Day One Highlights From The 34th Annual Lake Of The Ozarks Shootout
With relatively cool weather, as in not 100-plus degrees, welcoming the participants to the 34th annual Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Central Missouri on Saturday, the first day of the world-famous top-speed competition presented by Performance Boat Center went off safely, smoothly and successfully this year with 143 runs recorded on the three-quarter-mile course thanks to the racing starting an hour earlier today.
Southern California’s Mauricio Vivanco ran his DCB M44 Widebody catamaran powered by twin Mercury Racing 1550/1350 engines to a 148-mph top speed on Saturday in the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout. Photos by Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix
On top of the historic 104-mph top speed laid down in an electric boat by Florida racer Shaun Torrente (read the story), there were some impressive passes right out of the gate as the course opened at 9 a.m. for the first time in event history to Super Cat Fest participants and other racers.
A few DCB Performance Boats catamarans took to the course first as Tony Chiaramonte ran an M37R Widebody catamaran powered by twin Mercury Racing 450R engines. Chiaramonte, a co-owner of DCB and the subject of a Speed On The Water In The Lead episode in 2021, made a few passes in his customer Grant Bernardy’s 37-footer; the best was a 118-mph top speed.
Taylor Scism and her father, Randy Scism, ran the MTI 390XR 450R Factory Stock-class raceboat to 116 mph on the three-quarter-mile course.
A couple of DCB owners who made the trek to Missouri from California also ran down the course early as Mauricio Vivanco showed off his 2022 M44 Widebody with twin turbocharged Mercury Racing 1550/1350 engines and Mark Cooper tried to best his speed from last year in his 2007 F32 catamaran powered by twin 1,200-hp Teague Custom Marine engines. Each of them ended up making three passes before the day was done with Vivanco reaching 148 mph on his final pass and Cooper hitting 137 mph, which was a tick above his 136-mph top speed at the 2021 event.
Vivanco said he enjoyed everything about his first Lake of the Ozarks Shootout experience and plans to return to the event again.
“So my first run was 147 mph and it felt good,” said Vivanco, who plans to run his 44-footer again tomorrow. “The second one was a little wavy, a little choppy and I got to 145 mph. But the third run was way better. It felt fast and light, and I kept trimming it down and it went faster and faster. And we got 148 mph.
“I’m loving it here,” he continued. “I am very excited to come back here next with Jeff Johnston, Tony Chiaramonte and the DCB owners crew.”
Check out the slideshow above for a closer look at many of the catamarans that competed in Shootout on Saturday.
Also in the mix at the beginning of the day was Taylor Scism—the honorary chair of the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout live auction, which takes place tonight during Super Cat Fest at Camden on the Lake—in her MTI 390XR catamaran that she races in the 450R Factory Stock class. Scism and her father, MTI founder Randy Scism, reached 116 in their only pass of the day in the 39-footer also powered by Mercury 450R engines.
The return of the well-known father-and-son team of Dennis and Jason Parvey in the 43-foot Black Thunder V-bottom took place in the first hour as the Parveys ran the massive boat, which is powered by twin turbocharged engines of their own creation producing north of 2,000 hp per side, to the day’s fastest V-bottom speed.
“After our run, we headed back to the condo to go through the data loggers to see how the engines did,” Jason Parvey said. “We got 159 mph on the radar gun, but our GPS was showing 163 mph, and it was still pulling. And I mean pulling hard.”
That their friends and rivals, Jim Schultz and Mike Faucher of Factory Billet, were sidelined today with an oil line that needed replacement, something they discovered in their 51-foot Outerlimits as they headed for the three-quarter mile course, made the Parveys decision to make one pass easy.
Dennis Parvey and Jason Parvey ran their 43-foot Black Thunder V-bottom to a top speed of 159 mph.
“I talked to Mike and he was trying to get it going today,” Parvey said. ”But according to race control there were like 50 boats ahead of them when they last checked so he didn’t think it was going to happen today. I hope they can run tomorrow.
“As I said, we’re checking the data loggers,” he continued. “If everything looks happy, we might turn it up and run again tomorrow. If not, we might just put it on the trailer.”
Schultz confirmed this evening that the repairs had been made and everything checked out so he and Faucher are planning to compete tomorrow. In 2017, the last year the Parveys competed in the Shootout and the first year of the three-quarter-mile course, the teams tied with 161-mph top speeds.
“We’ll be one of the first boats out there in the morning,” Schultz said, then chuckled. “We need to catch the Parveys.”
After its 199-mph top speed on Saturday, American Ethanol is poised to win its eighth-straight overall Top Gun title.
Once again, it appears that Don Onken’s American Ethanol 51-foot Mystic Powerboats catamaran, which was driven by Tony Battiato and throttled by John Cosker, is going to be tough to catch for the overall Top Gun title following today’s 199-mph top speed. The team actually made two passes, another one later in the day at 197, and plans to make at least one more tomorrow.
“The fastest we’ve run here on the three-quarter-mile course with American Ethanol is 204 mph,” Cosker said. “The engines felt strong this year—last year we had one sick motor—so we’re definitely hoping to go faster.”
The closest competitor to American Ethanol on Saturday was driver Patty Rich, who ran with her boyfriend and throttleman, Gary Smith, in Predator 3, Smith’s Skater Powerboats 388 catamaran powered by twin 2,000-hp turbocharged engines from Brummett Marine. Smith, who has won two shootouts this season at the Desert Storm Poker Run in April and the Texas Outlaw Challenge in June, informed speedonthewater.com that he will not any more runs this weekend after reaching 184 mph in the first hour the course was open.
Gary Smith and Patty Rich of Arizona ran 184 mph—the second fastest speed of the day—in Smith’s 38-foot Skater catamaran.
“With the propellers I have we are at about 12-percent slip, and without the new props that I ordered but weren’t finished in time for this weekend, we can’t really go any faster,” Smith said on Saturday afternoon. “The boat felt great today, but after Carson looked at the data on his computer he told me that’s as fast as it will go with that much slip. I’m not disappointed but I was hoping we’d hit 200 mph or close to it this year.”
Smith and Rich thanked the crew that came to the Shootout to support them, including Brummett and his wife, Ginny, Vern and Maryse Gilbert, Jo Cachia, Carl and Hellen Whitehead, and A.J. and Taylor Barrett.
A.J. Barrett, who owns Barrett Custom Marine in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., ran a 32-foot Doug Wright catamaran owned by Scott Maizlish to a top speed of 119 mph in his only pass and then Maizlish went out and duplicated the speed ran by Barrett in the catamaran powered by twin Mercury 450R engines.
The slideshow above features many of the V-bottoms that raced in the top-speed contest.
One of the most competitive classes of the day was the nonprofessional catamaran group featuring several Skater catamarans. And at the end of the day, two Texas-based Skaters—Chad Havens’ 40-footer and Curtis Morris’ 36-footer—were within a couple mph of each other as Morris and Jamin Jones reached 154 mph and Havens and Anthony Smith of H.P. Mafia reached 152 mph.
The Performance Boat Center- and FASS-sponsored Super Stock-class Doug Wright raceboat battled the aerobatic stunt plane in an exhibition race down the course.
Other notable passes from the day included veteran offshore racer and performance boat school driving instructor Tres Martin’s 116-mph pass in a Cigarette Racing Team 46 Rough Rider, Karl Steger and Neil Wobbe running 115 mph in the return of the 2nd Amendment USA team’s 36-foot Spectre Powerboats catamaran to the Shootout, Jeff Clark’s 142-mph pass in his DCB M31 Widebody, M CON Racing’s Craig Amptmeyer and Jake Leckliter hitting 125 mph in the team’s 38-foot Skater, John Hice’s 135-mph run in his 25-foot, turbine-powered Warlock, Cory Schmitz’s 137-mph run in his 33-foot Eliminator, Jeff Henry reaching 135 mph in his 50-foot Outerlimits V-bottom, and Rob Unnerstall and Casey Boaz working out the kinks to reach 161 mph in their new-to-them 38-foot Skater catamaran.
Check out the slideshow above to see some of the center consoles and pontoons that competed on Saturday.
The number of pontoon participants was as impressive as ever with PlayCraft, South Bay, Trifecta and other brands represented. There was even an electric-powered Hydrofin pontoon featuring two outboard engines from Hyper Electric Marine that ran 49 mph.
Editor’s note: The Lake of the Ozarks Shootout continues on Sunday starting at 10 a.m. CST. You can watch all the action on the LakeTV Facebook page or the Lake TV website.
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