As of today, I am halfway through a two-week road trip that started with covering the Boyne Thunder Poker Run in Michigan and New Hampshire’s HK Motorsports Land and Lake Poker Run and will finish with the Battleship Run in Upstate New York. Covering the Boyne Thunder and Land and Land and Lake affairs was a neat trick as they happened on the same weekend some 900 miles apart. I started with four days in Boyne City, Mich., and finished with three days in Alton Bay, N.H.
This is where phone-work and other really basic reporting skills come in handy.
The weekend ahead includes two events in Upstate New York, the aforementioned Battleship Run on Seneca Lake and 1,000 Islands Charity Poker Run on the St. Lawrence River. The Battleship Run turns 35 years old on Saturday, which means it could be—two key words as record-keeping is dodgy on these things—the oldest continuous recreational powerboating event in the country.
Having never covered the Battleship Run happening before, I’m tackling that one on scene. Fresh eyes are a bonus in this business.
Contributing author Eric Colby is covering the 1,000 Islands Charity event for speedonthewater.com. Among the finest marine writers in the country, Colby also brings fresh eyes to his coverage as he’s never been to the Clayton, N.Y., happening. I’m looking forward to reading his take. Colby has a big skill-set and an even bigger heart, so I think the event will hit him square in the feels. And that will reflect in his copy.
The point of all this is two-fold. First, abandoning any pretense of false modesty, speedonthewater.com crushes event coverage. It’s not about who goes where on our team. There is nothing particularly special about seeing my mug at an event. (In fact, I try to be invisible.) My physical presence doesn’t make an event more important, and it has zero bearing on how much I “care” about one happening or another
It’s about comprehensive coverage and reader service. It’s about doing the job.
To that end, for the past two years I’ve been trying to be on scene at boating affairs that typically fly under the radar such as last weekend’s 24-year-old New Hampshire affair and next weekend’s Battleship Run. A couple of weeks ago, I headed to Lake Cumberland in Kentucky for the first time—I know, my bad—for the Thunder Run. To make that happen, I canceled my original plan to cover the second-year Tip of the Spear Poker Run in Virginia. But I’ll be there next year.
Last year, thanks to photographer Pete Boden, I “discovered” the Rock The River Cincy Fun Run in Ohio, and I’m headed back in August. Next to the Kuttawa Cannonball Run in Kentucky—also a Boden find for yours truly—Rock The River is the most down-to-earth event I’ve ever covered.
Plus, it has the Friday lunch run has the best cheeseburger in the go-fast boating-event world, and I’m a sucker for a great burger. So I must return. I have no choice.
Performance-boating’s “marquee” events aren’t hard to find or cover. They’re well publicized. The receive coverage every year. And for good reason—they’re excellent in their own right.
But there are lesser-known gems out there. And I’m on a mission to find and experience more of them.