Mungle Sharing Cockpit, Running E85 Fuel In Shootout

For the first time since he started competing in the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout, fan favorite Kenny Mungle will have company in the cockpit of Gone Again, his 32-foot Skater Powerboats catamaran powered by twin 1,500-plus-hp Sterling Performance engines. Mungle is teaming up with Texas Offshore Performance Powerboat Squadron membe/secretary Lee Lockwood, who’ll be along for the ride as “navigator” during the cat’s runs down the liquid-mile course on the Central Missouri waterway.

With sponsorships, a navigator in the cockpit and reworked power, Kenny Mungle and his Gone Again Skater are coming to the 2015 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout(click image to enlarge). Photo courtesy/copyright Jay Nichols/Naples Image

Lockwood has been working with Mungle on the boat’s in-cockpit communication systems—Gone Again has side-by-side canopies—and more.

“He’s helped me a lot with the prep work on the boat,” said Mungle.

The ever-gracious and humble Texan said he also has found help in the form of sponsorship, a first since he began competing in top-speed events.

“Brett Manire of Performance Boat Center reached out to me and they’re actually giving me a little something,” Mungle said. “My boat is going to be at Performance Boat Center and at their party Thursday night. I’ve also struck up a relationship with Status Marine Company, which designed our new T-shirts. And I put together a package with Comzilla, the communications company.

“All of this is a unique deal for Kenny Mungle,” he added. “I’ve never had any help, much less sponsorship. So I’m pretty stoked about this year’s event.”

Another big change for Mungle? Sterling converted his engines to run on E85 fuel. The conversion involved changing fuel lines and injectors, as well as remapping the engines’ controllers.

“We’re actually running the same program the Cat Can Do boat is running,” he said. “We haven’t had a chance to take out the engines and put them on the dyno. We’re still running a little fat (rich) but that’s OK.

“We took it out last Saturday on the San Jacinto River in Houston and I was impressed with the torque gain,” he added. “It’s simply amazing the way the boat takes off now. What a difference. I think we can expect some pretty impressive numbers from the girl next weekend. But that said, I’m in a 32-foot boat and I’m already pushing the limits. Bigger numbers may be out there, but that doesn’t mean I’ll run them.”

Mungle said that although he would have liked to pilot the rudder-controlled 36-foot Skater cat he purchased earlier this year, the boat was not ready to run—and he wasn’t ready to run it.

“I don’t have any seat time in it, so even if it was ready I wasn’t just going to jump in and go,” he said.

Mungle Sharing Cockpit, Running E85 Fuel In Shootout

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