Of the half-dozen or so Performance Boat Center-hosted Lake of the Ozarks Shootout Welcome Parties I’ve experienced, the 2014 version at the Cigarette, MTI, Performance Powerboats and Sunsation dealership in Osage Beach, Mo., stands out for a personal of reason. Then a journalism student at the University of Oregon, my son, Alex, joined me that year for Shootout week.
Photographer Jay Nichols captured the scene at the 2014 Performance Boat Center Lake of the Ozarks Shootout Welcome Party.
Now 33 years old, living in San Diego and working as project director for small marketing firm, he had never seen anything like the scene at the Thursday night affair.
Of course, he knew what I did and still do for a living. But first-person exposure to the exotic boats in the showroom and displayed around the property were new to him. So, too, was the slew of my colorful industry industry friends he met that night including Dustin Whipple of Whipple Industries, Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats founder Mike Fiore, throttleman Steve Curtis and Tony Cutsuries of Skater Powerboats.
The poor kid was bug-eyed.
Suffice to say he was not at his best the following morning. As his less-than-maximum-security-strict father, I have no idea how that happened.
That party actually was the second Performance Boat Center Shootout welcome bash—the first happened in 2013 at the home of Mark Waddington, who founded the dealership with Brett Manire. According to Manire, Waddington’s home-owners association wasn’t too thrilled with the celebration, so it moved the Performance Boat Center location the following year.
Relocating had its advantages, not the least of which was the expansive space the dealership itself. The location had enough space to host a huge bash and—being on the waterfront—a party-ending fireworks display worthy of a mid-size city on the Fourth of July. Adds all kinds of new and pre-owned boats in the showroom and at the docks just a short stroll from the Redhead Lakeside Grill with its tiki bar and pool, and you get the perfect environment for what has become the mother of all go-fast boating celebrations.
The same holds true today.
From the time the Thursday, August 27, event opens in the early evening till the time it closes several hours later with aforementioned fireworks show, thousands of performance-boating fans will experience Performance Boat Center hospitality in its finest over-the-top form. To be sure, the party attracts a crowd. Parking can be distant, although Performance Boat Center does offer golf-cart shuttle service for those who prefer even the shortest stroll. But remains an essential Lake of the Ozarks Shootout experience.
You may not able to make it every year. But you need to experience it at least once