Check out this stellar feature from Offshore Only, showcasing a first-hand account of the FPC Miami Boat Show Poker Run!
I don’t know about everyone reading this, but I’ve never seen a picture of Ron Szolack sitting in the back of aSkater Powerboats catamaran in a Florida Powerboat Club poker run. Yet on both days in which participants ran from Miami to Islamorada in this year’s FPC Miami Boat Show Poker Run, whom do I see in the back of two different 388 Skaters? Szolack.
I’ve known Szolack, who owns homes in Michigan and South Florida, for almost 10 years and while he’s bought and sold more boats than any one individual I’ve ever met, all I’ve ever seen is him holding onto the wheel or the throttles of a high-performance boat. Can the same be said for any of the cruisers or center consoles he’s owned? I don’t know, but those are different boats.
“I’ve never sat in the back of a boat like that ever, and I don’t really want to do it again,” said Szolack, who opted to still make the run to Islamorada’s Postcard Inn and Resort at Holiday Isle since he’d already registered his new Mystic Powerboats M4200 center console that he sold after taking it on the FPC’s Winter Poker Run to Marathon at the end of January. “It’s not like either ride was a bad ride—Thursday was much calmer so we were able to run faster than Friday—it’s just that I like to be in control. It is kind of boring sitting in the back.”
Boring? Maybe for Szolack, but not for most people who are lucky enough to catch a ride in Dr. Sam Singer’s 388 Skater with twin Mercury Racing 1350 engines or Michael Ciasulli’s 388 with the same power. Let alone on back-to-back days, which is what Szolack and his good friend, New York native Vinnie Rifice, got to do in Singer’s yellow, orange, blue and gray cat on Thursday and in Ciasulli’s red, orange, yellow and black cat on Friday.
The only difference was Rifice—who often throttles the boat with Singer, a world-renowned surgical oncologist from New York—got to ride up front and handle the throttling responsibilities.
This article originally posted on OffshoreOnly.com.