Lake X

[catch 22]

Hi everyone, went to the Offshore races this weekend in Marathon, and spoke with a guy from Mercury and he said that Lake X is no longer. He said they are moving as we speak to Panama City. He told me that they out grew the Lake. Has anyone heard about this. Jim. :frown:

[EricG]

There was a big article about it in this months Powerboat Mag. It's sad, but the new location sounds like a much better setup for all types of testing....

-EG

[RPD]

What's sad about that... Panama City will be a very good test site! I just hope not too many people/businesses move to the panhandle.

[EricG]

It's only sad because Lake X had such a cool mystique about it... But, I'm sure X-site will develop the same eventually... :lookaroun

-EG

[Forrest]

Small world. I was talking to my 71-year old father-in-law last weekend in Ft. Lauderdale, and he noticed the Mercruiser outdrive on my X-18 and asked me if I ever heard of a guy named Carl Kiekhaefer? Now Ginny's father knows zero about boats and engines have you, and of course I answered "yes" that I knew a little about Carl Kiekhaefer. Her father, who is a retired attorney from Miami went on to say that Carl Kiekhaefer was one of his clients back in the late '50s and early '60s who retained him for his legal work in Florida. One of Ginny's father's jobs for Carl Kiekhaefer was to facilitate the purchase of, as he described it, "some lake in central Florida as a place to test his Mercury motors." Holy cow, Batman, tell me some more!!! He went on to say that Carl was, "a heck of a nice guy", and the big hurtle the had to overcome in the purchase of the lake was that there was a hunting club located on one of the lake's shores. As the law has it, even if Mr. Kiekhaefer owned the lake, the good 'ol boys who owned the hunt club would still have full use of the lake at any time. Well, as you can figure, that wasn't going to work. For that reason, in order for Carl Kiekhaefer to have full and private use of the lake at all times, a deal was struck with the hunt club where Mr. Kiekhaefer purchased another waterfront property on another lake and built a new and nicer hunting lodge and donated it all to the hunt club. With that, what became Lake X was purchased by Carl Kiekhaefer.

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Wow, Panama City . . . just down the street from me. Lots of water there, but no private lakes or anything that I know of. Easy access to the Gulf though. I would bet that the Panama City site is an expansion with other activities still going on at Lake X. Hmmmm . . . I wonder what the value of a large private lake is in central Florida?

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BTW, the wind sure did blow in the Keys last week. 20 to 30 mph plus all day and all night. Couldn't run the X-18 out of the ocean side canal at MM 74. Kiteboarders were sure having a blast. That Marathon race had to be ROUGH!

[Greg K]

I believe the site will be located on the Watson Bayou which I think is between PC and Springfield.