I have always wanted to go to the Lake Powell Challenge, and this year was no exception. With several other events happening locally on the same weekend it just wasn't in the cards (pun intended) for myself. Luckily AJ (Barrett Custom Marine) and Ricky (Maxed Out Marine) offered to not only represent RDP at the run, but to take some cell phone pics for us, and give us an idea of what the event is all about!
To start the event is a fundraising event for JDRF, which stands for Junior Diabetes Research Foundation. The amount of money that this event in particular raises for this charity is nothing short of staggering. It has to be one of the biggest fund raising events in performance boating (by a long shot). To give you an idea, Christy Engle (Special Event Director for Antelope Point Marina) told me that this years event will donate approximately 190,000.00 (yes you read that correctly) towards the foundation. That was followed up with it might actually be more then that, but at the time of the e-mail they were still doing an accounting of the event itself.
This years Lake Powell challenge had 66 Boats participate in the Poker Run itself. This year they added a "Dangling Fun Run" and had about 25 boats and a 100 people show up. They also (for the second year now) did the Lone Rock Beach Party and had approximately 400 people in attendance and 45 boats per Christy Engle.
Both Ricky and AJ both report that this event is on the top of their lists of events that they will continue to participate (and sponsor) into the future! The vibe is extremely relaxed, and all about fun from the time you arrive until it's time to go home. There isn't any ego's or boats racing each other, but rather everybody cruising to the stops, and enjoying the scenery of the lake. The scenery itself is unique to lake Powell, and as it was told to me "It's hard to put into words, but if you haven't seen it in person you wouldn't understand." (paraphrasing)
Big Thanks to Ricky and AJ for taking the pics and representing RDP at the Lake Powell Challenge!
(One of the RDP baskets that was raffled off)
For more information on the Lake Powell Challenge please visit www.lakepowellchallenge.com
[video=youtube;lUU1Wqwot_E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=30&v=lUU1Wqwot_E[/video]
