22. We then head all the way North up near the mouth of the Colorado river where we get our next card, then line up for the photo shoot. They have a starter in a pontoon boat that tells each drive when to start off and travel about 50 mph. The chopper then circles around and shoots us for about 3 mins.
23. We proceed into Thomsons Bay to get the next card – and by this time we lost most of our Group B. After the 3rd stop people are on their own for their lunch – and they don’t open the afternoon card stops until 2.30pm – it’s now about 11.30pm..
24. So we shoot all the way back down to Havasu springs (30 miles) at about 110mph, and the slower groups are still getting cards from the morning card stop there, so we circle in and grab another card – they recognized us, but gave us a card any way.
25. We shoot into the restaurant there in the springs to grab lunch – and about a dozen other boats do the same – good food and enormous fish are the standouts there – right at the docks the restaurant feeds these fish and don’t allow fishing – so there are carp and bass that are at least 3’ long and some look to weigh almost 30 lbs.
26. We finish lunch and then decide to get started again. We don’t know the lake well and went looking for the afternoon stops, but we were too early – so we just went and hung out in the channel -which was a lot of fun. We were almost like celebrities – since many of the people in the channel saw us in the parade. Lots of really nice people were coming up and checking out the boat. Performance boat magazine came up and did a video interview with me for about 10 mins – I guess it’s supposed to be on their site, but I haven’t looked for it yet. Then Performanceboat.com came up and asked if they could use my boat for a photo shoot, I said sure – so for 30 mins-hr, there were swimsuit models crawling all over my boat getting their pix taken (life sucks).
27. We were having a great time in the channel – so much so, that we didn’t get out of there until about 6pm. Went back to the London Bridge and had to jockey for a dock spot. They made me maneuver into an inside spot which was not the right place to be….and they finally realized it and moved a transient pontoon boat that was on the outside so I could take that spot. By the time we had gotten out of the channel, the afternoon card stops were closed so we didn’t get our last 2 cards (I had purchased 2 hands).
28. We showered and went to the card turn in party at the Nautical cove. Was pretty cool – free bud lights – cash bar for mixers – however, there was a line that took 3 hours to get through to turn in your cards. They had it all computerized which was the most organized I had ever seen any run – but to get 260 boats through took 3 hours. They had a live band playing and bunch of vendors set up…we had a few buds and chilled wrapping w/people that were standing in line….then wandered over to the Naked Turtle and had a great time in there mixing it up. At about 9.30pm I wandered back over to the turn in party and the line was only about 10 people long. Got in line – wrapped with the guys around me – turns out they were also Elim owners and recognized me from my boat and OSO. This was one of the guys that accused me of being a “writer with too much time on his hands” – imagine that. We laughed and talked about the day and our boats. I finally got up front and got my 2 additional cards. Best hand I had were 2 pairs (4’s and 6’s) – wasn’t too optimistic about my chances with 260 boats.

Adrenaline Junkie

29. Went back to Naked Turtle for a while – then over to Kokomos – it was jumping. Mostly a younger crowd – 20 something’s – but they were getting their groove on. Closed the joint and called it a night.
30. Saturday was the shootout day. I had decided not to run the shootout because one of the rams in my engine hatch had seized earlier in the week, and I hadn’t been able to get into my engine compartment for 3 days. The guys from Prestige spent 2 hours in the boat trying to get it open but couldn’t do it. I was concerned about running the boat hard without knowing how my fluids were and if there was any water in the bilge etc…so we decided to blow off the shoot out and just chill. On our way out of the channel, it was a zoo. While sitting at our docks, on my boat getting ready to leave, I witnessed a pontoon boat leaving the dock in front of me – he was pulling out and not even looking forward towards my boat – he was looking at all the antics behind him – once he got within 10’ I started yelling, he turned and saw me an turned hard to starboard and just missed my starboard sponson – within inches….The channel was wall to wall boats. Not a spot to be found on the beaches, and once we got out into Thomson’s bay it was just as busy. Hundreds of boats all over the place watching the shootout and the races…we idled through that crowd and it was too windy to tie up with anyone, so we decided go check out the coves. Copper Canyon was quiet, but Steamboat had some action (steamboat is about 10 miles south of Copper). Pulled in and there where 30-40 boats beached and anchored. We found space between a group of about 8 boats that all came in from So Cal and knew each other. Very cool – and our age. Even had a couple of hot MILFs…bonus. Winds picked up, even in the cove it got windy. About 50 yards away from us there was a very large 2 story house boat that had about 50 people on it (all dudes…hmmmm) – the wind got a hold of him from his starboard side (even though he as beached and had his stern anchored – be broke free and began to swing very quickly towards his port side – people rushed off the boat to try and hold down his anchor lines, but it dragged 10 guys right into the water with him –it looked like the 5 boats that were on his port side were about to be crushed as this was a big boat – capt got the engines started and backed hard to starboard and saved those boats – he thought he was safe, and then it happened again within 10 mins – so they re-beached the boat with the stern into the wind and re-tied the anchor lines and were stable. Then a few of the girls on neighboring boats got on their boat and started going down their slide. After a few girls went down, a couple of the guys followed them naked – SURPRISED those girls….3 of the MILFS were lobbying hard for rides – one would have been worthwhile, but we probably wouldn’t have brought her back – the husbands were way cool so out of respect we decided it wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interest. We bailed and went back up to the channel. Had great time in the channel – before we knew it we were joined by some people we had met previously including one smokin’ hot Vegas blonde in a thong – before we knew it the afternoon had flown by and we didn’t get back to our room until almost 7pm (the Poker Run Banquet started at 6pm). By the time we got showered and out of the room, it was 8pm so we didn’t even make it to the banquet – hopefully someone who did attend the banquet will read this far into my post and give us an update on how it went.
31. We decided we were going to go to the Turtle – but before doing so, we stopped into Martini Bay (another bar in the London Bridge) for one drink. When came in, the joint was jumping with a one man band playing blues, etc…Pretty crowded in there and, probably more “age appropriate” for us – We sat down – and within about 5 mins a group of 6 MILFs showed up and sat next to us at the bar. They were a riot. It was a girls weekend, and these girls were whooping it up – all in miniskits – and all in the same kickboxing class (they brought their 2 instructors with them). By the way – guys, if your wives decide they want to have a girls weekend and start contemplating having it in Havasu – don’t let them – that’s all I have to say. Had a great time with this crew. Even though there were several other distractions:
a. It was a “Barbie Doll” convention there – at one point 6 tall, blonde, large breasted, skinny MILFS walked in together – followed by another 5 or 6 others that were in separate groups – no doubt fulfilling the southern cal stereo type – but – daaauuum – it was interesting.
b. Jake (Eliminator Asst Sales Manager that sold me my Coupe), Tony, (Eliminator Operations Manager that rigged my coupe), and Travis (also works at Elim) showed up. Bought them drinks and gave them a little grief around my engine hatch not opening – but also shared with them how much I liked me new boat and how it ate up the 2’-4’ chop we banged through that day.
32. Ended up at Kokomos w/the MILFS dancing until they kicked us out.
33. Sunday got up for another big breakfast at Metros. Got on the boat and cruised out to see the races. Channel wasn’t near as crowded as it was the day before. Probably a hundred or so boats in Thomson’s bay watching the race – pretty cool. CRC won the race we were watching. It was kind of strange – they have different classes running at the same time – so at the end of a race there were multiple checkered flags handed out….but it was cool hearing all that horsepower and seeing the helicopters hovering so low over these guys at high speeds. We went down to steamboat and copper – both were kind of dull. So then we go down to Havasu Springs –which was also dull. We decide to head back to the channel – we were thinking that everyone went up to the sand bar but I didn’t know how to get there safely so we didn’t go up there. I am idling back up the Western coast of Thomson’s bay when a water cop pulls me over and starts yelling at me for blowing through the center of the race course on my way down to Steamboat. I try to nicely explain to him that his has mistaken me for someone else, as I actually spoke to a cop (proactively asked him how long the race was going on and where it was just as we got in front of the Turtle on my way down) – and that we idled all the way down near Copper Canyon before getting on plane to head south along the Western coast – I was actually concerned that I was too shallow. He detained me for about 10 mins basically calling me a liar – then I told him to ask these boats right hear along the coast as they saw me idle past them and waved, etc…He then bailed and said have a good day – didn’t feel like he was serving and protecting at that point felt like he was just being a pr1ck….nonetheless, it didn’t spoil our good time. We headed back to the channel, and it was quiet so we decided to call it a day and end our trip. I tied up at the London Bridge where Chris from Prestige told me to leave the boat so he could take it out that day and fix the little problems I was having, winterize the boat, change the oils and have it shipped back to me in NY on Wed.
34. Me and my buddies drove up to Vegas (we were flying out of Vegas on Monday) – ate and gambled and hopped on the plane to come back to reality.
35. I land in Chicago only to get a message from Chris Hamlin from Prestige Marine. Says he needs to talk to me. I know it’s not good news. He tells me that on his way to take out the boat he sheers the starboard propshaft, and lost the prop (obviously) – and that he recommends replacing the port side propshaft too as the vibrations may have caused issues there…I call Eliminator (Jake) and my dealer, as I obviously don’t think I am liable for this breakage. I have a full one year warranty – and I am already not happy that I paid out of my pocket for 2 new props 3 days prior because we threw a blade on Thursday. So now, Elim, Prestige and my dealer in discussions to decide who should cover this…I am hoping in true Eliminator form, this gets fixed and my boat is here in NY ready to be in the water next week….but we’ll see.

Life is a culmination of experiences. This is one experience I will never forget. I had a great time. Met some great people. Broke bread with people at least as passionate as I am about boating, and experienced something truly unique – The Desert Storm Poker Run on Lake Havasu has so many different things about it that make it such a memorable experience. You have to have mad respect for all of the work the Lakeracer team did to organize this event. The logistics had to be monolithic, and I thank them for putting on such an event in such a unique environment and giving me the opportunity to experience.

Hopefully this lengthy email will provide some additional perspective for someone that has never been to Havasu and is considering it. If you have the chance, you should take advantage of it – you won’t regret it.

Lake Havasu and Lakeracer, cheers to you, your people and your hospitality. My family, my buddies and myself truly enjoyed ourselves – THANK YOU!!!

Adrenaline Junkie

Heh Sissy - yes -we have that one tenatively on our schedule.

As long as things are in working order....I am planning on coming to the SWAMP run this year...

Chuck has spoken highly of the Swamp Run and also encouraged me to attend.

Hopefully we will see you there...

Adrenaline Junkie

Thanks Tank....

Sorry we never hooked up....there was so many people there - way more than I expected.

We had a great time - kudos to you and the lakeracer team it was apparent that it was a monolithic effort that you guys had to undertake for jamokes like us to to have fun....and we sure did.

Thanks again...let me know if you ever decide to venture out east...we run in 3-5' almost every day on Lake Ontario...we celebrate when we get the water you have....less stuff breaks...