Taking In The Fun At The Lake Cumberland Thunder Run

ByJason Johnson

Following Friday’s fun run portion of the Lake Cumberland Thunder Run in Jamestown, Ky., which is hosted at State Dock Marina by the Lake Cumberland Powerboat Club, I was pretty wiped out. On top of a lengthy travel day on Thursday, I squeezed in a few hours of sleep and proceeded to walk back and forth around the massive State Dock property a few times in the morning to say hi to old friends and meet new ones.

thunder19 hustler

Chris Mattingly enjoyed running his 38-foot Hustler for the first time since doing a handful of updates to the boat over the winter. Photo by Kevin Johns/Instant Memories Photography

Thanks to a heads up from Andy Imhof of Maryland Offshore Performance Marine Center in Rockville, Md., I was able to meet Chris Mattingly and his fiancé, Shelby, at their 500-row dock to check out their “new” Hustler Powerboats 388 Slingshot. Mattingly purchased the 38-foot V-bottom, which was powered by twin 800-plus-hp engines, a little more than a year ago—and after last year’s Lake Cumberland Poker Run in September, he turned it over to Imhof and his team for some paint updates, deck refinishing and a complete re-rig and engine rebuild.

It was clear after spending all afternoon on the Hustler for the event’s fun run that Mattingly was thrilled with the boat and its new 1,000-plus-hp engines and that Imhof was extremely proud of the project. And for good reason—the boat (and it’s mural below the engine hatch) was beautiful, and powerful. Look for a project story on the boat in the near future on speedonthewater.com.

Check out the slideshow above for more images from the Friday fun run. Photos by Jason Johnson

Fortunately the event’s official photographer—Kevin Johns of Instant Memories Photography—caught the 38-footer in action during the fun run. Of course he caught a lot more boats from the air and plans to do the same today. Look for images this evening following today’s 11th annual poker run.

I, on the other hand, got to catch a couple of impressive raft-ups on the lake thanks to Mattingly and a few of his friends—so I pulled out my camera to document the fun. I definitely got the full Lake Cumberland experience hanging out in the Harmon Creek area of the lake after picking up Friday’s bonus chip.

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