Entrepreneur Chad Havens, a lifelong performance powerboater and offshore boat racer, has acquired the Desert Storm Poker Run and Shootout from the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA), Speedboat has learned.
The all-cash deal delivers Havens full ownership of the Desert Storm name and brand, along with its social media accounts, digital and physical assets, and the full archive of past events, sponsor and participant records accumulated over more than 25 years. Havens will lead one of American performance boating’s most enduring gatherings and pledges to return the West Coast event to its legendary roots. This promise is welcome news to longtime Desert Storm loyalists.
“Desert Storm didn't start as a spectacle—it started as boaters, for boaters, on the best performance-boating water in the world,” Havens told Speedboat. “That spirit is what made it legendary, and that's exactly what we're bringing back. At the same time, we're going to grow this thing the right way: more water, more venues, more music, and more reasons for families, spectators, and racers to make Lake Havasu the place to be every spring.”
Based in Orange, TX, Havens has long been immersed in high-performance powerboating, both as a recreational owner and as an active competitor in professional offshore racing. He campaigns a highly modified 40' Skater pleasure catamaran known as Savage, powered by twin Mercury Racing 1550/1350 engines, and has recorded strong speeds at major shootouts including the Texas Outlaw Challenge. In recent seasons he has served as throttleman for the highly competitive Super Stock-class Team Demon Bikini, sharing the cockpit with driver and now Desert Storm partner, Leanna Shadlow in the IHRA and RWO offshore racing series. Beyond the water, Havens has deep roots as a professional cowboy and maintains strong ties to the community.
Desert Storm traces its beginnings to the late 1990s, when West Coast boating enthusiasts, spearheaded by partners Jim Nichols Sr. and Art Witzell of the Arizona Hot Boat Association organized a casual spring run in Lake Havasu, AZ they called the Spring Heatwave. For years, the event was based solely out of the Nautical Beachfront Resort and it's orignal format is still largely in place currently. What began as a small group of like-minded boaters enjoying the lake together steadily expanded under Nichols-family leadership for nearly two decades under LakeRacer LLC and then Storm Poker Runs.
Later, local owners Jim Russell and Steve Ticknor of DSM Events continued the tradition from 2022 until they sold the event earlier this year at the conclusion of the 2026 production. The event evolved into the nation's unofficial start of the boating season, highlighted by a world famous street party along McCulloch Boulevard in downtown Lake Havasu, that routinely draws crowds estimated near 20,000. The Friday poker run regularly features more than 100 of the nation’s most striking performance boats threading the Bridgewater Channel beneath the famed London Bridge, and a high-speed Shootout that has produced timed passes exceeding 200 mph. Speedboat Magazine has consistently placed it among the top five poker runs in the country.
Havens plans to expand that foundation carefully and strategically, adding more on-water opportunities, additional venues, live music, and broader appeal for families, spectators, and competitors so that Lake Havasu remains the spring destination of choice—which has long been the West Coast's premier performance boating waterway.
“The founders proved that if you take care of the boaters, everything else follows,” Havens added. “We're going to honor that heritage—and then we're going to build the biggest, best-run Desert Storm anyone has ever seen.”
Havens arrives with firsthand experience on both the participant and competitive sides of the sport. His ownership restores the original model of leadership drawn from within the performance-boating community itself. He told Speedboat that he is assembling a larger dedicated operations team, with specialists focused on the poker run, the Shootout, sponsor relations, safety and entertainment. This structure will support growth from a single primary footprint into a true lake-wide festival covering multiple sites around Lake Havasu and the Colorado River, including additional locations such as Windsor Beach, Site Six and other lakeside venues. Upcoming enhancements will feature live concerts and headline entertainment throughout the week, enlarged spectator viewing zones, extra card stops and on-water hospitality for poker-run participants, upgraded VIP and sponsor packages, and new family-oriented activities aimed at introducing younger enthusiasts to the sport.
Specific dates, entertainment schedules, venue details, and sponsorship openings will be released in the coming weeks via the official Desert Storm website and social channels.