Shootout & Offshore Racing 101
by Christy Wagner, Editor
Photos Courtesy of Retired Osage Beach Fire Protection District Chief Jeff Dorhauer, the Lake Ozark Fire Protection District, george denny photography ©, Daniel Carnahan, Jr., and Jeff Helmkamp with SpeedontheWater.com
The History of the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout–Shootout 101
The Lake of the Ozarks Shootout was established in the summer of 1989 as an unsanctioned boat race officiated by four local fire departments. In the past 3.5 decades, it has since grown into the largest unsanctioned boat race in the entire world.
The Shootout takes place annually during the third week of August, although its many fundraising events occur throughout the course of the year and at different locations across the Lake of the Ozarks. Shootout events include treasure hunts, poker runs, golf and trapshooting tournaments, vendor stations, street and stereo sound-off parties, and, of course, the main races themselves.
Editor’s Note: Top Gun winners are categorized by overall top speed and variables such as being a manufactured catamaran (cat), professional cat, non-professional cat, professional vee bottom (V), non-professional V, pontoon, center console, electric, personal watercrafts (P.W.C.), manufacturer V, bravo V, and bravo cat. There is an additional batch of approximately 60 miscellaneous class winners in addition to the Shootout’s Top Guns who are awarded each year.
The races themselves take place on Saturday and Sunday of each year, where personal watercrafts and sanctioned kilo runs have their own block of time to utilize the course. The remainder of each race day sees boats of all makes, sizes, and speeds take off from the 40-mile-per-hour-restricted Start Box (a grouping of buoys with volunteers flagging race boats while conducting speed checks via radar from the Start Boat) to the finish line at the end of the ¾-mile racecourse near the Hurricane Deck Bridge.
Editor’s Note: In summary, an unsanctioned race means that there is no governing body in place to oversee and mandate certain standards, or to ensure that racers follow specific rules and regulations to participate. Conversely, however, the Shootout’s racecourse is regatta permit approved and manned by many patrol boats and volunteers, including units from the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Water Patrol Division and members of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Shootout itself has its own parameters, such as abiding by a maximum speed through the Start Box, having a marine band radio to communicate with the Start Boat, a functioning kill switch, helmets and personal floatation devices, and their vessel must be a minimum length of 22 feet, or the racer is disqualified.
“As the racers get ready to participate, they check in with Race Control on the radio and then they are assigned their spot in the lineup and told when they’re on deck,” explained Justin Martin, a firefighter and paramedic for the Lake Ozark Fire Protection District and 22-year veteran volunteer as the captain of the Shootout’s Start Boat. “We then advise the racers via marine band radio when to enter the warmup area to take the course. The volunteer flaggers at the bow of the boat will hold the green flag steady if the course is clear while the racer approaches the Start Box, and then they will drop/wave the flag once the boat is clear to fully accelerate. The flagger will hold up a yellow flag to warn the racer if they’re approaching at a high rate of speed with use of a radar gun, and we also have a real-time speed display for the racers to see. The flagger will hold up a red flag to stop the racer from continuing, or to signify that the course is closed. In the past, closures have been caused by adverse weather conditions or unforeseen emergencies.”
True story, Martin is also married to none other than Leah Martin, Executive Director of the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout and now, Shootout Offshore. He says that he used to be a big deal.
“For the first year that the Shootout ran in 1989, the funds that were raised didn’t actually go back to the fire departments,” explained retired Osage Beach Fire Protection District Chief Jeff Dorhauer. “For the first several years, the Shootout worked in a similar manner as it does now, where funds are donated to local charities and it operated under the original name of the Shooter’s Shootout, because its host location was at Shooters 21 at the time. After about four or five years, four local fire departments–Osage Beach, Lake Ozark, Gravois Mills, and Mid-County–took care of everything from fundraising within our own jurisdictions to setting up and maintaining the racecourse.”
Editor’s Note: Fundraising included merchandise sales, collecting money in tin cans and boots at gas stations and grocery stores with proceeds matched by the title sponsor at the time, Budweiser, and walking into local businesses in hopes that another firefighter had not already solicited a sister location in an outside jurisdiction (i.e., Marine Max has locations in both Osage Beach and Lake Ozark).
“When the Shootout first started, what has now become a weeklong event only occurred over a period of one to two days,” explained retired Lake Ozark Fire Protection District Chief Mark Amsinger. “I became involved as a volunteer in the mid-90s when the fire departments were responsible for their own advertising sales, and whatever money was raised came back to our own departments. It wasn’t until the Shootout grew to such a point in 2008 that the four departments met and agreed that it had become its own entity, and proposals were received from local businesses to host the event. After receiving several proposals, it was then moved to Captain Ron’s and the West Side community on a trial basis. They did so well that first year, it was obvious that we made the right decision for everyone.”
Editor’s Note: The Water Patrol and U.S. Coast Guard became involved with regattas and safety enforcement after 9/11. In the early days, patrol boats ranged from new boats for sale that had been generously (and temporarily) donated to the Shootout over race weekend, to borrowing Ameren’s mosquito fleet boats, which were pontoons that Ameren used to go around the Lake of the Ozarks and spray mosquitos with (and sometimes, these boats had so many holes in them that it took two hours to fully drain once brought back to shore).
“It was a really big deal when racers first broke 200 miles per hour,” continued Amsinger. “Callan Marine broke the 200-mile-per-hour mark first in their turbine boat, and then their speed was conquered by Miss Budweiser’s hydroplane boat. The Spirit of Qatar clinched the all-time highest speed on the 1-mile course of 244 miles per hour ten years ago, and American Ethanol has since held onto their Top Gun title for a number of recent years.”
Editor’s Note: In addition to Shooter’s Shootout, the Shootout was also previously called the Lake Rescue Shootout and it began as a 1-mile racecourse in front of Shooters 21 (at the 21-mile mark of the Main Channel), and it has since moved to Captain Ron’s at the 34.5-mile marker and operates over a shortened ¾-mile course.
“When the Shootout was transferred over to the West Side, they, along with a small army of volunteers, really blew it out of the water and helped take it to what it has become today,” Dorhaurer said. “Because of everyone’s determination and effort, the Shootout is now an internationally recognized and copyrighted 501©(3) organization. We never would have expected the Shootout to become all that it has if you would have asked us firefighters in 1989.”
Editor’s Note: The following is a projection of total funds raised since the Shootout’s inception in 1989: 1989-1993 = $15,000/year for a combined total of $75,000.00 | 1994-2007 $20,000.00 + an additional $5,000.00 increase with every passing year for a combined total of $735,000.00 | 2008-2023 = a calculated total of $3,945,000.00. To date, it is believed that the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout has raised and donated (apart from operating costs) $4,755,000.00. In 2023, the Shootout donated a record-breaking $625,000.00 to a total of 39 tri-county non-profit organizations, police departments, and fire protection districts.
The History of Shootout Offshore–Shootout Offshore 101
As for the history of offshore powerboat racing at the Lake of the Ozarks, this story has been threaded together over the course of 31 years, and it has nonconsecutively operated under many different names. The first-ever organized offshore race at the Lake of the Ozarks occurred in 1993 under the name, “Super Boat ‘93 – The Event: First Annual Lake of the Ozarks Race.” Taking place between September 10-12th, 1993, this offshore powerboat race took place at Shooters 21, where the schedule of events kicked off with a dry pit race boat viewing. A wet pit race boat viewing was available to the public on the second day, and the ‘super boat races’ took place on the final day, which happened to be a calm Sunday at noon.
Editor’s Note: Unlike the Shootout, which has always involved a singular vessel running an acceleration-based ‘race’ across a specified distance with boats of all sizes participating across a series of different classes, offshore racing involves a group of powerboats that do just that – they race each other.
“Back in the early days of 1990’s offshore powerboat racing, the races took place between the Lodge of the Four Seasons and Shooters 21 (where the Shootout was originally held),” retired Osage Beach Fire Protection District Chief Jeff Dorhauer continued. “Offshore racing took place on and off throughout the years, but it never really took consistent hold until it evolved into what is now the 11th Annual Lake Race/LOTO Powerfest/Shootout Offshore event.”
Editor’s Note: The shape of Shootout Offshore’s racecourse is similar to an oval and more than one boat (often several boats) race alongside one another in unison. The boats that are racing together are not always competing against one other, however, as more than one class can run at the same time as another class. Shootout Offshore’s 12 winning classes are categorized by first, second, and third place as either Super Cat, Factory Stock, Super Stock, Vee Extreme, Modified Vee, Stock Vee, and Classes 2-7.
When asked about the growth of this offshore powerboat event over time, Dorhauer’s answer was surprising.
“The number of boats and spectators have consistently been within about the same range, and neither one of those numbers have necessarily grown over time,” Dorhauer said. “With everything that the Shootout is doing this year, however–bringing in Powerboat P1, extending the event, and seeing boats from outside of the U.S. participate–the growth that we will see will likely come this year. Prior to the Shootout acquiring this offshore race event, the mission and vision statement of this race has always been to bring more individuals to the Lake of the Ozarks on an otherwise dead weekend, and to create more national and international exposure to the Lake Area. It takes a lot of money and manpower to pull an event like this off each year.”
Editor’s Note: On a very basic level, offshore racing is comparable to running heats on a sprint car track. As offshore races can run multiple classes at the same time, certain boats can run in unison with bigger boats, but not necessarily against each other. The oval course itself is approximately five miles long. Most runs are completed in 20-30 minutes, depending on how many laps the boats make (smaller boats would run fewer laps than the bigger boats that are running at the same time).
“When I started getting involved with Shootout Offshore, it was called the 2004 OSS Series at Camden on the Lake for three to four years,” continued retired Lake Ozark Fire Protection District Chief Mark Amsinger. “During the year of COVID in 2020, Performance Boat Center threw something together with OPA, but it wasn’t a truly sanctioned event that year.”
Editor’s Note: Since the 1990s, offshore racing at the Lake of the Ozarks has taken place between both spring and fall (2024’s races will take place on May 31st-June 1st).
“Throughout the history of this event, we’ve witnessed Shootout Offshore take place in June right after Memorial Day Weekend, and also in September and October,” Amsinger said. “It was moved to the spring/summer because of how it fell into OPA’s race scheduling. When it was the OSS races, they took place in the fall, because there is far less lake traffic than during the summer months, and it made it much easier to set up and maintain the racecourse while ensuring the safety of the spectators.”
“We were a volunteer organization prior to making these offshore races its own board (so as to continue on with this event no matter who was spearheading it),” explained Tom Abbett, Board President of Lake Race/LOTO Powerfest until 2024 when it fell under the wings of the Shootout and was renamed Shootout Offshore. “Since 1993, the mission of this race has always been to draw tourism to the Lake of the Ozarks. When we picked it back up in 2013, our goal was to bring another big event to the Lake Area on an otherwise ‘dead weekend,’ aka the weekend after Memorial Day.”
Editor’s Note: Last year, Shootout Offshore played host to approximately 60 boats (30 of which participated in the OPA-sanctioned races). The vantage point from the host location, Shady Gators and Camden on the Lake, was also a big selling point for the organization.
“It’s a circus when these sanctioned race events come into town,” Abbett said, in closing. “They pop up their tents and draw in massive crowds, but at the end of the day, they’re all families and they want to go out to dinner and enjoy the Lake, too, which makes Camden on the Lake and Shady Gators perfect for them, because they have it all–pools, restaurants, and more. Everyone thinks that Florida is the country’s high-performance boating destination because of Key West, Miami, and Ft. Lauderdale, but the Lake of the Ozarks has become its own identity in the performance boating world due to the freedoms that we have here, and the amount of money that our local businesses like Performance Boat Center, Big Thunder Marine, Waves and Wheels, HP Mafia, and more have invested into the Lake. As a board, we wanted more national focus on this race and now we have international focus with Powerboat P1 bringing in boats from all over the world to come to our beautiful area. So, mission successful–not complete–but successful at taking high-performance boats to the next level here at LOTO.”
Editor’s Note: Backed by UIM/APBA sanctioning, representatives from Europe will be present to ensure that all safety requirements in place meet international standards for racer and spectator safety. With the chance of becoming a national and/or world-class champion, this point-based, sanctioned race will optimistically attract even more big-name racers this year. It is the hope of Powerboat P1 to encourage speed enthusiasts such as Steve Curtis and Travis Pastrana to attend and participate in the Shootout Offshore event at the Lake of the Ozarks in 2024.
“UIM Class 1 World Championship and APBA National Championship Series racing is the pinnacle of offshore powerboat racing, and it brings with it the biggest, fastest, and loudest boats with racers from Australia, Italy, the United Kingdom, and, of course, the United States,” said Thomas Covington, Director of Business Development with Powerboat P1. “Bringing in these international race teams adds an entirely different element to these sanctioned races, and their presence will hopefully bring more national and international attention to watch teams that are only in the United States during certain times of the year.”
