American Ethanol wins its tenth Top Gun as the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout announces a move.
By Gregg Mansfield
When the nearly 100,000 fans turned out for the annual 2024 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout at Captain Ron’s Bar & Grill, little did they know it would be the last time for the host location.
Just a couple of months after American Ethanol won its tenth straight Top Gun title, organizers announced the late August event was moving across the lake starting in 2025. The move came as a surprise, as Captain Ron’s had hosted the Shootout since 2008.
Organizers believe the move to Dog Days Bar & Grill near Mile Marker 19 will take the 37th annual Lake of the Ozarks Shootout to the next level.
“Sometimes, amazing opportunities fall into your lap, and they are too great to pass up,” said Mark Maasen, Shootout board president. “This monumental moment is one of those opportunities.”
Maasen said the new location will improve the fan experience, raise more money for the lake’s charities and provide a safer course for the speed runs. While Dogs Days Bar & Grill will be the new host, organizers say all the establishments in the area will create a block host location.
The Shootout is moving back to Osage Beach, the largest city on the lake, where it originally started in 1989.
“We have grown exponentially over the last few years, and this new location will be able to grow with us,” said Taylor Scism, who serves on the Shootout board.
Scism said the proposed 3/4-mile course is just south of the Grand Glaize Bridge crossing near the Grand Glaize Arm. Organizers said the new course will have fewer rollers and should shrink the lake’s sizable no-wake zone put in place during Shootout weekend.
Shootout Dominance
No matter where the course is on Lake of the Ozarks, the American Ethanol team will be there to defend their Top Gun title. The team was so dominant at the 2024 Lake of the Ozarks Shootout that John Cosker got to be a reluctant tourist on the last day of the event.
Cosker and company took the Mystic M5200 center console and spent the day at Coconuts on the lake, watching on television as teams tried unsuccessfully to break their record 221-mph speed run they set on Saturday. It broke their previous record of 217 mph on the 3/4-mile course.
If Cosker had his way, he would have loved another shot on Sunday morning at making another speed pass at the 36th annual event. Onken had other plans, telling the team they accomplished a major goal.
“We pretty much laid it all out there, but I would have loved to do another one, because the start wasn’t what I wanted,” Cosker said. “The boat pulled like a monster on the top end, but on the low end, we probably could have made up a little bit of a ground there.”
American Ethanol has 10,000 horsepower, but one side of the quad-engine setup was making roughly 1,000 less horsepower.
“We want to go the next level, not just where we’re at,” Onken said. “Once we get the two engines in, we think we can go in the 230s (mph) with two more of the quad cams in there.”
Onken’s American Ethanol has won every Shootout since 2015 and the 51’ Mystic catamaran is a fan favorite at the docks. The 2024 Shootout had a record 111 boats and PWC registered, yet the two-day speed runs are only part of what makes the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout a draw.
Leading up to the Shootout, organizers hosted a series of events and among the biggest draws are the Shootout on the Strip Street Party presented by Waves & Wheels Marine, the welcome party at Performance Boat Center, Poly Lift Boat Lifts’ poker run and the Shootout Live Auction.
Volunteers handle everything from course control to parking, donating time on behalf of their charity. The charities, from fire departments to shelters, receive funding based on the number of hours they donated. For organizations such as Livabilities, which provides support to special needs adults, the money is crucial to their mission.
Closing the Gap
While the overall speeds might not reflect it, American Ethanol had more competition than in recent years.
Five boats topped 150 mph this year with Dirty Duck the fastest of the group, posting a 202-mph run, despite having half the horsepower. The 438 Skater, owned by Slug Hefner, had a friendly rivalry with American Ethanol’s Onken.
“I told Don with the American Ethanol boat you’ve got four engines and I’ve got two,” Hefner said. “You should give us a handicap. They have handicaps in golf and bowling. I don’t know why we wouldn’t do this. And he said, “Well, I’ll take two out. If you take two out.”
Myrick Coil and Rusty Williams ran the Skater to 199 mph on Saturday and went out on Sunday to break the 200-mph mark. The team switched to 38” props and got 202 mph.
“If we had today’s setup and ran it yesterday (during cooler temperatures), I think we could have done better than the 202 mph without the wind conditions we had today,” Williams said.
Coil believes the Skater was the first non-Mystic performance boat to break the 200-mph mark.
“I can’t remember a 200-mph pass by a boat other than a Mystic, especially on the 3/4-mile course,” Coil said.
Rounding out the Top 5, Jim Schultz had a 186-mph pass in his 51’ Outerlimits and Team Yahoo’s Jamin Jones ran 170 mph.
Another Record Falls
Organizers smashed another fundraising record in 2024 by raising $730,000 for 43 nonprofit organizations, police and fire departments in the region. This came on a record haul of $675,000 in 2023.
Since the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout was founded in 1989, it’s raised an estimated $5.4 million for charities as well as a major tourism driver for the central Missouri lake.
“It was a great weekend. We had record-breaking events all week,” said Leah Martin, executive director of the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout. “The street party was massive. The poker run was great, and the live auction raised $350,000. We couldn’t do it without the thousands of volunteer hours.”
