Stark-A-Palooza To Lead Off Speed On The Water Key West Bash Auction

With sections that extend into Georgia and hundreds of miles of unspoiled shoreline, South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell qualifies for hidden-gem status. If you’ve never been you need to to, and if you have been you need to go back. And there’s no better reason than the June 12-14 Hartwell Lake Charity Fun Run benefitting the local Meals  On Wheels Anderson program.

To make space for more revelers and auction bidders, just one boat (see below) will be displayed on Greene Street this year. Photos by Jeff Helmkamp copyright Helmkamp Photos.

Better still, if you’re the high-bidder on the Stark-A-Palooza auction item at the 12th annual Speed On The Water Key West Bash set for Thursday, November 6, you’ll get the full three-day Lake Hartwell experience courtesy of Chuck Stark, a go-fast boating fan and generous character who owns a lovely home home on the waterway.

And if you’re coming from as far east as Missouri and win the Stark-A-Palooza auction item, you have two options. You can haul your boat, pilot it in the run and stay in one of several “toter-homes” he owns on his expansive property.

Prefer to come boat-less and just enjoy the experience? Stark will get you to and from his place in his turbo-prop, pressurized airplane. Remember—this air-travel option only is available to bidders who live no further west than Missouri. It’s also an option if you live in the Upper Midwest or Northeast.

The Southern gentleman also will host you in his MTI-V 50 center console for the Friday fun run and Saturday’s main event.

Auctioneer extraordinaire Nolan Ferris will have a proper stage and audio system to work from this year.

And no Stark-A-Palooza Lake Hartwell experience would be complete with the Saturday night bash—complete with a band—Stark and wife, Shannon, throws at their lovely waterfront home.

You might just want to rest up for that one.

The Speed On The Water Key West Bash auction will once again benefit the Key West-based Samuel’s House shelter for women and children and—new this year—AHEC Health Centers, “which provides access to no cost medical and low cost dental care for the school age children of Monroe County (Fla.), no matter their financial circumstances.”

Of course, that is just one of a dozen killer auction items we have in store for you during the Thursday night affair at the Pickle’s Pub Sandbar at 511 Greene Streeet. You’ll learn more as the event-date gets closer.

AHEC is providing a proper auction stage for the one and only Nolan Ferris to do what he does best—wring money out of his generous friends. GoGPS, which backs Factory Stock and Super V race teams, is picking up the tab for the public address system so Ferris can be heard up and down Greene Street, which as usual will be closed to vehicle traffic from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The Good Boy/GoGPS Doug Wright raceboat will be displayed on Greene Street in from of the Pickle’s Pub Sandbar host venue. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

Stephen Miles of Stephen Miles Design is even in making proper auction paddles, with his artistic flair of course, for the live fundraiser. Mile will have an auction item of his down to donate, but the plan includes auctioning the paddles themselves.

From a signed Fender guitar to case of Good Boy Vodka and a monthly delivery of Good Boy ready-to-drink cocktails, there’s a still growing list of exceptional auction items for this 2025 Speed On The Water Key West Bash.

Wozencraft Insurance Agency is returning for the ninth year in a row to sponsor the food buffet during the affair. And without Race World Offshore head Larry Bleil, has built the Speed On The Water celebration into the contract for the Key West races, none of this would be possible.

More information will be coming soon. So stay tuned.

In the meantime, picture yourself heading to Stark-A-Palooza in the man’s private plane. Come November 6, bid high.

Imagine yourself here and bid high.

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