Inside SOTW Mag: Shooting For The Moon—And Hitting It
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Magazine: Inside SOTW Mag: Shooting For The Moon—And Hitting It
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Among the many stories that emerged from the 2022 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Central Missouri, two tales from different ends of the V-bottom ranks capture the essence of the annual event. On one hand you had Factory Billet’s Jim Schultz and Mike Faucher of Illinois miss Saturday’s competition with an oil-hose issue in their 51-foot Outerlimits and return Sunday to blaze down the three-quarter-mile course at 166 mph.
The 34th annual Lake of the Ozarks Shootout delivered everything that makes it the country’s defining high-performance powerboat event. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
“Out of all the times we’ve done this, and I think it’s been six years now, everything was
right—the approach to the flag and anticipating it so we could pull boost; our line down the course, which you want to take at an angle, was perfect,” said Schultz of his only run during the weekend. “The boat settled down immediately and pulled all the way through.”
On the other hand, you had Bob Morgan Memorial Lake of the Ozarks Shootout Hall of Fame member Carrie Sixkiller of Kansas finally crack the 70-mph mark—73 mph to put a fine point on it—in her 24-foot Baja dubbed B-Nauti.
“What’s crazy is that about halfway down the course she started to chine and I had to pull out of it because I couldn’t throttle through it,” said Sixkiller, who made two passes during the weekend. “I pulled off, shut it down for a second and she settled down, then I hammered it to the finish. We went through at 73 mph, which was awesome. I was OK with 69 but I sure love 73.”
So who left the weekend happier? It’s a trick question, of course, because despite their vastly different rides and speeds, all three competitors left the event vowing to return next year. That, above all else, is the essence of the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout.
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