GO FAST · Poker Runs & Rendezvous
There’s a reason Maryland is known as a Midnight Express stronghold — and every summer, the Rockin’ The Harbor Poker Run proves it. This year’s run brought a 60-boat fleet to the Chesapeake Bay, and after a stretch of brutal heat and humidity, the weather gods finally cut the fleet a break: a southerly breeze rolled in, knocked temps down into the low-to-mid 80s, and set up just about perfect conditions for a day of wide-open throttles.
For the uninitiated, a poker run isn’t a race — say the “r-word” around these crews and their insurance companies get nervous. It’s a run. Boats hit a series of card stops, collect a hand, socialize on the water, and let the hardware do the talking. And at Rockin’ The Harbor, the hardware talks loud.
A Who’s-Who of Go-Fast Iron
The fleet was a rolling boat show. Alongside all that Midnight Express hardware — the boat this region is built on — you had Deep Impact Custom Boats, MTI, Nor-Tech, and a stern-drive contingent that included Fountain, Skater, and Outerlimits. Mark Fischer of Deep Impact even brought his six-engine 499 center console back for another year, a regular who keeps coming back for one simple reason: the people and the place.
The event is the work of co-organizers David Landsman and his longtime friend Jimmy Jernigan, both diehard Chesapeake Bay go-fast men who’ve spent the better part of their lives on these waters. Jernigan put it best at a lunch stop, nodding toward the crowd at the dock bar: “All of these people here? They are my best friends. We all like the same things and we all love boating.” That’s the whole spirit of the thing right there.
Local Hero: David Landsman’s Game Changer
You can’t talk Rockin’ The Harbor without talking about the man who helps run it — and the boat he runs. David Landsman, a well-known name in the go-fast arena, was out on the water in his light-blue Midnight Express “Game Changer,” a head-turning center console rigged with quad Mercury Racing 500R outboards. Light blue hull, black Game Changer lettering down the side, and enough power on the transom to rearrange your internal organs — it’s exactly the kind of boat that makes Rockin’ The Harbor the show that it is.
Landsman has owned several Midnight Express models over the years, and his fingerprints are all over this event. When the guy organizing the run is also one of the guys you want to watch on the run, you know the fleet’s in good hands.
Why This One Matters
Rockin’ The Harbor sits right in the heart of Maryland’s performance-boating scene, on the same Chesapeake water that so much of the Mid-Atlantic saltwater world calls home. It’s a reminder that “saltwater” isn’t just tuna towers and outriggers — sometimes it’s 60 boats, a stack of throttles, and a card stop at a dock bar with your best friends.
See you on the water, Insiders — and if you hear it before you see it, that’s probably the point.
Reporting on the Rockin’ The Harbor Poker Run per coverage from Speed on the Water. Boat details for Game Changer confirmed via owner David Landsman.