Powered By Performance Invitational Fun Run Powers Through

Though Friday’s weather didn’t fully cooperate with the organizers’ plans for the Power By Performance Invitational Fun Run host by Performance Boat Center at the Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri, the 71 MTI, Performance Powerboats and Sunsation Boats owners and their friends in town for the second-year affair had no trouble staying busy socializing when the rain come down. That’s the advantage of having a restaurant with a swimming pool and tiki bar on property. If it’s raining, you have places for your event-guests to hang out with old friends and make new ones.

Despite Friday’s weather woes, the second-year Powered Performance Invitational Fun Run delivered plenty of fireworks. Photos by Jeff Helmkamp copyright Helmkamp Photos.

When the weather breaks, the docks are just a few feet away. Another waterfront hangout just a few miles beyond the cove that is home to the multi-brand powerboat dealership. You can be gone in an instant.

But unlike they did Friday, the participants and their guests didn’t have to wait on weather to hit the water yesterday.

The Performance Powerboats catamaran brand was well-represented in this weekend’s affair.

“It was an awesome day,” said Brett Manire, who co-owns Performance Boat Center with Mark Waddington. “And we had a huge turnout.”

Among performance-boat owners in the mix were Ron Szolack, who celebrated his birthday yesterday, and Steve Smarsh of HydraFoam Marine Flooring. They ran Szolack’s 2012 model-year 48-foot catamaran in the event.

More than 200 people participated in the event.

“It was great,” Szolack said, then laughed. “But you know me. I just went to the first stop, which was the Tap + Grill restaurant, and then headed home.”

Said Smarsh, Szolack’s ever-understated friend and cockpit-mate who owns an outboard-powered MTI 440X catamaran, 48-foot MTI with stern-drive engines and Cigarette 38 Top Gun V-bottom, “It wasn’t bad at all.”

Sunsation center consoles were hard to miss during the event.

Running Szolack’s 2025 model-year, still-for-sale Cigarette 41 Nighthawk center console, the two Michiganders spent part of Friday enjoying the Big Thunder Marine Cigarette Owners Rendezvous at the lake. So technically they enjoyed two events on the lake during the same weekend.

“It was a little rainy, but everyone made the best of it,” Smarsh said.

Made up of the MTI, Performance Powerboats and Sunsation Boats, the 71-boat fleet commanded the Central Missouri waterway.

With Szolack checked out early yesterday, Smarsh was on his own for yesterday’s event-ending Power By Performance Invitational Casino Night in the Performance Boat Center showroom. Proceeds from the auction, which have not been tallied yet, will benefit the Make-A-Wish Missouri and Kansas program.

The event ended with Performance Boat Center’s traditionally spectacularly fireworks display.