For the best high-performance boat event of the year, look no further than central Missouri.
Don’t get me wrong, I flat out love covering the annual Super Boat International Offshore World Championships. I mean, what’s not to love about a week in Key West, Fla., in mid-November? That’s usually when the weather gets dicey in the San Francisco Bay area—where I live—so covering the Key West Worlds presents a nice getaway, even if it is “work.â€
But for me the Key West Worlds are more about reconnecting with the people I know in the offshore powerboat racing community than watching the races. That’s because since the 1999 and 2000 seasons, the event has been in a steady decline—for a number of reasons—so much so that last year pleasure boats from the Florida Powerboat Club outnumbered race boats by at least three to one … Details & Pictures
Dave Scott wins 2009 Captain Ron’s Shootout in Lake of the Ozarks. Winning speed 196 MPH
If you look at some of the other results at the 2010 World Championship, there’s a lot to like and many of the entries are far removed from all of the chopper variations of not too many years ago. The winner of the production class is this entry from Sergio Bayarri of Sbay Motor Company of Spain. Using a RevTech 110 cubic inch V-Twin, though it could as easily have been any of the many others available, they’ve built a sporty big twin custom  …Â