Tomlinson’s My Way Shatters Shootout Record with 224-MPH Run
Bill Tomlinson and Ken Kehoe hoist the Top Gun trophies after running 224 mph to win the 2013 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout.
On the second run of the morning on the second day of the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout, Bill Tomlinson and Ken Kehoe didn’t just break the Shootout top-speed record—209 mph, which they tied on Saturday afternoon—they annihilated it with a mind-blowing 224-mph pass in My Way, a 50-foot Mystic Powerboats catamaran with twin Lycoming T-55 turbine engines.
In good spirits after putting the boat back on the trailer, Tomlinson sat down with speedonthewater.com to discuss the record-setting run, which he and Kehoe followed up with a 216-mph run.
“We knew we were capable of it, we just didn’t want to say too much about it before we ran,” said Tomlinson, who is from Manatec, Ontario in Canada. “The boat can do more—it was pulling as fast when we came across the finish line as it was at 60 or 70 mph. It was running really well and it was very hot out today. The heat hurts us a little bit, but there’s still so much power there. At idle speed we have around 200 hp and at 100 percent we have 3,000 hp more or less. We were running about 110 percent, so we were running pretty strong.
“You know, it’s a tricky thing to get on it just right and to then keep the thing lined up,” continued Tomlinson, who took home his second Top Gun championship—he also won in 2011 with a 208-mph top speed. “We had one turbine pulling stronger than the other so we were counter-steering a little bit. That’s why we went back out—we thought we might be able to top (224 mph). If everything is just right, the boat is probably capable of running 240 mph.”
Tomlinson, who wanted to blow the record out of the water so “someone else is really going to have step up to beat it,” didn’t commit one way or another if he’s going to defend his Top Gun title. He said he just takes it one year at a time.
“It was a good run today and a lot of fun,” said Kehoe, who owns Kehoe Marine Construction in Lansdowne, Ontario, Canada. “We’ve put in a lot of work getting here, and we always worry that some little thing could break and we wasted a whole lot of effort, but it went really well today.”
Ron Duggan, the organizer behind the Shootout, was blown away by My Way‘s run.
“It was just a phenomenal, unbelievable run,” said Duggan, who owns Captain Ron’s. “I mean that’s just a crazy number. We were hoping for 210 or 212 mph, maybe even 215 mph, but 224? That number is going to be really tough to beat. Of course they think they can go faster. I know that sounds scary but it was a clean, smooth, safe run. What a great day for the Shootout and for everybody who came to watch it.”
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