You’ve heard the performance-boating community is small—and it is. If there really are six degrees of separation between any two people on the planet, there might one degree—two tops—among members of the go-fasting boating crowd. No matter where you are in this fine land, you don’t have to stroll far during an event to bump into either someone you already know or is a friend of someone you know at a boating event.
Case in point: Last Friday night before the before the 35th annual Battleship Run on Upstate New York’s Seneca Lake, my friend Kelly O’Hara introduced to a hilarious local gentleman named Gary Chambers. A former vice-president of the Seneca Powerboat Association, Chambers arrived via pontoon from his nearby home and joined us for dinner at the Showboat Hotel Marine Restaurant.
O’Hara and Chambers go back more than 20 years and share more than a few memories, most specifically of the annual Pirate Run that used to happen on the Finger Lakes waterway. Based on their tales, it’s fair to say things were a bit looser back then. No more needs to be said.
Turns out that Chambers, who I just met than evening, knows John Rihacek and his brother, Steve, who I’ve never met in person but have interviewed many times thanks to their boundless passion for John’s red 27 Fountain Fever sportboat.
The Rihacek brothers recently topped 100 mph in the 27-footer. They plan to run it in the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout next month.
Not only did Chambers once own the boat, he sold it to John Rihacek. O’Hara had mentioned that earlier that evening, but it didn’t sink in until the three of us sat down for dinner.
“Glad to see they got it up to 100 mph,” Chambers said, then chuckled. “I got it there when I owned it, too. It’s a great little boat.”
Upon hearing of our serendipitous meeting during yesterday’s interview for coverage of the Big Thunder Marine Baja, Donzi and Fountain Fun Run at the Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri, Steve Rihacek went into frothing, full-stoke mode.
“It warms my heart every time I talk to Gary,” he enthused. “Like any man, when he sold his baby he was so worried that it would be driven into the ground or ‘parted out.’ When he saw what we did to it and how well it was being taken care of, I could just ‘hear’ the single tear running down his cheek.
“For the Shootout he’s coming down with Kelly O’Hara and staying with us,” he added. “He’s going to get to see the creation he started run triple digits for the world to see.”
Forget small. The go-fast boating world is tiny.