Friends To Remember Lyman At Lake Powell Challenge—His Favorite Event

Although New Mexico’s Steve Lyman, a performance boater who most recently called Lake Havasu City, Ariz., home, passed away almost three months ago, many of his boating friends—including one of his closest, Barrett Custom Marine owner Adrian Barrett—are planning to celebrate the fun-loving Lyman during this weekend’s Lake Powell Challenge at Antelope Point Marine in Page, Ariz. The event, which Lyman often supported through participation and donations, was his favorite, and he would have been ecstatic that the event was returning in a big way to close out the summer.

Go-fast-boat enthusiast Steve Lyman is going to be missed at this year’s Lake Powell Challenge. Photos courtesy Taylor Barrett

“I can’t think of a better place to memorialize Steve than at Lake Powell—some of our best boating memories happened there,” said Barrett on Wednesday evening, the night before he was set to lead a caravan of customers north his home base of Lake Havasu to the popular poker run, which hopes to make a triumphant return this weekend after a couple of years of low water level at the lake. “Steve was quite a character; he was hilarious. He came to me as a customer but became much more than that over time. I would have dinner and drinks with him at his house often. He even gave a speech at our wedding and talked about he basically adopted me. He treated Taylor and I like the kids he never had.

“It was always a good time with Steve around—we’re really going to miss him,” he continued. “We’ll do our best to honor him this weekend. If they are auctioning any heaters, I might have to bid on it just for him.”

Steve Lyman couldn’t wait to toast the bride and groom at Adrian and Taylor Barrett’s wedding in September 2020.

An inside joke, of course, so Barrett, who worked on four different boats for Lyman during the years, including a Hallett Boats V-bottom, two DCB Performance Marine catamarans—the first of which is how the two connected—and a Nor-Tech Hi-Performance Boats center console, explained.

“First off, the whole Lake Powell Challenge is a fundraiser I’ve been involved with for years and I always try to get customers there who are going to contribute to the charity, which is why I invited Steve several years ago,” Barrett said. “So a few years ago, I’m pretty sure it was 2017—the first year we built this rad chair out of engine headers for the auction—and Steve saw it there and he had his eye on it. I mean he really wanted it.

“All of the sudden he’s bidding and he gets all excited and says, ‘I got it motherfuckers, I got the chair!’” Barrett added with a laugh. “But he didn’t win it, and I told him ‘Steve you didn’t get the chair’ and he started disagreeing with me. Then everyone at the table in sequence yelled, ‘No you didn’t,’ and literally at the same time he turns around and the auctioneer says, ‘Congratulations you got the heater.’ We all start laughing and he looked at us and said, ‘God damn it, this is gonna cost me,’ and he runs back over to the front to start bidding on the chair. He got it, of course, and came back and said, ‘Fuck all of you—I actually got it this time,’ and we all started cracking up. I think he bought it for $28,000.”

Another of Lyman’s closest friends, Pat Lyons said he’s really going to miss his fellow hunting buddy.

“I got to know Steve through hunting and riding motorcycles together and then we got into boating back home in New Mexico,” said Lyons, a former chairman and commissioner of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission who also served as the New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands and as a member of the New Mexico Senate. “I think he moved to Havasu almost 10 years ago, but we stayed in touch and I’d go visit him there when I could. He was a good conservative and he supported me whenever possible. He was a generous man who lived life in the fast lane.”

Check out the slideshow above for more images of Lyman and his friends.

Don May, a fellow DCB owner and Lyman’s friend and neighbor, has incredible memories of whom he said was the first person he and his wife, Annette, met in Lake Havasu when there were building their house across the street.

“Through Steve we met many friends that we still have today—all good, fun, smart, patriotic, working-class people,” May said. “Steve was very smart and his work ethics were amazing. We really had some fun times and great talks. He and I would do a lot of drag racing and burnouts in our neighborhood leaving street art everywhere.

“Steve made the BEST smoked brisket,” he continued. “He loved to cook that and sometimes joked that he had put it in the smoker and fell asleep therefore he burnt it and had to put another one on. The other thing he would cook for the neighborhood was his grandma’s secret recipe of Tex/Mex enchiladas. And let me tell you, they were the best we ever had. He would never tell anyone the ‘Secret Sauce Ingredients’ because they were his grandma’s. But he loved to prepare everything and reminisce about cooking them with his grandma.”

Lyman with the infamous header chair from the 2017 Lake Powell Challenge.

May added that Lyman’s famous line was: “Shots, Shots, Shots,” and that the life of the party’s shot of choice was Apple Crown.

“I’ll never forget the Trump Rally Steve hosted at Barrett Custom Marine when Trump was running for president the first time—it was a helluva party,” he said. “He loved Donald Trump so we would see who could find the coolest shirt, souvenir, flag, book or anything Trump-related and would get it for each other. Heck just before he passed he brought us over three Trump bobbleheads because my wife bought him a Trump flag a month earlier.”

So for everyone who’s on hand for the Lake Powell Challenge, be ready for your shot of Crown Royal Regal Apple Whisky. If you don’t take one, everyone knows what Lyman would call you.

“We’ll definitely be toasting Steve this weekend,” Barrett said. “He’d be the first one to tell us it’s time to ‘knock the edge off.’ That was his saying for when we were going to take shots. And yes shots; you couldn’t have just one with Steve.”

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