Rushing To Slow Down At The 24th Annual HK Motorsports Land And Lake Poker Run

The owner of Naswa Resort on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, Cynthia Makris was over the moon when she woke this morning. And she has cause. This weekend’s 24th annual HK Powersports Land and Lake Poker Run has hauled in $189,000 for Easterseals of New Hampshire and that number does not include proceeds from yesterday’s live auction at the waterfront host-venue, which are still being tallied.

Last year, the event topped out at a then record-setting $175,000.

Super Stock-class offshore racer Daren Kittredge (white shirt) and his wife, Kristen are longtime members of the Lake Winnipesaukee boating community. Photos by Matt Trulio copyright speedonthewater.com.

Three generations of her family have owned the resort, which has been the event’s base-camp since it was launched in 2001, for the past 90 years. The single-day happening has raised $2,064,500 for the charity to date.

“My parents spent their lives giving back to their beloved communities,” said Makris, whose father died several years ago and mother passed away at “100.5” in May. “I am continuing their legacies.”

The run attracted more than 200 powerboats, 45 personal watercraft and—on the land-based side of the equation—a mix of 25 Mustang and Corvette automobiles and a slew of motorcycles that made the same card stops as the boats.

Even in a 42-foot Skater catamaran, Lake Winnipesaukee’s Danny DeSantis knows how to slow down when he gets to New Hampshire.

Makris also celebrates the life of beloved local performance-boat owner Brian Connelly through the Lake Winnipesaukee affair. Not only was Connelly, who died in 2023 at age 76, devoted to the happening, as a Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats dealer he brought the brand to the area.

“My poker run is very personal and meaningful for me,” Makris said. “It’s a fund-raising and fun-raising event that helps thousands of people in memory of my parents and my dear friend Brian.”

The president and chief executive officer of Easterseals New Hampshire, Maureen Beauregard stood next to Makris and nodded as she spoke. The nonprofit organization targets spending on an annual $4 million children’s programming.

“This event means that our organization is going to be able to work with children of varied abilities,” she said. “Every year, we have a gap in resources to be able to provide those necessary services. This fills that gap and makes it so we can be successful.”

Captured here with Easterseals leader Maureen Beauregard (left), Cynthia Makris is among the event’s biggest boosters and brightest lights.

The Long And Winding Road To Lake Winnipesaukee
Nothing moves super-fast in New Hampshire. Not the people on either side of the ticket counter in Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, not the boats on Lake Winnipesaukee—at least in theory—because the immaculate waterway has a 45-mph speed limit. The Granite State comes honestly by its nickname, and not just for the rocky land beneath its dense forests.

You know this the moment you step off the plane, particularly after a long travel day that began very early in Northern Michigan, to cover HK Powersports Land and Lake Poker Run. Your fellow passengers shamble through the terminal. They stop to look at any point of potential interest. Whether it happens to be a large and strangely compelling steel-and-concrete moose sculpture in the lobby or the menu at a Burger King on the concourse makes no difference. Like the escalator leading down to baggage claim, they are in no hurry

Nor should they be. Rushing though New Hampshire squanders the state’s most obvious precious resource—natural beauty. It commands your attention and demands your appreciation. Hurrying through it is downright disrespectful.

An Outerlimits classic, the Golddigger catamaran was front and center at the Naswa Resort Docks.

Plus, there are 46 miles of often-narrow, twisting road through the White Mountains between the airport and the 26-mile-long waterway, and the surrounding environment is distracting. Yet another excellent reason for anyone to slow down, especially for a first-time visitor to the state.

Which was what I was until this weekend.

Set on southerneastern shore of the lake, Alton Bay, was the scene of an informal Friday night welcome party at a barn owned by a charismatic force-of-nature named Garry Robertson and his wife, just don’t call her “a handful,” Nancy, who own a 39-foot Nor-Tech center console and a 42-foot Doug Wright catamaran. The space is dubbed a “barn” because it’s shaped like one. But at that is where all similarities to a barn of the farming kind end.

Gary Robertson’s barn is not of the agricultural variety.

How many barns, for example, have a full wet-bar and LED chandeliers illuminating the high-performance catamaran below them? Robertson’s version is a man-cave shaped like a barn. It’s no place to stash farm implements.

Plus, not many barns have a collection of mostly vintage American muscle-cars displayed out front for a party that would make car-loving gearhead comedians Jay Leno and Tim Allen smile.

Still Waters Run Deep
At 72 square miles, Lake Winnipesaukee is the biggest body of water in the state and is among the largest glacier-formed waterways in New England including Lake Champlain in Vermont, Moosehead Lake and Sebago Lake in Maine, and New Hampshire’s own Squam Lake and Silver Lake. So even with its 45-mph speed limit, it’s a magnet for members of the Northeastern go-fast boating community.

Super Stock-class offshore racers Chris Hopgood and Daren Kittredge have homes at the waterway, as does former offshore racing great and Skater 426 catamaran owner Danny DeSantis. So, too, do Greg and Garry Connelly, the gracious and generous sons of the popular former Nor-Tech dealer.

The boating-community supports the event with an open hearts and wallets.

Of the 150 to 200 guests who celebrated the evening and donated $12,000 that night for the cause, most were locals such as Super Cat-class racer Christian McCauley and—on the recreational go-fast boating side—well-known Outerlimits owner Buddy Thomas.

But there were plenty of out-of-town powerboat fanatics on hand such as Upstate New York’s Shane Mahieu and his friend Michael Landis, who currently lives way down-and-out-of-the-states in Medellin, Colombia.

Mahieu, Landis and I tackled the run in Mahieu’s Skater 308 catamaran, which he purchased from his friend Ron Muller of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Mahieu previously owned a 28-footer from the Douglas, Mich., boat-builder.

“I love the way it handles rough water,” he said. “It’s a lot more boat than my 28 was. And with the 450-hp outboards, it doesn’t work have to work hard, like 4,600 rpm, to run 90 mph.”

Longtime friends and Lake Winnipesaukee newbies Michael Landis and Shane Mahieu enjoyed the run for the first time.

For the record, I have no idea how fast we or anyone else ran because I never looked at the GPS speedometer. Given the lake’s 45-mph speed-limit and its proactive enforcement, this may have been intentional.

Joining Hopgood and his girlfriend Danielle Champagne were Nick Morrison and Bethany Landry of Lake Charles, La. They arrived Thursday and stayed with Hopgood and Champagne at his island digs on the lake. Accessible only by boat, the island also is home to his parents and other relatives.

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Enjoy more images from the 2025 HK Motorsports Land and Lake Poker Run.

Earlier this year, Landry and Morrison enjoyed the Texas Outlaw Challenge Poker Run with friends. The multi-day happening in the Houston area was their most recent go-fast boating event, and naturally it delivered a far different experience than the Lake Winnipesaukee run.

“The magnitude was of the Texas Outlaw Challenge was obviously different,” Morrison explained. “It was huge. People come from all over the country that, and for the card stops you usually get out of the boat stay for a bit. This was a lot different, and we really enjoyed it. We’ve had a great time.

Landry agreed. “It’s all about the camaraderie, like-minded people with a shared passion getting to know each other.”

For Louisiana’s Bethany Landry and Nick Morrison, the weekend’s event was their first in New England waters.

For the most part, Hopgood’s poker-running days are gone. Offshore racing consumes much of his weekend time from mid-May through early November. Plus, he has one of those pesky day-jobs. So he’s down to participating in a few recreational go-fast boating events a year.

The HK Powerboats Land and Lake Poker Run will always be among them, of course, and not just because Lake Winnipesaukee is his home-water or because it provides an escape from the daily grind and weekly drama that permeates the offshore racing world. Like the area itself, boating is part of Hopgood’s fabric.