It is official the 2015 TICKFAW 200 Poker Run will be held May 1-3 2015! I know you may have heard a little doubt as to the return of this event, but here at PowerBoatNation we had zero doubt the event would be back for 2015 and on into the future.

Our talks with Joey and Casey confirmed that not only are they going to have the event but there are some special surprises in store to continue to give the incredible power boating event a little change up to keep it fresh and fun.

This is a great event will a contained venue and 200 miles of great powerboating.

You can count on PowerBoatNation to bring you the real onsite experience of Tickfaw in 2015.

For nine years now I have been running and doing instruction on many different types of powerboats doing my job as an instructor with the Performance Boat School. The boats we encounter usually have a similar set up and configuration of one or another. But, every once in awhile we come across something different and they can be pretty exciting.

Last November Powerboat Nation reported on a 338Skater on display in Key West and just last month I had the privilege to run the boat with the new owner, Chris Helt, just before the Brad Smith Memorial Poker Run at Grand Lake Oklahoma.

This all white, water hot rod running 1000 H.P Brad Smith Motors in front of Arneson ASD7 Drives with a 1.32:1 gear and a 39 pitch prop is an incredible Boat.

With a 33’8″ LOA and a 10’2″ beam it feels like a much larger boat. This feeling is really noticed when you run the thing fast in a little bump. Running smaller props, we found a top end number just over 140 MPH in small chop and the boat was perfect. Ask the owner how he feels about turning now, but the expression he exclaimed to me was that it handles like a go-cart. When you discover the optimal settings for the boat it really hooks up and handles like a dream. Close quarters handling and docking manners were exceptional as one would expect as well.

Boating is a compromise and one boat can’t do it all, but if you want sheer performance in a value package, this smaller Skater will certainly run in water that would amaze most people. Its Oklahoma and for whatever reason big power and hot rods on the street and in the water seem to be everywhere.

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The 11th Annual Boyne Thunder Poker Run was another great success. Many of our friends were part of the 100 plus boat fleet that gathered in this picturesque local in Northern Michigan. With crystal clear waters and great conditions these powerboaters united to have great summer fun but also raise money for two great causes. Camp Quality and Challenge Mountain.

All our friends who attended exclaimed about how this event really stands apart and I know we have to get it on the PBN attendance Calender for the coming years. Enjoy the pictures from our friend Pete Boden Shoot2Thrill Photography.

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Recently Tres Martin has been spending a ton of hands on time with a boat that I was very familiar with. When not doing Boat School Tres has had this 39 MTI in months of re-hab and every single piece of it has been redone, by hand, by Tres.

Sometimes a re-rig is best done by completing a full rig job and that’s just what Tres did. All the cable runs were pulled and thrown away, the holes were filled, motor mounts trashed, all the little parts and pieces remove, redone, and replaced. New hardware was fitted, polished, and installed. Tres even took the time to polish all the hardware himself by hand. This new brand new old 39 MTI is not only going to be a show piece it is going to go! The Sterling Engines were rebuilt by Sterling and modified with new fuel injection and other mods to get a reliable 1150 HP. The boat has significantly lost weight during the re rig and I expect to see some very impressive numbers when it gets wet in the coming weeks.

Its not often that this kind of attention to detail and love of the work is put into a project. For Tres this was a labor of love and his own hands, time, and talent are what sets things apart from just another job.

Look back to PowerBoatNation to bring you the water test results and some before and after thoughts from me.

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The Texas Outlaw Challenge is not over! It may have been a couple of weeks but PBN doesn’t just sit tight and now you can relive some of the highlights right here on Powerboat Nation. The Maxed Out Rock Star poker run crew showed us all how to do a poker run in style and you can feel just a little slice of the poker run life running along with this group. Of course its not easy to capture it all on video but we did what we could and may have a little more to clean up from the cutting room floor.

Special thanks to John Woodruff and Nancy for taking us up in Windship for some aerial shots.

Note, a small amount of this footage is NSFW:

The results and in! Well, at least the unofficial results. The 4th of July weekend was another huge success for racers and fans alike in Sarasota. With an estimated 60,000 spectators the racers put on a great show both on and off the water. The Sarasota Parade and huge out powering of support from local business again showed how well the racers and race fans are appreciated in Sarasota.

Leading the pack in the Superboat Unlimited Class was Miss GEICO with an average speed of 107.16 covering the 81.6 mile course. In Superboat Extreme INSTIGATOR narrowly beat out TWISTED METAL MOTORSPORTS at 80.96 MPH. The Superboat Class was packed with seven entries and class favorite STIHL took the win running a 102.63 MPH average over the course. Superboat Vee win went to local racers SUN PRINT with 76.65 MPH and Superboat Stock as another win for THE HULK at 84.56 MPH. Manufacturer Production P3 was another close win with 2nd AMENDMENT barely coming in ahead of BLACK PEARL at 84.47 MPH. Manufacturer P4 win went to TWO CRUEL at 70.73

In all 41 Race boats made this another great powerboat racing event. Congratulations to all.

See the SBI Race Results HERE

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Thanks to Freeze Frame Video and Shoot 2 Thrill for the great race action photos!

The truth of the matter is how far off is this possibility? While under the radar of most of the High Performance boating industry the rest of the boating world has been feverishly acquiring and selling Iconic brands in real power plays.

Example in point the folks at Beneteau Group announced it bought Rec Boat Holdings, a group of U.S. brands owned by Platinum Equity Group, which includes Michigan-based Four Winns, Glastron, Wellcraft and Scarab.

California-based Platinum Equity Group’s PBH Marine Group had itself purchased essentially all of the assets of Genmar Holdings for $70 million of which 11 brands, including Ranger, Stratos, Champion, Wellcraft, Four Winns, Larson, Glastron and others. Beneteau says the acquisition is in line with the group’s development strategy for the North American market. The private equity group retains ownership of Flippin, Ark.-based Fishing Boat Holdings, maker of the Ranger, Triton and Stratos boat brands that were also acquired at that time.

Based in Cadillac, Mich., the company has revenue of near $150 million and employs 475 people. It has a network of more than 200 dealers across North America and its entry into the Beneteau Group will “enable them to expand their access to the European and global markets,” the company said they are embarking on the next phase of their project, with motorboats under 40 ft, which requires an industrial investment in America,” Beneteau claims “On its own, this boating segment accounts for nearly 40 percent of the overall motorboat market in the United States.”

Between giants such as Brunswick and that of private equity firms the future of Power boating is likely to see a shake up in the years to come as these companies resources and improved manufacturing efficiency are delivering world-class products and a powerful distribution networks. Its a crystal ball theory but if the past has taught us anything its keep your eyes open the future is racing towards us

Yes, the weather was smoking hot in Texas, I mean it’s late June for gosh sakes but the weather wasn’t the only thing smoking hot in Texas. Sure Texas is known for hot beautiful women, take their professional football teams and specifically the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. But hey they’ve got nothing on the what could be considered the professional poker run circuit. OK, maybe professional was a stretch but the bottom line is we’ve got some of the hottest women in the country running throughout the poker run event series.

Texas was yet another opportunity to take in what I believe makes the poker running experience just that much better. Yes big , powerful, high performance power boats are thrilling but ask any guy at anyone of these events and they will tell you the side show and the aspect the women bring makes these events sensational.

While it may be hard to pin point the very best facts of the matter, it is going to be very hard to beat the boating girls of the south. If the criteria was just how hot they look in a bikini it may be able to be challenged, but these girls bring it all. To be clear these girls are not just from Texas its kinda of a cross section of the south and its not just how they look it is so much more. They look great, their super nice, they can drive a F650 with a boat and back it down a ramp at Lake Cumberland and they know how to belay a cleat. In some cases they will even confront a cop to keep the boys out of jail!

The recent Texas Outlaw Challenge certainly showed how these girls are not just along for the ride and without them our boats would just be boats.

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Since the very first performance boat floated it was fitted with instruments that in that day were were modified or adapted for a marine application. As powerboats evolved so did the gauges needed to monitor them. In the early years these gauges were all grafted from the industrial or automotive counterparts and were limited to monitoring just a few engine functions and virtually no specific boat functions, but today the world is how do the say it? “Our Oyster”. New gauges and instruments offered today are not only extensive but extremely accurate.

This accuracy and quality is what were going to focus on here, the accuracy in competition gauges still stems from the old adage of Built in America and that’s exactly what the AutoMeter brand of instruments is. Built in America and the absolute best value in marine gauges.

First lets touch on the fact that when anyone looks at a boat, the dash and the cockpit are the focal point. Today’s modern gauges are virtually the sex appeal of any modern dashboard. The numerous color options leave the gauges looking like they are popping off the dash with larger than life lenses and easy to read dials in vibrant and neon colors. At last form and function are clearly matched with the exciting “Race” inspired look these instruments provide.

AutoMeter was not only was behind the inception of “Monster Styles” gauges they have been the main supplier of parts and components to nearly all other gauge manufactures for years. In the early times they took a backseat as merely a supplier to the marine industry but as the success of the racing heritage blossomed the demand from the marine industry came to supply the same race accuracy to the powerboat market they have extended their dedicated marine instrumentation line.

Grown from the Garage

Autometer was founded in 1957 by Vern Westberg, as many have he began by manufacturing in his own home building electric tachometers. Back in the 1950′s tachometers were cable driven and not really that accurate, so out of need Vern set out to develop an electric powered tachometer. From humble beginnings in Westberg’s home with a single product, the company has grown to have a gauges available in just about any style or application you can imagine. The selection spans from marine instruments, custom street rods, and gauges for the racing elite in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series cars. With their extensive history in this market, we wanted to share a behind the scenes look deep into AutoMeter and how they produce gauges right here in the USA and why there is no better choice for your powerboat.

When the time comes for you to look at selecting gauges for your boat, there are a number of things to consider including: brand quality, reputation for reliability, price, style, size, color. AutoMeter not only builds electric but mechanical style gauges for the applications requiring such. Auto Meter broke down each style for us and explained the difference in how each one works and their capabilities. Everything starts in Auto Meter’s Sycamore, IL headquarters.

AutoMeter is housed in a beautifully restored building that is over 100 years old. The building retains many of its original features, such as the wooden columns and tin ceiling. Even though the building is a century old, That’s where all of the old ends and the technology moves to state of the art.

Joseph Mills of AutoMeter, says “We are very proud of our attention to detail and the level of quality we have.” Now this might be a broad statement you’ve heard before, you will see here how seriously they take attention to detail and quality. This level of detail and quality is everywhere through-out the entire company and at every level. This helps explain why they have been around so long and are destine to continue to be; a company just doesn’t survive this test of time if it didn’t produce a great product.

How Are Gauges Made?

AutoMeter produces almost everything in Sycamore, IL. This required bringing lots of cutting edge equipment into the facility so they have complete control over the manufacturing and assembly process from start to finish. Every single gauge is still completed by hand with minimal automation. Staying in tune with the latest in manufacturing technology they hand assemble nearly every gauge in house, the entire facility has been TS and ISO Certified, few others have this standard of quality.

Every part that is manufactured and compiled into a gauge at AutoMeter, goes through a Quality Engineers hands. “Every single piece, every single raw component that comes into the factory is examined very closely before it ever gets the opportunity to make it into the production line,” says Mills. To take this a step further, there are computers throughout the factory that keep all the required specs for every part so that at any given time,
somebody can check the specifications out.

The first step in making an AutoMeter gauge is building the components that go into the gauge. For the stepper motor electric gauges, they start by printing the actual circuit boards. Most other brands of “So-Called” gauge manufactures merely order in parts pre-assembled and this where the word “REAL” gauge manufacture comes into place. From here, components are placed with a computer into their respective slots. After every tiny component has been placed, the entire board goes through a machine the size of a school bus that bakes the soldier and cleans them.

The second step of manufacturing is where the boards are moved into a secondary machine. “This machine checks every single function of the board to ensure 100% compliance on every single board,” as the gauges are going down the production line from one station to the next, the processes in place ensure the next person is checking the previous persons work.

For the short sweep electric gauges with the air core meter movements, they start with the actual motor by winding copper around the magnetic core. Over the years, AutoMeter found that having the cores made off site wasn’t producing reliable movements, so they bought the equipment to bring everything in house. “We are the only TS and ISO certified facility in the entire United States that winds our own air core meter movements,”This is why so many other marine gauges have accuracy issue due to the lack of quality control that only AutoMeter can offer.

The next step is to produce the gauge faces. AutoMeter dials or faces are all screened in house, by hand. This allows a close eye to be on the face and catch any blemishes before the gauge is assembled. Once the screening has been completed, assembly of the actual gauge begins. AutoMeter operates in what’s known as ‘Cellular Manufacturing,’”. Many years ago, AutoMeter asked the employees how they could arrange things to improve work flow. One thing that was implemented was Cellular Manufacturing where people work in teams assembling different gauges. What this means is that as components are manufactured and assembled, they are done by people who specialize in that process. Each cell has the correct tools, screws, and experienced personnel to assemble the gauges correctly.

The King of Custom Gauges 28 trillion options?

So lets face it for some of us standard gauges just don’t quite the desired level of custom were putting into our boat. Lets say we’ve just added every single new piece of billet hardware or Carbon Fiber dash panel and we want something no one else has or at least we haven’t seen it. AutoMeter has embraced the custom side and can make just about any combination you could think of. Its claimed by one of their staff he figured out that with all the options of combinations available, there is over 28 trillion possible configurations. That doesn’t include any paint schemes that are brewing in a custom boat rigger/designers head.

The 28 trillion combinations include custom backgrounds, changing the font style and size along with different sized and shaped needles. The options for backgrounds include custom colors, brushed aluminum, or carbon fiber. The screening of the numbers can be changed but they can also add emblems or additional numbers as well. For instance, if you have a ’1972 Donzi they can screen on “72″ to all the gauges for a custom touch.

When it comes to custom gauges, these gauges are held to an even higher standard quality. The manufacturing process is the same as the off the shelf gauges, with a few modifications. When you select your face color and font combination, Auto Meter actually makes the face three times. This allows them to have three samples to choose from to find one that’s absolutely perfect.

AutoMeter is proud and the state over and again “We want to give the very best value to our product, even in a premium product line.” Even in the way the gauges are shipped their is added attention to quality. The gauges are not shipped in a standard cardboard box as off the shelf gauges. The Full Custom gauges come in a real cedar box, with your name engraved on a gold plaque.

Consistently the Winner

Today, AutoMeter offers four standard styles of marine gauges in their product line up not counting the custom gauge option. The versions are White face with White rim, Platinum Face with Platinum rim, Platinum face with Polished rim, and lastly Carbon fiber face with High luster rim. AutoMeter years of experience has shown them that by streamlining their manufacturing process and using the same internal components for all of their gauge styles, they could reduce costs making their product the best value and most reliable. This goes so far as that the gauges that are used in a NASCAR Sprint Cup race car use literally the exact same gauge internals going into your boat.

If owning the best quality and best looking gauges money can buy from a true American manufacture are what matters to you then AutoMeter is the gauge your boat deserves.

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Today was another busy one for Larry Goldman and his crew at North Miami’s Xtreme Powerboats. Just today they delivered anther new MTI-V 42 Center Console to a very excited new owner.

This is hull number six for the MTI-V 42 Center Console and there are many more coming. Larry worked with the new owner to make this boat truly custom with a large aft lounge, custom lights, and unique features to make this boat truly one of kind. The custom rear sun pad has hydraulic adjustable headrests and a huge storage are underneath for dive gear, there are numerous cup holders and a large bar area just aft of the helm seats make this boat very comfortable for many guests. The Quad Mercury Marine 300 Verados will push this big boat to 70 MPH and provides one of the best rides in its class.

The custom touches including the paint color and styling were a collaboration with Goldman and the owner who calls Germany home but has homes in Miami and Spain where he keeps a Riva Yacht that carries the exact same paint color.

This is the second MTI-V 42 Center Console sold by Goldman and there are more coming. Larry told us this boat is extremely popular with the European crowd in Miami and the response from displaying the first 42 that we sold to a owner from France who keeps the boat with Xtreme Powerboats when he is away, has brought numerous inquires from this group of potential buyers.

MTI Factory representative Tim Gallagher was on hand as well showing First Class customer service for MTI!

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