Music, boats & cars featured at Buffalo Launch Club

Story and photo by Senior Contributing Writer Alice Gerard

Food, camaraderie, music, cars and fast boats were some of the main features of events held at the Buffalo Launch Club during the weekend of Aug. 7-9.

On Aug. 7, the Buffalo Launch Club held a concert featuring Nerds Gone Wild. The next day, the 26th annual Buffalo Poker Run was hosted by the BLC for the first time. Previously, Buffalo RiverWorks hosted it. On Aug. 9, the BLC hosted a car show.

The Buffalo Poker Run started at about 10 a.m. All 50 boats signed up for the event set off from the BLCs docks and headed toward the South Grand Island Bridges. After a number of stops, including lunch at the Remington on the Erie Canal, the run ended where it began with a dinner for all participants.

The Poker Run is organized by the Western New York Offshore Powerboat Association (WNYOPA).

“The purpose behind this is we donate all of the money we make to charity,” said Katie Rustowicz, president of WNYOPA. This year, the event raised $20,000 for five organizations: the Excalibur Leisure Skills Center, the Niagara Frontier Search & Rescue Team, the Buffalo Fire Department’s E. M. Cotter fire boat, Hope Chest and Hope Rises. The Edward M. Cotter is considered the oldest active fireboat in the world. It was built and put into service in 1900.

“We’ve had over 115 boats interested in coming on the Poker Run. We’ll be able to handle that next year. Due to the moving of the venue and different things this year, we had to limit it,” said BLC member Dave Texido, who also participated in the Poker Run.

Rustowicz said, “Three years ago is really when I started getting involved in the club and I started helping with organizing the Poker Run. Then, last year, things really took off, and this year, even more so. Two years ago, when we started out, we only had 28 boats and, this year, our max capacity was 50 boats. We hit that pretty early on. We told ‘No’ to a lot of people.”

Texido, who participated in the event in his Nor-Tech 3600 super cat catamaran, described the run as “a gathering of high-performance boats from across several states that cater to the boating community in Western New York.

“Most of the boats that enter poker runs are more of the go-fast type of boats. There are several different classes, ranging from 30 miles-an-hour all the way to 110 miles-an-hour.”

Texido said “the unique Buffalo waterway” makes the Buffalo Poker run different from “other poker runs throughout the entire country. One of the worst things about a poker run is the high winds and big waves when you’re out in open water. We have the luxury here with the Niagara River to tailor our course, depending on weather, so these boats aren’t running in 5- to 6-foot waves all day long. So, we can actually alter that race and stay up more into the Niagara River toward the short mouth of Lake Erie up near the Peace Bridge to get inside the break walls in downtown Buffalo. That’s probably the biggest attraction that we don’t have to worry about high winds or bad weather kicking up the lake.”

For the Poker Run itself, Rustowicz said, “We have various stops and, at the end of the night, all the drivers get a poker hand and they’re able to buy extra cards or a new hand, if they want. Basically, the thought is that, even if you have one of the slower boats, you still could win the best poker hand.

“So, we stop in multiple different stops and we give out chips. At the end, you get a poker hand. They have different prizes.”

Tom Hauser, treasurer of the BLC, said, “They started bringing their boats in Friday afternoon. And they actually had a big welcome dinner here Friday night. It was just a wonderful night.”

After the Poker Run, Hauser said, there was a big dinner for the boaters: “We’re very honored that they chose us to host this.

When asked about what they enjoyed most about the weekend’s events, everyone talked about community and friendship.

Texido said the BLC is a good place to host the event.

“I’m a member at the Buffalo Launch Club and it’s a top-notch facility,” he said. “They have absolutely great food, perfect docks, well-groomed manicured landscaping, plenty of parking, centrally located, in between many of the launch sites in Western New York, only minutes away. When we go to a Poker Run, we want to have that top-notch food in a beautiful setting sitting on the water for the ease of docking the boats. That’s exactly what the Buffalo Launch Club represents.”

“What excites me the most is seeing a lot of the activity that’s taking place on the fantastic grounds of the Buffalo Launch Club,” Hauser said. “Most importantly, it’s just seeing a lot of different people from a lot of different walks of life coming around, making new friends, seeing old friends. It’s the sheer excitement of this event. We’re very proud of our Buffalo Launch Club, and the grounds and facilities that we have to offer here.”

“It’s the camaraderie of all the fellow boaters, sharing the same desires to have a very nice venue, good food, a lot of laughs and fun,” Texido said. “However, at the end of the day, everybody participates in here because it’s 100% not-for-profit. The money generated from this poker run helps many different organizations throughout Western New York.”

Patrick O’Connor, who owns two boats and who was prevented from participating in the Poker Run due to a shoulder injury, was a spectator. He said the thing that struck him most about the event was “camaraderie with fellow boaters. It doesn’t matter what you bring. Every boater here is the nicest person. You can come in the cheapest, smallest boat or the biggest, most expensive, and everybody is respectful to everybody else. That’s what I love about boating.”

O’Connor said he was enjoying, “Summer, seeing a lot of friends, seeing all the great boats, conversations with great people, and the boating community,” which he described as “very tight.”

“It’s really fun to see Western New York come together, especially during the summer, when we have beautiful months here,” Rustowicz said. “About half of our boats that we have here are from out of town. My husband and I travel all over to the poker runs around the country, and it’s cool to see people come from around the country to us.”

Everyone participating enjoyed the poker run, Texido said. “I think the run was a success. Everyone I spoke to had a blast. Five-star reviews. I noted not a single person sitting on their cell phones. That says a lot.”

Hauser said opening the grounds of the BLC was a big part of the entire weekend’s events. “Tomorrow, Sunday, there’s an actual car show that’s going to take place here. So, we have a very big weekend here at the Buffalo Launch Club. It’s all open to the community. The Nerds concert was open to the public for anyone who wanted to attend. They had their choice of attending the concert or the concert and dinner. They even had VIP tents if you wanted to go special for the night.

“No admission fee to the car show. Only if you’re showing your car. So, we’ve encouraged the community to come on down, take a look at the cars. Hot dogs or hamburgers and drinks are available. One more example to bring people in to see what the Buffalo Launch Club is all about.”

Texido said, after the event, “The feedback was very positive. The Buffalo Launch Club was great. The food spot on. The rain stopped minutes before the run started and (we ended) up having a perfect day.

Texido added, “A huge thanks goes out to all the people and companies that have sponsored us and supported us over the years. The support we have received is overwhelming. We had people here from many different states and from across New York.

“I would say that the Buffalo Launch Club is very happy with the event. We have already started to plan for next year.

 “Now that WNYOPA and the Buffalo Launch Club have got our feet wet, we are looking forward to opening up and outdoing ourselves for next year. We do not want the standard, run-of-the-mill Poker Run. We are looking to set the standards for poker runs.”

For anyone who is interested in events at the Buffalo Launch Club or membership, Hauser suggested calling the BLC at 716-773-7629.