Super Stock And Super Cat Fleets Super-Solid For The Lake Race
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Racing: Super Stock And Super Cat Fleets Super-Solid For The Lake Race
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For the 2021 American Power Boat Association Offshore National Championship Series, the Lake Race wasn’t part of the Super Cat-class competition schedule. Super Cat teams were welcome to compete in the Central Missouri event, but it wasn’t among the contests the team owners voted to include in their then-six-race—with one drop-race—schedule.
The Lake of the Ozarks is home-water for the M CON team, which finished second in the Super Cat class in last weekend’s Cocoa Beach, Fla., APBA series-opener. Photos from Thunder On Cocoa Beach 2022 by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
Back on the Super Cat-class roster for the 2022 APBA series—again by the vote of team owners—the Lake of the Ozarks, Offshore Powerboat Association-produced event set for June 2-4 is shaping up to attract a strong Super Cat fleet. According to M CON team owner and Super Cat-class representative Tyler Miller, who displayed his raceboat in the street exhibit last year but had no one to compete against on his home-water, he has verbal commitments from four other teams to compete in the early June.
If new Dramatized Offshore Racing team of South Florida and locally based H.P. Mafia team commit and compete, the Super Cat fleet could have as many as seven boats in the Lake Race mix.
“I know that Chris Grant of the Graydel team—and we were happy to see them get their first victory last weekend in Cocoa Beach—has a trip overseas that weekend and that Chariots of Fire is out until the Sarasota race as they are repowering with Mercury Racing 860s,” said Miller. “But right now I have verbal commitments from SV Offshore, WHM, Team 10/Dependable and Pro Floors Racing. And of course M CON will be there.”
With five local teams—CR Racing, Jackhammer, LPC, Performance Boat Center and Team Allen Lawncare and Landscaping—the Lake of the Ozarks race could field a respectable Super Stock contest without any teams from out of state. But the Super Stock fleet likely will be twice that size, according to class representative Ryan Beckley.
A Lake of the Ozarks-based Super Stock-class team, Jackhammer finished first in Cocoa Beach last weekend and will try to continues its winning ways on home-water.”
“I think all 11 teams will be at the Lake Race,” said Beckley, who with Chris Hopgood is running the 32-foot Doug Wright Ignite team catamaran in the class this year season with sponsorship for the Lake Race from Osage Beach, Mo.-based golf cart dealer TNT Caddy Shack. “I only have one team I’m not sure about right now.”
Taylor Scism and John Tomlinson of TS Motorsports won’t have to run uncontested in the 450R Factory Stock—an official APBA category this season—in their new 39-foot MTI raceboat. As previously reported on speedonthewater.com, the Lake of the Ozarks-based KLOVAR Motorsports team of Super Stock-class veteran Bill Allen and newcomer Randy Keys purchased the former TS Motorsports MTI 39-foot catamaran and the two teams went head to head in the 2022 APBA series season-opener last weekend in Cocoa Beach, Fla.
And they’ll square off again, this time on their home-water, next month.
“The Lake Race is such a great event for us,” said Scism. “I grew up at the Lake of the Ozarks and it’s a lot of fun to see many familiar faces around race weekend and be able to represent right in our backyard.”
For 450R Factory Stock-class racer Taylor Scism, racing at the Lake of the Ozarks is a much-appreciated homecoming.
The Lake Race isn’t part of the Class 1 World Championship Series being produced by Powerboat P1. That means there won’t be a Class 1 contingent at the Ozarks event next month.
But at the other end of the offshore racing spectrum, the Bracket classes should have strong representation at the event—at least if history is a baseline. Last year, 24 Bracket teams representing six classes competed at the Lake Race. The event was cancelled in 2020 as were almost all offshore races during that pandemic-destroyed season, but the event attracted 20 Bracket-class teams in 2019.
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