Chaos Skater Nabs ‘Fastest On The River’ In Tiki Lee’s Shootout On The River
The final act of the inaugural Tiki Lee’s Shootout On The River hosted by Tiki Lee’s Dock Bar in Sparrows Point, Md., saw several boats of all types take part in a “run what you brung” format top-speed shootout on the Back River.
Brit Lilly and Kevin Smith ran Steve Stanley’s 40-foot Skater to a top speed of 139.4 mph to claim the Fastest On The River award at the inaugural Tiki Lee’s Shootout On The River. Photos by Tim Sharkey/Sharkey Images
The Tiki Lee’s Shootout On The River officials attempted to follow the rules of other shootouts, such as the one at Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, by requesting boats to enter the course at 40 mph or less before being cleared to run down the three-quarter-mile straight in an effort to get the fastest speed possible.
Maryland natives Brit Lilly and Kevin Smith were fastest of the day in Chaos—a 40-foot Skater Powerboats catamaran owned by Steve Stanley, a longtime family friend of Lilly’s—posting a top speed of 139.4 mph.
“I had no plans to do the run, but Steve called and told me I had to do it…there was a $6,000 bottle of tequila on the line so we had to give it a go,” Lilly said with a laugh. “This was actually our first time running the boat without my dad, but it was a thrill. And I won the biggest trophy in the history of my career.”
Lilly and his team at Lilly Sport Boats recently overhauled the Skater powered by twin 1,250-hp Sterling Performance engines, giving it a flashy new paint job, cutting the quarter-canopies off and installing the new Skater wraparound windshield.
Check out the slideshow above for more images of the Tiki Lee’s Shootout On The River.
Overall runners-up of the day, Randy and Taylor Scism of Marine Technology Inc. posted a speed of 118 mph in the Missouri-based marque’s popular 390X twin Mercury Racing 450R-powered pleasure catamaran.
“We were pleased with the speed we had given the conditions—running into a stiff headwind slowed us down a bit,” said MTI’s client relations and marketing director Taylor Scism. “This hull has proven itself time and again, ably running faster than 130 mph. We weren’t there to prove anything, other than to support the event and connect with the East Coast boating community.”
One of the most unique entries of the day was a 27-foot Avalon Pontoons model equipped with two Mercury Racing 450R engines piloted by WMF Watercraft and Marine’s Bill Forenski, who was a title sponsor of the inaugural event. Forenski posted a respectable 76.9-mph run in the boat dubbed Absolut Madness that ended up being a talking point of many spectators walking the docks throughout the weekend. It’s also the world’s fastest Avalon, according to Forenski, who said the boat was weighed down with 100 gallons of gas and two fully loaded coolers.
A gorgeous 25-foot Avalon Excalibur, which was driven by WMF’s Kyle West and powered by a single 450R, also took to the course and reached a 52.9-mph top speed.
Other class winners included Jason Monmonier, who drove his 39-foot Velocity up to 89.8 mph to win the 32- to 40-foot class, John Plaine, who won the 27- to 31-foot class with a 90.2-mph run in his Scarab Viper, and Erik Pennypacker, who won the 22- to 26-foot class with a top speed of 77.9 mph in his Scarab 1 V-bottom. Finishing in second place in the 22- to 26-foot class was Maryland-based FUMarine’s Frank Ungarten, who ran his 22-foot Apache to 75 mph and then watched his wife, Christie, run the boat solo three times with a top speed of 70.8 mph. According to Frank Ungarten, she was the only female to make a pass all by herself.
Despite his restaurant battling power outage issues throughout the afternoon, Tiki Lee’s Dock bar owner Dave Carey made several passes on the course in his 37-foot Midnight Express center console powered by quad Mercury Racing 450R engines (the same boat that graced the cover of the first Speed On The Water 2021 digital magazine).
David Carey’s 37-foot Midnight Express took center stage all week during the Tiki Lee’s Shootout On The River in Maryland.
“In the shootout, you could see boats running 80 mph or 140 mph, whereas the kilo run was much closer in contest, and it was a lot more technical for the spectators to fully understand,” Carey said in regard to the shootout and kilo run portions of the event that followed Friday’s massive poker run (read the story). “In the future, we may switch the days around to give spectators the faster-paced event first.”
Carey’s fastest pass in the 37-footer, which he also ran in Sunday’s exhibition race against the aerobatic stunt plane, ended up being 86.3 mph—just five-tenths of a mph shy of his friend David Landsman’s speed in Game Changer, his 43-foot Midnight Express powered by quint Mercury Racing 450R engines.
Following what was an extremely eventful few days and despite Carey not winning the fastest center console award, the consensus among attendees of the inaugural event was that the Tiki Lee’s team won in its execution of the inaugural event.
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