Next to the soul-crushing heat, the hottest topic at the sixth annual Rock The River Cincy Fun Run in Ohio last weekend was this week’s Lake of the Ozarks Shootout. With boats in tow, a slew of participants in the Ohio River affair left Sunday for the 37th annual Central Missouri event.
Which begs a question: How important is the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in the grand scheme of happenings in the go-fast boating universe?
You be the judge.
First off, it’s the only significant domestic event scheduled next weekend. That alone makes the Shootout unique. On any given weekend summer around the country, there are no less than two events each Saturday. The Rock The River Cincy affair and the Lake Champlain Poker Run, for example, happened last weekend. Work your way back through this summer’s happening and you’ll find event-overlap after event-overlap.
But not this weekend. There is but one major event and it’s in the Ozarks.
The Shootout itself happens Saturday and Sunday. But from a social/powerboat-display perspective, the three days prior are the meat of the event. The fun starts tomorrow evening with the traditional Shootout On The Strip street exhibit and celebration presented by Waves And Wheels. With tomorrow’s daytime high-temperature forecast of 87 degrees with 68 percent humidity, the evening outdoors will be about as pleasant as it gets in Central Missouri this time of year.
Starting Thursday at 10 a.m., the in-water boat exhibit at Dog Days Bar and Grill—Shootout headquarters this year—runs through 4 p.m. And though the Performance Boat Center Welcome Party that evening isn’t technically a “boat show,” the grounds and docks at the Osage Beach, Mo., dealership are a perennial display of cool go-fast catamarans, center consoles and V-bottom sportboats.
Plus, even if you’re boat-showed-out, the Performance Boat Show event is a massive party that finished with an over-the-top fireworks display.
Thanks to Super Cat Fest, a concurrently running but separately produced event, the show continues throughout Friday and Saturday at the docks of the Camden On The Lake Resort. Your best bet for catching the entire Super Cat Fest fleet begins late Friday afternoon and goes late into that evening. The hardware displayed could be—and I use that qualifier to avoid bruising any feelings—the best of the weekend.
And then the real show happens for the next two days on the three-quarter-mile course.
The Lake of the Ozarks Shootout is summer’s go-fast boating grand finale. And it comes by that description honestly.