Video Debut! Creating The World’s Fastest V-Bottom – Speed on the Water
For a couple of seconds between the Factory Billet Outerlimits-V-bottom passing through the 2023 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout radar zone and its unheard-of top speed of 184 mph officially posting, time froze. Everyone there knew team owner Jim Schultz and engine builder Mike Faucher had laid down a blistering run on the three-quarter-mile course in the canopied 51-footer.
Yet no one, not even Schultz and Faucher, knew exactly how blistering.
With a remarkable 184-mph pass, Factory Billet rocketed its way into Lake of the Ozarks Shootout history. Click the image or this link to watch the video. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
Schultz and Faucher were hoping for 170 mph that gray and rainy Sunday morning. After a lackluster 162-mph pass the day before—a pokey effort compared to the 166-mph mark set by their rivals Dennis and Jason Parvey in an open-cockpit 43-foot Black Thunder V-bottom—they’d have been happy with 167 mph to best their longtime competitors and friends.
Now they hold the record for the fastest V-bottom in Lake of the Ozarks Shootout history, even when the course was a full mile long. But it didn’t come easy, not by a long shot.
And just a few months earlier Schultz had called me to say this would be his final Shootout, that if he and Faucher reached 170 mph the boat would be for sale.
“It’s just time,” he said. “We’ve been doing this for six years. We’ve had a great run. My wife is tired of it. My friends are telling me I’m crazy. I have two little kids. It’s time.
“I want you to write the complete story of Factory Billet,” he continued. “You’ve followed us from the very beginning—you’ve covered everything we’ve ever done. I want you to tell the whole story for me. After that, I’m selling the boat.”
I had a better idea. “Why don’t we do a video?” I asked. “Let’s not just tell the story of your final Shootout, but the entire story of Factory Billet. I mean who wouldn’t want to watch that? And who wouldn’t want to buy a boat with its own custom video?”
We both laughed. Schultz agreed and the rest is history.
Enjoy the show. We know you will. And stick around to the end of the Speed On The Water/Scrapyard Media-produced video to find out if the current owner has changed his mind about selling Factory Billet.
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