Jon Smiley, Ronnie Moran and Bill Tweedie of MYCO Trailers.
MYCO Trailers, a world leader in the custom boat trailer industry for 45 years, will be led by a new generation.
As he prepares to retire, Bill Tweedie—a previous partner and the force behind MYCO’s sales and marketing for more than 35 years—has named two key team members responsible for taking MYCO Trailers into the future, Ronnie Moran and Jon Smiley. Tweedie will continue to be involved with the company as a consultant.
Ronnie Moran, who has 14 years with MYCO, is now vice president of sales and corporate office manager. She handles all internal sales and is the voice most customers hear when requesting a quote, ordering or taking delivery of their trailer, dry rack cradle or boat lift cradle. With a background in the banking industry, Moran’s organizational skills and attention to detail help keep the office and manufacturing facility running smoothly with product delivery and logistics in check.
With more than 20 years of experience in marine product sales and marina management, Jon Smiley has joined the sales team, and will be heading up business development and outside sales. Most recently, Smiley was Harbour Master at the Sanibel Harbour Yacht Club in Fort Myers, FL. The marina’s storage facility faced challenges caring for boats with stepped hull configurations until the implementation of MYCO’s dry rack cradles which reduced damage claims by nearly 100 percent, according to Smiley. He lives in Fort Myers with his wife, Monica, and their two sons. His hobbies include following offshore boat racing and auto endurance racing, shooting and being on the water.
MYCO builds trailers for all types of boats and is a favorite among offshore racing teams, poker run teams, tournament and sport fishing teams. Their reputation for performance and reliability along with their commitment to quality and service keeps MYCO in the forefront of the trailer industry. They also provide trailers for government agencies including the United States Coast Guard, United States Customs, Marine Response, Naval Special Warfare and Navy Seals.
Since 1974, MYCO Trailers has designed, engineered and manufactured the best towing and most reliable trailers in the industry. Every frame is fully-welded, including cross-members and bunk supports. Built to the exact specifications of each boat, the hull bunks are paired to provide even support, matching the shape and contours of the hull for a precision fit and self-centering while loading. The unique “Y” style bow stop catches the boat during retrieval and provides additional support to the forward hull while trailering. Exclusive details, like patented positive pressure air-tight hubs, prevent water and contaminants from entering wheel hubs and visual indicators allowing for simple inspection of the seals and bearings.
Although the 2019 edition of the Lake Powell Challenge isn’t until Sept. 12-14, preparations are already in full swing to make this year’s event the biggest and most exciting installment to date.
Taking place on one of the most spectacular lakes in the world, the Challenge has become synonymous with the incredible scenic views, a famous auction, and massive amounts of money raised for JDRF (the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). The 11th annual event will once again be headquartered at Antelope Point Marina in Page, AZ, and include stops across both Arizona and Utah.
Here’s what’s on the agenda for the 2019 installment:
Thursday, Sept. 12 will take participants on a fun run up the lake to Bullfrog Marina for lunch, followed by a cruise on the San Juan River and exploring the world-famous canyons in the area. All told, it’ll encompass about 250 miles.
Friday, Sept. 13 will feature another fun run, this time to explore Rainbow Bridge National Monument, one of the largest known natural bridges in the world. Then it’s back to Padre Bay for a blowout beach party where lunch will be served at no additional charge. Friday night will bring a disco-themed party at Antelope Bay Marina, where attendees are invited to don 1970s attire if they so desire.
Saturday, Sept. 14 is poker run, with a barbecue lunch at the Lone Rock Beach campgrounds. Evening festivities include the famous party featuring the silent and live auction; as always, Barrett Custom Marine of Lake Havasu City, AZ, will auction off their custom-built “header chairs.” We’re told by organizers that there are some cool surprises in the works as well.
One of the constant attendees of the Lake Powell Challenge is George Argyros, who plans to attend this year with at least two boats, including his 48’ MTI catamaran and a newly delivered 42′ center console model. Record numbers of boats are expected to attend this year’s Challenge.
Also new for 2019: Organizers have formed a 501(c)(3) foundation to help disburse the money raised; the organization will help “spread the wealth” to various children’s charities, with the main focus being JDRF.
The title sponsor of the Lake Powell Challenge is Positive Beverage, with boat sponsorships coming from DCB Performance Boats and Marine Technology Inc. (MTI).
To register for the event online, simply click here. For more information, contact Gilbert Muniz at (602) 617-3354, or call the marina at (928) 645-5900, ext. 5064.
Key West city commissioners on Tuesday officially voted 7-0 to authorize a contract with Race World Offshore to conduct the World Championship Race Week through 2023, clearing the way for the Coast Guard to issue a permit.
At the meeting, an attorney representing Super Boat International objected to the move, complaining that RWO had violated SBI’s “intellectual property” with respect to site coordinates, event nomenclature and registered trademarks, as well as other alleged infringements. SBI legal counsel Albert Kelley also insisted that the longtime racing organization would be mounting its own National Championships in Key West during the same dates (Nov. 6-8, plus Nov. 10).
However, City Attorney Shawn Smith said, “In talking to [RWO] staff, they said they took great care to insure that they didn’t infringe upon any of the issues that Mr. Kelley indicated earlier.” Smith later added that he did not believe that the matter of “intellectual property” would be a consideration for the city.
At Tuesday night’s City Commissioner’s meeting, City Manager Jim Scholl stated that there would only be one race supported by the Navy, under the relationship that the Navy has with the city. “We have one annual powerboat race event that we can do in conjunction with the Navy and the Outer Mole and the Navy property. So that’s the only a powerboat race event that we are going to support going forward, is with Race World Offshore, the organization we have a contract with,” he said. (Key West’s Outer Mole is 580-foot-long deep-berth pier.)
Clarifying his statements in an interview with Powerboat Nation, Scholl said: “The city of Key West only has one promoter that will do the one powerboat race a year that we are allowed to do in conjunction with the United States Navy base down here. We have a license agreement that we have with the Navy that allows us to use that Navy property. We schedule it every year, and it’s been going on for 30 years or more.”
Key West’s contract with Super Boat International expired last year. “We informed them that we were going to go out for request for proposals to see if there were any other interest in parties and perhaps a better financial situation for the city, which is obviously in the city’s best interest. And we did that.” Race World Offshore was recommended as the new organization to mount the race, and the city voted to approve that recommendation.
Super Boat International’s astonishing news that it would mount a race at the same time as Race World Offshore’s event came on the heels of SBI postponing its only previously scheduled race of the year, in Kenner, LA, due to what they claimed were dangerous water conditions. In a press release posted to its website, SBI said that its “11th Annual Clearwater Super Boat National Championship is moving to Key West in November. The Super Boat National Championship will take place in Key West during the 39th Annual Key West World Champion Race. The move from Clearwater to Key West comes after Super Boat International recently canceled their agreement with the city of Clearwater after a ten-year run.”
No mention was made of how or if racers would be expected to take part in both events at the same time. Moreover, the release failed to address the fact that Race World Offshore would be the sanctioning body selected by the City of Key West to operate the event, and did not attempt to clarify why SBI decided to schedule the National Championships during the World Championship event.
Asked about the feasibility of holding two races simultaneously in Key West, City Manager Scholl seemed to dismiss the possibility, unless the two organizations joined forces to create some kind of expanded mutual event.
“If they want to have sort of a race within a race, and call it their National Championship for SBI, I think RWO President Larry Bliel would support that,” he said. “It would just be more participants in the race down here.”
But as far as SBI doing an event on their own, Scholl doubted that could or would happen.
“If SBI has some other interests down here in the Florida Keys, somewhere off Key West, and they have a private on-shore provider to support them, and it doesn’t use the Truman Waterfront harbor or the Navy Base, that’ll be up to the Coast Guard to determine whether that would be an appropriate additional powerboat race to happen. I can’t speak for the Coast Guard, but certainly I would find it difficult to believe that they would approve two races at the same time,” he said, adding: “I would say the probability is very close to zero, because their resources will be tied up supporting a similar event at the same time in a different location. So I just don’t think that’s going to happen.”
For his part, RWO’s Bliel told Powerboat Nation that he saw Tuesday night’s meeting as the green-light for his company to move forward independently, and without any competition. “I’m glad the process is over and I’m happy now to move forward and put the best races on in Key West that they’ve ever had,” Bliel said.
Mercury Racing General Manager Stuart Halley briefs the industry about the new 450R outboard.
After three years of R&D, engineering and behind-the-scenes testing, Mercury Racing has finally unveiled the next big step in its evolution of the high-performance outboard engine: the fabled 450R, which boasts a 4.6-liter V8 FourStroke powerhead boosted by an exclusive supercharger to produce 450 peak propshaft horsepower and 40 percent higher torque than the firm’s massively successful 400R.
In only a few short years, the 400R has become the go-to option for speed enthusiasts: At the recent Miami Boat Show, virtually every speedboat on display seemed to be powered with at least a pair of them. (One model, Cigarette’s 59’ Tirranna, had installed as many as half a dozen.)
Mercury Racing gathered industry leaders and members of the press at a private function in Nashville, TN, on Monday and Tuesday to show off the new 450R, with ten boats on the water that had been outfitted with the 450Rs:
• Nor-Tech 450 Sport
• MTI 340X Cat
• Yellowfin 36 Offshore
• Cigarette Tirranna 59
• Wright Performance 420 Cat
• Mystic 3800 Cat
• MTI V-42
• Midnight Express 43
• Formula 430 SSC
• Sea Ray SLX-R 350
The release of the long-rumored 450 comes “about a year late,” according to Mercury Racing General Manager Stuart Halley, who briefed Powerboat Nation and Speedboat Magazine editors on the details of the much-anticipated event. “We wanted to make sure we had a solid, stable product before making derivatives of it,” Halley explains. “So we waited until the engine was in a good place, then we really started working on this one again with a great deal of effort. After working on it for about three years, we ultimately decided that it was something that needed to have its own unique stand-alone launch event. It’s a really special product that our great team has put together.”
That’s why Mercury Racing selected Nashville, TN, to uncover the wraps on the new engine: “I think it’s fitting for our kind of customers. It has kind of a nice vibe to it.”
Of the two Marine Technology Inc. (MTI) hulls equipped with the 450 engines, one is Mercury Racing’s privately owned 340X tester (which took two of the outboards), while the other, a quad-powered 42′ MTI-V, is a factory demo boat. Tim Gallagher, Sales and Marketing Manager of the Wentzville, MO-based builder, was at the Nashville event and couldn’t have been more pleased by the boats’ performance.
“The power and torque is incredible,” he said. “These engines make 100 pounds more torque than a 400R, so now, when you stick four of them on the back of a boat, you really feel the difference. The boat is faster, but what’s most impressive is the acceleration. It gets up to speed in nothing flat, and surprisingly, it makes the same fuel economy at cruise as the 400R. That’s extremely impressive. They’ve done a great job. The motors are just what’d you expect—smooth and quiet, and they’ve got a really cool selectable exhaust function to let it make a little bit more noise. That’s a direct response to customers who have resisted making the switch over to outboards—people who say it’s just not the same experience. Well, now Mercury’s got this selectable exhaust that make the engines sound a little more throaty and more of a muscle feel to them.”
Among the major characteristics of the 450R:
• It’s smaller than the 400R, offering an industry-leading power-to-weight ratio in a compact, efficient package. “People don’t like the big, intrusive engines,” Halley says. “This one is the same size as the 300R, but it’s the 450R. And it’s the same weight as the 400R.”
• It runs on 89-octane (95 RON) pump fuel. “So if you were on a 400R on 89 octane, it’s probably even more than 40% torque difference. This engine is truly amazing.”
• The 450R offers unprecedented acceleration and top-speed potential with rugged reliability and the latest technology. Multiple gearcase, control system, tie bar, and styling options are available to create the ultimate customized outboard performance package, ready to run wide open all day long.
• Like the 400R, it features a three-year standard warranty. “And you can get the additional five years of MPP (Mercury Product Protection) if people want to buy that, which is a great deal,” Halley says.
• It’s based on the same 4.6-liter V8 powerhead used for the normally aspirated Mercury Racing 300R outboard models. The proprietary 64-degree aluminum block is topped with aluminum cylinder heads with a Mercury Racing Quad Cam Four Valve (QC4) design and double overhead camshafts (DOHC).
• The valve train features a high-performance intake cam profile and race-spec Inconel exhaust valves. The camshafts are chain-driven and run in an oil bath so there is no timing belt to maintain.
Halley said the 450 will finally extinguish a long-smoldering customer desire for a faster engine. “There’s so much interest in these bigger horsepower engines, especially one as phenomenally lightweight as this one,” he says. “The performance enthusiasts are really hungry for this.”
The question remains: How long will it take before the 450R is as common a sight on a boat’s transom as the 400R currently is? “That’s a really good question,” Halley chuckles. “I don’t really have an idea. Maybe it’ll be another three to five years before the market has been completely saturated.” Then, pausing to reflect on the sheer ubiquitous quality that Mercury’s product has had on our industry, he adds: “I don’t know if it does to you what it does to me, but it puts a tear in my eye every time I see it.I’ve been through a lot of stuff in my life, and seeing these engines on so many boats is one of the coolest things I could ever imagine.”
OPA’s third date on its 2019 season wrapped up today in Point Pleasant, NJ, as boats in eight classes competed for points toward the OPA National Championships in October.
Miss Geico ran unopposed in ClassONE USA to take first place, making it the team’s second win of the season after scoring a first-place finish in Cocoa Beach.
In ProStock Vee, Phase 05 beat out Done Deal and Typhoon to take its place at the top of the podium finish; it had previously finished ninth in the class in Cocoa Beach.
Class 3 pitted Wazzup against Strictly Business, which won both in Cocoa Beach and LOTO. But the team had to settle for a second-place finish in New Jersey, as Wazzup was named the unofficial winner.
Simmons Marine, the Class 4 champion at Cocoa Beach and LOTO, was bested by Saris Racing in its first race of the season; Simmons finished in second place.
The champion in Class 5 racing proved to be Reinforcer, with Bronx Phantom finishing second and Specialized Racing finishing third. Specialized Racing had previously finished fourth in Cocoa Beach and in first place at the Lake of the Ozarks’ Lake Race.
Class 6, a 70-mph bracket class, was won by NuWave Marine, with You Gun Learn in second place and Cool Breeze Propellers (featuring the Smith Brothers Offshore Racing Team) finishing third.
In Class 7, it was NJI Motorsports out in front, following by Chug It, Hangin’ N Bangin, Shadow Pirate, Evil Ways, Tomahawk and Bad Habit.
OPA’s next race is the Sarasota Powerboat Grand Prix, set for July 5-7. It’s OPA’s fourth race of the season, and its third collaboration with Powerboat P1 in the APBA Offshore Championship Series.
For the fifth consecutive year, Performance Boat Center is hosting the Cigarette Rendezvous at its facility, and as owners make their pilgrimage to Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, PBC co-owner Brett Manire is predicting the usual record-setting attendance. “I think we’re going to break my goal of a hundred,” he told Powerboat Nation. “We had around 85 last year, so we’ll have more this year. We’re also going with the same format as last year, so most of the participants will already have an understanding of what we’re doing and what’s going on.”
As of Wednesday, numerous Cigarettes and their owners were starting to arrive at LOTO for the festivities, although Thursday will be when the action really starts to rev up, with an informal meet-and-greet at the Redhead Lakeside Grill’s fabled Tiki Bar during the evening. Friday morning kicks off with a jaunt to Coconuts Caribbean Beach Bar & Grill for a lunch and pool party. Later that afternoon, it’s off to Franky & Louie’s Beachfront Bar & Grill in Sunrise Beach, MO, followed by a return to the Redhead pool deck for a pizza party and bikini show.
Saturday’s events include a run up the west side of the lake to the infamous Big Dick’s Halfway Inn for a catered barbecue lunch and music by a live band; a raft-up will follow at Linn Creek Cove. Saturday’s events culminate at the PBC Showroom with a dinner and awards banquet, followed by a fireworks display and more live music.
On Sunday, a “rehab party” has been planned at Backwater Jack’s Restaurant. “After that, we’ll be loading a lot of boats up, and everybody can head home,” Manire says.
Cigarette Rendezvous is definitely the place to be if you want to see the full range of Cigarettes through the years. The event attracts everything from Rough Riders, Top Guns and Tigers to Cafe Racers, Flat Decks and GTS Center Consoles. About 30 percent of Cigarette owners tend to be newcomers to the event. “This has become our signature event, and we very much look forward to hosting and putting it on for everybody,” Manire says.
Between selling, rigging, delivering and maintaining their various boat retail lines (Cigarette, MTI, Sunsation, Wright Performance), Performance Boat Center is working overtime on numerous events and races all over the country. PBC’s Rusty Williams is driving the Performance Boat Center/Auto Alert competitor with Myrick Coil on the OPA circuit this year, and will be heading off to run in the Texas Outlaw Challenge June 19-23. In addition, the team will be present at the Powerboating for a Cure Poker Run June 28-29 in Norfolk, VA; then Williams and Coil head to Sarasota for their next offshore race July 5-7. “Trucks are not even getting cooled off, we’re running them so hard,” Manire says.
Michael Silfverberg and Nigel Hook with their SilverHook team.
Veteran offshore racers Nigel Hook and Michael Silfverberg—the team at the controls of the all-carbon, closed-canopy 48-foot #77 Lucas Oil SilverHook— have completed a record-setting run from West Palm Beach, FL, to Grand Bahama Island and back.
Promoted by Powerboat P1 and sanctioned by the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM) and the American Powerboat Association (APBA), the Ocean Cup event is a revival of a historic offshore race known as the Gateway Marathon. It’s a round-trip event that determines the fastest speed from the USA to Freeport and back.
The marathon dates back to 1964, when George Peroni defeated 15 opponents to win the inaugural 90-mile marathon. In 1966, 33 boats attempted the marathon, but high winds and 10-foot seas caused only 13 boats to finish. The winner was Allen Brown, piloting the Donzi known as Big Broad Jumper. Brown won again in 1967, with only 12 of 27 entrants finishing the 177-mile event. Don Aronow won the 1969 Gateway Marathon in his 32′ Cary known as The Cigarette (powered by twin 475-hp MerCruiser engines) with a total time of 4 hours and 35 minutes for an average speed of 43.6 mph.
The 200+ mile achievement by Hook and Silfverberg encompassed a run to the Bahamas on Friday, with the return back to West Palm Beach on Saturday. “It was a fantastic run, and the boat ran flawlessly, which is impressive because we had it a lot rougher than expected out there, with a lot of quartering seas coming from 45 degrees port,” Silfverberg told Powerboat Nation. “So the boat took a real pounding, but everything’s back together, with no problems technically.”
The rough water conditions made it extremely difficult to drive under the circumstances, the pair said. “Every time we got airborne, we blew about 15 to 20 degrees off course. We did what we could to lessen the effects of it, but you gradually lose speed.”
Irregardless, Hook and Silfverberg have established three new records:
• West Palm Beach to Freeport—1 hour, 3 minutes and 36 seconds.
• Freeport to West Palm Beach—1 hour, 5 minutes and 30 seconds.
• West Palm to the Bahamas and back “with assist”—2 hours, 9 minutes and 6 seconds.
Hook said that this year’s effort was a kind of “icebreaker” for getting the Gateway Marathon back up and running again. “That’s what’s exciting about it,” he said. “The promoter in the Bahamas, Jamie Rose of OBS Marine LTD., is now actively looking to put on the event for next year. With our dry run, we hit some problems with immigration and customs and so forth, so we hope that next year, his race committees will bring on customs and immigration representatives, as well as the Coast Guard so it can be handled smoothly.”
Asked what the biggest challenge is of making the international crossing, Hook spoke of massive eddies, or whirlpools, of between 10-20 miles located in the Gulf Stream that make it difficult to maneuver. “When we can take it on the nose, it’s a lot easier than when it comes at us from the side, it can get difficult. On the beach, you see the waves coming in and there’s a sort of harmonious consistency. But out in the middle of the ocean, things pop out of nowhere, like when you encounter these eddy situations. You’ll get rogue waves coming at you. It’s always a challenge. People think that in the middle of the ocean, things are pretty stable, but it’s quite the contrary—conditions are constantly changing.” In addition, Hook said they occasionally encounter a huge container ship and are forced to drive through its wake.
The SilverHook crossing comes on the heels of Hook’s 2017 Guinness World Record-setting Key West to Havana, Cuba, run with co-pilot Jay Johnson, which saw them traveling 110+ miles in 1 hour, 18 minutes, and 3 seconds.
In 2018, Hook and Johnson competed in the 50th Anniversary of the Trinidad & Tobago Great Race, one of the longest consecutively held powerboat races in the world. Of the 43 entries, SilverHook was the only USA team to enter the race in the last 29 years, finishing second in the top A Class won by Motul Monster, establishing a UIM World Record.
SilverHook‘s telemetry and communications is sponsored by Melbourne, FL-based satellite communications giant Satcom Direct, which provides global connectivity solutions for business and general aviation, and provides land mobile services to areas with connectivity limitations. “They put satellite radios on our boat, on all of the support boats and of course the helicopter involved in our run, and it really helps from a safety point of view,” Hook said. Adds Silfverberg: “It makes it more interesting to the public, too, because they can follow us live as our fully integrating satellite equipment broadcasts the data via the telemetry system.”
The SilverHook team is currently mulling which speed record to break next. In the meantime, they are currently on track to attend the remaining dates in the APBA National circuit, presented by OPA and Powerboat P1.
Super Boat International’s sole boat race on its regular schedule, planned for June 21-23 in Kenner, LA, is being postponed, according to the group.
“Due to some issues with the water, we are going to be postponing the Kenner race,” said Susy Ferrer of Cision PRWeb, SBI’s publicity firm. “It has nothing to do with Super Boat itself, but there’s a spillway and the city of Kenner doesn’t feel it’s going to be safe at the moment. We are going to reschedule it.”
Long considered a leader as a sanctioning body in offshore racing, SBI’s star has dimmed in recent years. Founded in 1989 and run by former racer John Carbonell, the series has had between six and 10 races on its schedule since the late 1990s. As recently as 2014, SBI held eight national races, with a final ninth World Championships meet-up in Key West. However, by 2015, eight national races had dwindled to five. Last year, the Mentor race was excised, leaving only three races, including Key West. Finally, SBI announced three races for 2019: Kenner, Clearwater and Key West.
But SBI’s contract with Key West recently came to an end, and Race World Offshore recently snared the exclusive rights to mount the world finals. In addition, RWO also grabbed the rights to the Clearwater race, leaving SBI with only Kenner on its roster. (Intriguingly, the SBI website continues to claim it will hold a World Championships race in Key West during the same dates as RWO. Why? SBI declined to offer Powerboat Nation any explanation for this story, except to say that “on the advice of legal counsel, we are not releasing any statement.”)
So where does that leave SBI as a viable boat-racing entity? With a growing number of race teams solidly committed to participation in the series run by Powerboat P1, OPA and Race World Offshore, it’s difficult to imagine a more devastating blow than cancelling the Kenner race—or even rescheduling it. For its part, the city of Kenner confirmed to Powerboat Nation that the race is off the books for June because of safety reasons.
“The Mississippi River water is high, and there is a huge amount of sediment and debris on Lake Pontchartrain,” says Chad M. Pitfield, director of Kenner’s Parks and Recreation Department. “It’s not safe to run the boats—there’s floating driftwood and all kinds of stuff that we normally don’t see in Lake Pontchartrain coming from the Mississippi River.”
Three Class 1 boats from three different countries—Miss Geico (USA), 222 Offhore (Australia) and Victory (United Arab Emirates)—battled in the final race of OPA/P1’s Lake Race event at the Lake of the Ozarks.
The Victory team of Salem Al Adidi and Eisa Al Ali took the early lead and stayed way ahead for the remainder of the race to take the win. Team 222 Offshore, piloted by Darren Nicholson and Giovanni Carpitella, came in second. The Miss Geico team of driver James Sheppard and throttleman Steve Curtis (who took the win at last month’s race in Cocoa Beach, FL) finished third, after coming off plane with an apparent mechanical issue.
Not participating: Class 1 competitors Zaborowski Offshore Racing and Lucas Oil/Silverhook.
It was the last of five races on Saturday, capping off OPA/P1’s second stop on its six-race season.
Seven boats battled in SuperCat class during OPA/P1’s 10-lap Lake Race event from the Lake of the Ozarks. AMH Motorsports, with AaronHope and AnthonySmith, took the lead early in the race and held on to it until the finish.
Pro-Floors Racing, with New Zealand-based owner/driver Wayne Valder and throttleman Grant Bruggemann of Florida, finished second. They were the winners in Super Cat class in the season-opening Cocoa Beach race.
WHM Motorsports (with driver BillyMauff and throttleman Jay Muller) missed a buoy, had to go back and re-negotiate the turn. Amazingly, they recaptured their footing and managed to finish in third place.
Hometown favorite Myrick Coil, driver of SuperStock’s Performance Boat Center/Auto Alert entry, jumped into his new MTI competitor, Performance Boat Center / Jimmy John’s, for the SuperCat race with throttleman John Tomlinson. They narrowly missed a podium finish, but performed very well.
#69 HP Mafia dropped out of the race with an apparent mechanical issue.
Nine teams competed in OPA/P1’s third race of their Lace Day event, which featured SuperStock class competitors (including Cocoa Beach winner Shadow Pirate, with owner/driver Nick Scafidi). Five of the teams were from the Lake of the Ozarks.
S-8 CR Racing, driven by RobUnnerstall and throttled by Casey Boaz, took an early lead and stayed out in front of everybody for the entire race, with Shadow Pirate making a valiant attempt to overtake their lead. Scafidi had to settle for second, while driver Myrick Coil and throttleman Rusty Williams took third place in Performance Boat Center / Auto Alert, 32-foot Doug Wright catamaran making its debut on the race course this year.
Jackhammer, a new Victory hull, was rigged in a hurry to make this race. Other competitors included Team Allen Lawn Care, FJ Propeller, WIA/Wide Open Racing, Killer Bee and Caddyshack / Reliable Services.
After FastBoys rolled over in ProStock Vee class—with no injuries to the team—it was Marker 17 Marine that took the unofficial win in the class during OPA/P1’s Lake Race on Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks. (The team was the unofficial winner following last month’s Cocoa Beach race, but they were later penalized and lost their first-place finish.) Boatfloater, which took the official win in Cocoa Beach, finished second at Lake Race.
Meanwhile, in Pro Stock Vee class, LSB Hurricane of Awesomeness took the checkered flag; they were followed by Play It Again and R&S Racing.
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