There's a first time for everything. Unfortunately, it was a bit too late to do anything about it on this year's August 25-27poker run weekend in the 1000 Islands.

We were celebrating the fact that our 2002 event was turning out to be a record year. Our registration list featured over 150 of the planet's most powerful and exotic poker run boats and teams. What's more, leading builders of performance boats and engines, from GM to Duramax to Mercury Racing signed up to share some fun in the sun. Around noon on Saturday, everything almost came to a grinding stop.

Over the past 15 years, we have worked hard to make sure that our world-class international poker run, which spans two countries and attracts more than 50,000 spectators, ran as flawlessly as Swiss clockwork.

Understandably, last year's tragic 9-11 terrorist attack and subsequent scares have placed great demands on the men and women who protect our borders. It goes without saying that we are well aware of and highly appreciative of the beefed-up security, doing our utmost to cooperate with the forces of law and order. That's a given!

That's also why, for 2003, we have taken what we think will be positive steps. Naturally, we've fielded a number of complaints from our poker run teams, concerning the troubles they experienced about crossing over into international waters to our lunch stop in Alexandria Bay.

While it is true that we enjoy nothing more than a horsepower-driven weekend on the water, we're also in business. After we heard the complaints from our poker runners, we decided to make things easier for everybody by canceling our lunch stop in international waters. And not only to make our poker runners happy!

As long as the threat of terrorist attacks looms in the background, we will do our part to ease the burden. Our decision is not designed to point blame at anyone. Everyone has always been very cooperative, from Customs officials on both sides of the border to the organizations that have provided us with lunch-stop facilities.

However, we are committed to deliver to our poker run teams a quality, problem-free event that has been our corporate signature from Day One.
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