So a group of Outerlimits owners walks into a Charlevoix, Mich., bar on a Wednesday late-afternoon ahead of the 2017 Boyne Thunder Poker Run. Sounds like the lead up to one of those jokes, right, but it’s not. It really happened, probably more than once.
Still, it was my first experience with the group.
I can’t remember the name of the bar—a shocker—but I can remember the names of the Outerlimits faithful who were there including Vinnie and Danielle Diorio, Burton and Yvette Kirsten, Mark and Joanie DiMichele, Jason and Laurie Moe, Adam Seraphine and John and Julie Tokar.
The day began and ended with the tales of the late Mike Fiore, the founder of Outerlimits, who died in 2014. The Fiore stories spilled out as quickly as glasses emptied and refilled, the common theme being that it was impossible to stay angry at the charismatic dude who launched one of the finest brands the go-fast boating world has ever known.
“I would call him, all pissed off about something, usually having to do with some delay on a build,” Kirsten recounted, then laughed. “And the by end of the conversation, I would be apologizing for bugging him and asking if he needed anything.”
During a trip yesterday to Beaver Island with the Kirstens, the Tokars and several other couples who weren’t present back then ahead of this weekend’s Boyne Thunder Poker Run, Burton and I revisited the subject and laughed again. Once more—some eight years later—we agreed it was impossible to stay angry at the guy.
Even in tight-knit groups, people go their separate ways. It’s inevitable, which is makes such moments in time priceless and indelible. Diorio swapped poker runs for offshore races several years ago. DiMichele now owns a Skater 388 catamaran, Seraphine owns a currently for sale MTI 390XR catamaran. The Moes have swapped high-performance powerboat realm for the motocross world, where their talented son, Colton, is becoming a formidable competitor.
But it never really was the Outerlimits brand that bonded them. It was the man who created it.
That much I learned during late-afternoon cocktails a few days before the 2017 Boyne Thunder Poker Run. That much I learned again yesterday.