Skater At 50—Breaking The 200-MPH Shootout Barrier

Despite that the annual Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in Central Missouri has been run for 36 years, the list of competitors who have reached or exceeded 200 mph during the official competition is shorter than you might think. Of course, the cockpit pairings of John Cosker and Tony Battiato from the American Ethanol Mystic Powerboats catamaran and Cosker and Dave Callan of the Longlite Mystic cat come immediately to mind, as do Dave Scott and John Tomlinson. The fastest pairing in the history of the event with their 244-mph pass in the Spirit of Qatar Mystic in 2014, Steve Curtis and Sheik Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani are another easy pair to pull from memory. So, too, is Bill Tomlinson and Ken Kehoe of My Way fame, which is another Mystic cat.

Still, that’s a mighty short list of 200-mph men from 36 years of trying, And not one of them had done it in a catamaran from Skater Powerboats.

In Dirty Duck, Myrick Coil and Rusty Williams drove themselves into Lake of the Ozarks Shootout and Skater Powerboats history on the final day of the 2024 competition. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix

But that was so two weekends ago and the 36th annual Lake of the Ozarks Shootout hadn’t quite begun. Now locals Rusty Williams and Myrick Coil, who work for Performance Boat Center in Osage Beach and share the cockpit of a Super Stock raceboat, can lay claim to a 200-plus-mph pass at the Shootout. What’s more, they joined the rather exclusive group in a Skater Powerboats 438 catamaran called Dirty Duck, owned by local performance boating personality Slug Hefner and powered by 2,000-plus-hp engines from Carson Brummett.

They started the weekend with an oh-so-close 199 mph pass on Saturday, which everyone knew wouldn’t cut it for the Performance Boat Center duo. So out they went again on Sunday, and back they came with a 202-mph result.

Coil was particularly stoked and gabby.

“I’m so happy for Slug—he deserves to have the first Shootout boat to break 200 mph, other than a Mystic, of course,” said Coil, who added that ending on a “double nine” after Saturday’s 199-mph run was not an option. “We’re so happy to break the 200-mph mark. I knew it would go 200 mph, but I just wanted to be able to do it safely with a side-wind.”

Asked what the catamaran’s top-speed limit might be, Coil laughed. “Faster than I want to go in that boat,” he said.

A few nights before Sunday’s Shootout run, Skater fans from across the country came to celebrate the brand and its founder Peter Hledin with a special dinner party at the Camden on the Lake Resort. It was a joyful celebration of the Douglas, Mich., catamaran company’s 50th anniversary.

Just three days later, those fans had yet another Skater milestone to celebrate.

Related stories
Skater At 50—Celebrating Skater Powerboats’ 50th Anniversary Weekly
Coverage Of The 2024 Lake Of The Ozarks Shootout

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