186 MPH! Factory Billet Raises The Shootout Bar; Likely To Try Again Next Year
After blowing away their goal of 170 mph last year at the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Sunrise Beach, Mo., with a 184-mph pass, owner Jim Schultz and the Factory Billet team didn’t have a whole lot to prove coming into the 36th annual event on the popular Midwest waterway, just a state away from the team’s Lake Zurich, Ill., facility. But that didn’t stop them from running two mph faster than they did in 2023 right off the bat this morning on the event’s three-quarter-mile course.
The Factory Billet team needed just one pass to bump its top speed two mph to 186 mph at the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout. Photo from the 2023 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix
Yes 186 mph—the 51-foot canopied Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats V-bottom powered by a couple of Factory Billet-built turbocharged engines pushing out nearly 3,000 hp aside flew down the course earlier today with ease. And now Schultz is zooming through the sky to make it home in time for his daughter’s fifth birthday party this afternoon.
The good news is, he said he’d like to come back with his impressive machine next year to chase the team’s goal of reaching 190 mph.
“I’m sure we’ll run again,” Schultz said from the airport at Lake of the Ozarks. Although he’s talked about retiring the boat before, his answer wasn’t surprising considering how confident he is in the hull and its incredible power package developed and built in-house by the unrelated Faucher brothers, Mike and Matt.
In their Shootout configuration, the Factory Billet engines are pumping out upward of 3,000 hp per engine. Photos by Jason Johnson
Mike Faucher, who runs in the boat with Schultz and is the engine mastermind of the bunch, told speedonthewater.com earlier this week they recently tested the boat on Lake Michigan after dialing in the boost control and bumping up the horsepower in an effort run faster this year.
And it worked.
“I’m thrilled to get 186 mph—how can you not be thrilled to beat your best run?” Schultz asked rhetorically. “The only thing that is disappointing is that Matt Trulio promised me the cover of the Year In Review magazine if we hit 190 mph. Maybe we’ll still be considered for one of the smaller boats on the cover.”
Schultz laughed, then went on to explain how this year’s run felt.
“I was a little late on the start, almost like it was my first time doing it, but other than that the boat felt amazing,” he said. “I can say it was the roughest conditions we’ve had since we’ve been coming here, just because of the wind chop. The wind wasn’t bad for the run because it was coming from aft, which is better than a crosswind, but it did affect the water. The boat did great though. It powered through all three gears and went straight as an arrow all the way through the gates.
“We’re very happy with our speed; it’s hard to believe years ago we were blown away to get to 160 mph,” he continued. “We’re kind of accustomed to it, but yet, you know when you really think about it, a majority of the cats out there aren’t going that fast.”
Mike Faucher and the Factory Billet team worked hard to get the boat prepared for this year’s Lake of the Ozarks Shootout. Top photo by Brad DiMaggio/Scrapyard Media and bottom photo by Jason Johnson
Schultz said he was proud of his team and the strides the boat has made.
“There’s nothing out of the box on this boat, well the propellers are Hering through and through, but everything else we do in-house, even the Mercury Racing No. 6 drives are stripped down and rebuilt by our team,” Schultz said. “My guys deserve all the credit, from the proprietary engines and three-speed gear boxes all the way through the whole drive train. You know, the fly-by-wire electronics and throttles and how we control all the drives and tabs—everything we do to control that boat and keep it straight—was developed by us.”
“I mean you can spend all day just going through all the custom stuff that we’ve done to be able to get something that can be 3,000 horsepower aside to be as reliable as it is,” he added. “If you think about it, we made the run from Camden on the Lake to Captain Ron’s to do the Shootout this morning. (That’s close to 30 miles for those keeping track.) It’s not like we’re pulling this thing out with a pontoon boat, running it for 15 seconds, shutting it down and pulling it back in. The boat just goes and goes—it’s amazing.”
Reliable no doubt; just as reliable as Schultz’s mind already thinking of what’s next.
“We’re on the rev-limiter so I think we’re going to need to make taller gear sets,” he said. “It’s right there on the rev-limiter on the last quarter mile of the course so we know there’s a lot more to get.”
For now getting home is Schultz’s priority. Happy birthday.
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