Lake of the Ozarks Shootout 2009 – Saturday
Bio-Kleen Parked @ Captian Rons
Finally, the day had come to witness the largest unsanctioned racing event of the season. What started as a friendly battle among lake residents to see who had the fastest machine on the water has become known by many as the fourth holiday weekend of the summer. Today, professionals and amateurs compete against each other and clock their speeds for the Top Gun honor. Boats more than 22 feet in length are allowed to run in classes by length, hull design, size of motors and number of motors. Proceeds from the Shootout benefit the Lake-area rescue teams, Habitat for Humanity and other charitable organizations.
Mikes Thunder Marine @ Dock
The temperatures are the highest we’ve seen yet since heading into Missouri and the day looks like it should shape up to be beautiful, calm and sunny. The day is sure to be action packed. A majority of the buzz around the lake is of course centered around last years Top Gun winner; David Scott and his 50ft Mystic racer with throttle man John Tomlinson (then sponsored by Bud Light). The crowd is also quite intrigued to see if the Miss Geico boat will be on the list of competitors this year. The boat passed up the Shootout last year for another race, but up to this point has been seen as Scott and Tomlinson’s biggest competition.
Other Characters @ Shootout 2009
There’s also a lot of hype about a brand new addition to the Shootout, a head-on-head drag race; two boats running down the course at one time. One world class racer and well known lake member, Bob Morgan, is an advocate for the drag style boat race for the shootout. He’s finally gotten his wish for 2009 as race officials have approved the head-on-head competition. Bob Morgan himself in the Bad Moon Risin boat will go nose to nose with Bob Bull in the CMS boat. The talk is they’re scheduled for the best of three races.
Nauti Marine's Saturday Shootout Run
Dave Scott and Nauti Marine, 2008 Top Gun, holder of multiple world speed records, nearly a dozen national titles and almost as many world titles, is the team to try and beat this year at the Shootout. For the past eight years, Scott and all the Nauti Marine boats have raced under Anheuser Busch sponsorship. About this time last year InBev, the new owners of Anheuser Busch, announced they were no longer interested in sponsoring powerboat racing; which left the team looking for sponsorship elsewhere. Instead, Scott decided to race under his own Nauti Marine banner.
Last year Scott intended to race the Mystic fueled with methanol, but on the Thursday before race weekend a motor broke. So they spent the night changing the out the methanol motors back to gasoline. Obviously things did work out for them, still holding onto Top Gun status. They’ve still been testing methanol motors and plan on running the two 2,400-hp New Century alcohol-fueled engines for the Shootout this year.
The Nauti Marine boat seemed to be off to a great start on their first run on Saturday; but 2/3 of the way down the course something goes wrong. There’s a noticeable change in the sound of the motors and the output of the boat. They seem to blow another motor, but still finish the run with an impressive speed somewhere in the 160’s I believe.
CMS & Bad Moon Risin Drag
There was much more action for the day from the racers and the crowds. We captured video not only of the Nauti Marine first run, but impressive runs from Flight Club, the Mercedes Boat, D&M Motorsports, Mikes Thunder Marine, Shogren, Bob Bull and the CMS boat in a single run and the first drag between CMS and Bob Morgan in the Bad Moon Risin boat. CMS starts the head-to-head race out in front, but about mid way Bad Moon Risin easily coasts by. From our view it looks as if Morgan leaves Bull deep in his wake. Turns out it was close to a photo finish. The final details are debatable, but the word is this first race goes to Bob Morgan and Bad Moon Risin.
It was a great start to the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout 2009. Beautiful weather, hot enough for the passengers of the hundreds of rafting boats to enjoy the water. Great speeds and action from the racers along with a few new twists. The opening day was not without its challenges though. There were multiple runs tainted with radar issues; forcing the racers to possibly fore-fit a great speed and run again later. There were also some staging issues, not allowing them to pack in all the desired runs for the day and sometimes moving at a slow pace in between runs.
Fire Rescue Team Lends a Hand
Then there’s the broken, wavy line of rafting boats that zig-zags the border of the entire course and then some. It’s really the only way to stay put safely with all those boats, but the number of boats with 30ft anchor lines in 75ft+ water definitely outweighed those that were prepared. Put that amount of boats and weight on not enough anchor and your bound to drag. And drag they did… into the course enough times the police and fire patrols had to discipline and assist the boats back out of the course boundaries or the race would not go on. Thankfully they do their jobs well and the spectators were very receptive. After all, everybody’s there to watch the boats and have a good time and if the boats can’t run there’s no race, and it’s all over for everyone.
Saturday had some smooth runs and good speeds, but there’s still a lot more in store for the final day of the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout 2009.
View more blog posts, video and pictures from the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout 2009:
- Lake of the Ozarks Shootout 2009, Wednesday
- Lake of the Ozarks Shootout 2009, Thursday
- Lake of the Ozarks Shootout 2009, Friday
- Lake of the Ozarks Shootout 2009, Saturday
- Lake of the Ozarks Shootout 2009, Sunday
- Bio-Kleen Shootout YouTube Videos
- Bio-Kleen Shootout Flickr Pictures
- Bio-Kleen Facebook Pictures
- Bio-Kleen MySpace Pictures
Down the freeway we learned just how skilled a crop dusting pilot must be. We first saw a small, single engine plane flying very close to the horizon. About a mile later the plane was just over the freeway, facing oncoming traffic. The plane then quickly pulled up and sharply cut back down to the left hand side of the road; making a pass across the length of the soybean field at speeds well over ours and at heights that wouldn’t allow a large truck to pass under.
Dragon Alliance