Smack on the heels of Fantasy Fest came 97 high-performance powerboats, barrels of cash, thousands of onlookers, crew and hangers-on, gallons of adult beverages, Qatar Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani, my All Animal Clinic vet and enough fastboat drama to film an episode or two of the old “Miami Vice.”

Neither boat or car racing is on my top-10 spectator sport list. Stripped of their megamillion-dollar trappings and wrappings — with the occasional thrill of a magnificent wipeout — they’re just big, loud, fast machines going round in circles, though both would top baseball, which truly is like watching paint dry. Still, I understand the allure and I get why dozens of friends are passionate about Race Week.

For 44 years Key West has remained atop the powerboat racing leader board, drawing competitors from Key West and the Keys and around the world. Depending on who you ask, the 44th World Powerboat Championship, which concluded Sunday, added upwards of $18 million to the local economy.

In 2024 one of the race’s charity auctions raised $100,000 for Samuel’s House, plus another $100,000 matching grant. A similar auction this year raised $67,000 to be split between Samuel’s House and AHEC. Definitely a bit disappointing, even to the race organizers, but not a small chunk of change either.

You can quibble about the economic impact, but anecdotally, yeah, there’s a lot of outside cash spent in hotels, restaurants and bars. As one longtime server told me, “Most of these folks know how to over-the-top tip.”

And like clockwork came the complaints. Obnoxious, entitled, rich people with political leanings guaranteed to raise the ire of our liberal-leaning social media warriors. A couple years ago Confederate flags at the waterfront park caused breath-holding digital angst.

We sigh and post about limited or nonexistent access to Truman Waterfront Park and Fort Zach, traffic snarled more than usual because, well, getting a giant boat and all its trappings from the seaport to the waterfront ain’t for the faint of heart.

Dead grass, always the dead grass. I used to shrug. It grows back quickly. That’s what grass is intended to do. But the fact is, years of cumulative damage haven’t been kind to the park. Ray Warren, a wonderfully perceptive writer, has documented four years of before-and-after photos of the grass. The results are not pretty. Ray’s recent column captures well the need to re-up on how the waterfront grass damage is mitigated, while preserving Race Week.

Saving Key West’s Crown Jewel | By Ray Warren | Key West Progress

“As a person who lives next to the park, and who walked its paths and the waterfront quay nearly every day of the year, I knew the statement of “no damage” was not empirically true. So, I began to document the status of the lawns in Truman Waterfront Park each year. In this post there are photos from 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 (see below). What I observed is that the damage to the lawns (particularly Major Field, the large open space in front of the Ingham Coast Guard museum) is real and cumulative. It is predictable and it is being ignored by both the city government and Race World Offshore (the outfit that puts on the Powerboat Races).” Read Ray’s column and explore four years of before-and-after documentation

Race Week and rainbows | It doesn’t have to be zero-sum

Love ’em or hate ’em, last week’s dichotomy over the powerboat races got me thinking about zero-sum game theory.

We’ve certainly seen that play out over the past six weeks of the federal government shutdown. Both Democrats and Republicans staked out their terms and left town or hunkered down — with a personal safety net woven of full paychecks, food, shelter and health insurance. Meanwhile federal workers scrambled to pay bills; seniors, children and families couldn’t buy groceries, and tens of thousands were furloughed, laid off and pretty much out of a job.

Most of us can’t fathom what that’s like. Unless we were closing on a new home and needed flood insurance, or we missed a flight somewhere, we hardly knew anything was amiss.

Even though I believe the Democrats are right about halting the staggering increases in health insurance costs for those who use the Affordable Care Act, I was relieved they slow-blinked and figured out how to “sacrifice” eight senators to get enough votes to begin the reopening process. The loss of the health insurance provision is significant and I’ll fight that fight another day.

We saw the zero-sum theory play out in Key West in the past year. Rainbow crosswalks. The ICE-Key West Police Department agreement. Reactions to the grand jury report that criminally charged three city employees and fed a firestorm of backlash against the current commission, at the same time willfully ignoring the roles played by previous commissions. Harbor water quality monitoring. Each justifiably controversial issue gave rise to a hardening culture of either you’re with me or against me. Nothing in between.

Can Key West dodge zero-sum games in 2026? Maybe. I actually say that with some hope. Because out of rainbow crosswalks, we’ve gotten rainbow picket fences, an arch, flags and my new Ranger Ed-designed mailbox. Because out of ICE we’ve gotten a strong, grassroots organization in Key West Immigrant Support Network. There are many on this island who rise above zero-sum game-playing and do the right thing. Just like the grass in Truman Waterfront Park. It will grow back lush and green after every Race Week — if we put aside zero-sum gaming and do what we need to do to improve its care.