Offshore At The Ozarks, Day 2: Supercat And Super Stock Teams Put On A Show

With just one race on today’s schedule—as opposed to the two on Friday—at the Offshore Powerboat Association-sanctioned Offshore At The Ozarks-Cat Edition on the Lake of the Ozarks in Central Missouri, the pressure was on to perform at the highest level. And some of the teams did just that as the two teams that won both of yesterday’s races—Shaun Torrente Racing in Super Stock and Gone Again in Super Cat—were not the teams victorious on Saturday.

Mostly sidelined for yesterday’s races, the SV Offshore and Dependable Marine teams put on a Supercat-class show today at the Offshore At The Ozarks-Cat Edition in Central Missouri. Photos by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

That honor went to the Performance Boat Center team of Myrick Coil and Rusty Williams in the eight-boat, 10-lap Super Stock race that started the afternoon of racing in front of the host location—Camden on the Lake Resort in Lake Ozark—for the race presented by Performance Boat Center.

Coil and Williams looked strong from the start in the 32-foot Doug Wright catamaran and were able to maintain their lead for the entire race over Shaun Torrente and Eric Belisle in the STR Doug Wright won both races easily on Friday and were a shoe-in to take first-place overall unless they finished near the back of the pack today. That didn’t happen as STR took second in the race and the Phase05 team ran uncontested to a third-place finish. The real battle throughout the race was for fourth through seventh, which went, in order, to FJ Propeller, Jackhammer, Team Allen Lawn Care and Landscaping, and LPC.

Back on the racecourse for the first time this year, Performance Boat Center’s Myrick Coil and Rusty Williams claimed first place in today’s 10-lap Super Stock contest.

“Heading into today we weren’t doing so well, so it was nice to get a good start like we did,” said Coil, throttleman for the PBC team. “All I could think about though after we got out front was ‘I hope we don’t screw this up.’ STR is a fast boat so we needed to so everything we could to keep them behind us. The boat was set up well and Rusty did a great job today. We bumped into CR Racing in the first race yesterday and did more damage than we initially expected, which is why we did so poorly. We knew when we hit that we damaged our steering because the boat was off. We fixed that between races, but what we didn’t realize until after the second race was that we broke a direct injector on the portside motor. We got that fixed last night and the boat was about 10 mph faster today.

“Man I logged some miles in some boats today,” Coil added, after racing in both classes since he drove the M-Con Skater Powerboats 438 cat in the Supercat contest. “It’s nice to have racing back at the lake. It’s a great place for it and the fan support is awesome.”

Torrente said he was happy with second place and the overall event victory in the team’s second race—he and rookie driver Belisle finished first at the OPA race in Morehead City, N.C., last month.

“We started in the back again so we battled some traffic at the start, but we were able to work our way past everyone except Performance Boat Center, which is a fast boat, and settle into second pretty early—from there we just tried to chase them down,” Torrente said. “It was an incredible learning experience for Eric to have to keep pace with the leader and try to make the moves to catch up. Unfortunately we had a couple of costly mistakes where we lost some time we had gained—again another great learning experience—so we just couldn’t catch them. We learned a lot this weekend in terms of setup and where the boat is happiest. We can’t wait for Morehead City.”

The Florida-based STR team was given a one-minute penalty for missing a buoy on the final lap in an effort to catch PBC, but the team was more than a minute ahead of Phase05 so it didn’t impact the standings.

Finishing first twice yesterday and taking second place today, Shaun Torrente and Eric Belisle delivered a commanding performance to take first-place overall in the Super Stock class.

Proving the value of consistency in multi-race, cumulative-points events, the Phase05 team of owner/driver Albert Penta and throttleman Jay Muller backed up yesterday’s third- and fourth-place finishes in their 32-foot Doug Wright with today’s third-place effort to ensure the third-place overall Super Stock trophy and make their long haul from the Northeast to the Midwest very worthwhile.

“Al did a great job behind the wheel and the crew worked super hard,” Muller said. “I always hope to do well—and hope for the best.”

Tyler Miler, the owner and throttleman of the M-Con Skater 388 catamaran, was thrilled to share the cockpit with Coil, a friend and driver he once competed against when Performance Boat Center was still fielding its Supercat-class team. The Kansas-based Miller and Coil, who lives at the Lake of the Ozarks, practiced together in the Sterling Performance Engines-powered 38-footer this summer.

Thanks to a broken crankshaft, the M-Con crew had to replace one of those engines at the Performance Boat Center facility in Osage Beach on Friday night. Fortunately, the team had a brand-new Sterling mill ready to go.

“The wind laid down to nothing today so we were eight to 10 miles per hour slower without the wind running down the down the tunnel,” Miller said. “There was some rubbing going on with a couple of boats right out of the gate—it was good to see everybody getting after it today. It was fun.

“Myrick and I gelled instantly in the cockpit,” he continued. “The Lake of the Ozarks is our home-water and he’s a pleasure to share the cockpit with. We each have four kids at home, and while we want to be competitive, our No. 1 goal is to come home at the end of the day.”

And home they went—the first-place overall in the class.

Check out the slideshow above for more images from the Offshore At The Ozarks-Cat Edition.

For Gone Again team owner Kenneth Mungle, taking second-place overall in the Supercat class was a fine reward for a challenging few days. On Friday, he announced back pain was forcing him out of the cockpit and that Billy Moore would take over as throttleman in the 38-foot Gone Again catamaran with driver Christian McCauley. Saturday saw Moore and McCauley claim first place in both races over a short field, but the cat’s port motor was damaged in the process.

“We went out today with seven cylinders in our port engine,” he said. “I was a happy camper to be able just to start today. We put a 35-inch prop on the bad side and a 33-inch prop on the other. The engine held up but we threw a dad-gum prop blade.

“I’m very happy with Billy and Christian,” he added. “Kenny Mungle is super happy.”

Snake-bit with steering pump issues yesterday that kept them out of the first race and in the second race just long enough to log two laps and earn points, the SV Offshore team of Vinnie Diorio and Simon Prevost dueled with M-Con and Dependable Marine before throwing a propeller. But Diorio and Prevost, despite have to exit in the sixth lap, were encouraged with today’s performance.

“The boat was so fast,” Diorio said. “The longer we ran the faster it got.”

The Class ONE Miss GEICO cockpit duo of throttleman Steve Curtis and driver Brit Lilly didn’t get the chance for an exhibition run in the team’s 47-foot Victory catamaran today. Yesterday’s demo run on the five-mile course left the team with mechanical issues that team couldn’t sort out in time, according to crew chief Gary Stray.

“We had transmission issue yesterday—the problem was in the harness,” he said. “We thought we fixed transmission, but the problem arose again. That’s why we think issue is in the harness.

“We were disappointed not to have given Brit another run today,” he added. “But despite today’s issue, we are thrilled with the boat’s overall performance.”

Editor’s note: All of today’s results are unofficial pending verification by the Offshore Powerboat Association. For complete results as they become available, visit the OPA website. And keep an eye out for race previews as we get closer to the upcoming OPA World Championships (October 23-25) in Morehead City, N.C.

Offshore At The Ozarks, Day 2: Supercat And Super Stock Teams Put On A Show

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