Hotboat.com at the 2013 LOTO Shootout

[HB Vic]

HB, it would be cool to hear the must do's, best restaurants/bars, hotels close to action etc.

Working on that. I'll do a little write up on the whole event hopefully have something posted tomorrow. My head is still spinning. Unbelievable event and an experience that we will never forget. We start planning next years trip tomorrow

[GotHalos]

Love this boat

[28eliminator]

KAP has his boat trimmed perfectly! Minimal wetted surface in the pictures.

X2... I think Johns got it dialed in..

[HB Vic]

X2... I think Johns got it dialed in..

We had the opportunity to take a little cruise in his boat Friday. All I can say is wow. Kap's boat is a cross between a slot car and dragster. It accelerates as hard as a blower boat and turns like its on rails. Amazing how it turns really. The boat also airs out incredibly well. Almost like the CG was set up for flight. It also rides incredibly well for such a light boat. It was an exhilarating ride. The only problem is Mrs. Hotboat loved it even more than I did

[GotHalos]

Still can't believe how much money in boats there is out there. Good to see people out there spending it right

[HB Vic]

Here are a few pics sent to me by Terry & Anne who were gracious enough to let us hang out with them on their beautiful 40 footer Sunday. Great meeting you all, and thanks again!!

[HB Vic]

As promised here are my thoughts on our first ever trip to LOTO and the shootout. First of all, I apologize to our members for not getting to the event sooner. It really was almost a last minute trip. Nothing was really planned. I was on the phone with a few people just a few days before we flew out trying to get some sort of plan together. All-in-all, for our first trip and not making any formal plans, we had an absolute blast.
I won’t get in to many of the details of the shootout itself, Lake of The Ozarks Shootout.org, does a very nice job of providing all of the shootout details. Details for the shootout can be found here:

http://www.lakeoftheozarksshootout.org/

Our trip started early Thursday morning as we flew out from John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. Non-stops are hard to come by, so we flew in to Vegas. Of course our connecting flight was almost 3hrs late. We could have driven to Vegas and still arrived in plenty of time to catch our next leg, ah well. From Vegas we flew to Kansas City. I either honestly forgot how long of a drive LOTO was from KC, or chose not to remember. 3hrs is a drive when you’ve been traveling all day. But we’re troopers, so off we went to LOTO.

Back tracking a bit, when I was looking for a place to stay, a good friend recommended VRBO for a house or condo. I’m fairly impatient when it comes to searching for stuff on-line. If it’s not in my face in black & white, I’ll usually skip to the next ad or item. I probably spent an hour or two searching for a place that was close to Captain Ron’s. Most of the ads were unclear about their location, which is kind of understandable. I quickly tired of searching for something close, so I found The Deepwater Inn. A small hotel around 1/4mi from Captain Ron’s. When I told my friend I booked a room at The Deepwater, several choice words came out of his mouth. After being accused of being a tight ass, amongst other things (lol), he offered the spare 3^rd bedroom at his Condo. So the plan now was if our hotel was as bad as he said it might be, we would skip and stay at his place.

We pulled in to The Deepwater around 11:30pm Thursday night. I’m pretty sure I hadn’t even see the hotel when the navigation said we were here, all I saw was this incredibly bad ass 50’ Cat tipped up on end in the parking lot. I looked at my wife and said “how bad can this place be when there is a million dollar plus boat in the parking lot?”. Well I was wrong, I didn’t realize yet it was the 50’ Mystic Turbine “My Way”. So it is probably much closer to $2M. As far as The Deepwater Inn, absolutely not a bad place to stay. Not a 4-5 star, but it was super clean, the people were very nice, and the pool looked very nice. So it worked out well.

We headed to Captain Ron’s Thursday night and had a couple beers. It was pretty quiet so we called it a night.

Friday morning we were pretty beat from the trip, so we completely missed the start of the Poker Run. We got to Captain Ron’s around 9am I believe. Ran in to a few people we knew at breakfast and after that cruised through the vendor booths and checked out all the amazing hardware at the docks. Shortly after that we ran in to Kap and his beautiful Doug Wright 32’. Kap being Kap, first words out of his mouth were “what are you doing right now?”. I promptly responded “going with you on a boat ride”. So off we went with Kap and a good friend of his Gary from Yuma.

After suiting up in life jackets and headsets, Kap hit the throttles and the DW 32 instantly responded. Before you know it, we were doing 100+ faster than a Teflon covered lightning bolt. The Doug Wright and Merc 300XS o/b’s are a marriage made in heaven. I can’t imagine that boat could possibly be setup any differently to perform any better. It really is an amazing package. We were fortunate enough that Kap needed to burn off a little fuel to get ready for the shootout on Saturday. I don’t remember the exact figures, but I’m sure he said he’d gone well over 120 miles and was still over ¼ tank full. I wish I had his fuel economy problems (lol).

After cruising around for awhile in Kap’s DW32, we headed back to Captian Ron’s. We got back around the time the Poker Runners were headed back to the docks. Things were warming up nicely and Captain Ron’s was in full swing. We hung out for awhile, met and talked to a lot of very nice people, had dinner, and called it a night.

Saturday morning we were up early. Headed to Captain Ron’s for some breakfast and bloody marys, which was very good, and then decided to cruise out to the Celebration. The Celebration is a essentially a 80’ dinner and event cruise Yacht that was anchored just outside the course very near the finish line. The Celebration had a couple different packages you can purchase at Captain Ron’s dock. A basic package that shuttled you to the Yacht (minimally priced) to an all-inclusive package that fed you and offered greatly reduced prices on adult beverages. We ordered two of the deluxe packages and it was well worth the price of admission and still very reasonably priced.

Onboard the Celebration was like being at an exclusive party surrounded by people who absolutely love boats. And better yet, they love boats that haul the mail. The beer was ice cold, the food was excellent, and we were surrounded by boat lovers. Ok, well it just can’t get any better than this, but it does, more on that later. The views of the course and lake from the Celebration was second to none. It was amazing. We met a ton of amazing people and hopefully made some friends who we can hang out with again next year. Interesting bit of trivia pointed out to me by the Captain of the Celebration. The Celebration entered, completed, and won (for its class/category) the Shootout in 1999’ at a whopping 12MPH. Very cool!!

For more information about the Celebration, click on the link below:

http://www.cruiselakeoftheozarks.com/

After spending nearly the entire day aboard the Celebration, we headed back to Captain Ron’s around 4:30pm. Captain Ron’s was absolutely packed at this point. It was nothing less than a full blown Mutiny Party. We took the shuttle (by the way, Captain Ron’s and the Event organizers provide a shuttle services to points North and South of Captain Ron’s, including the Deepwater Inn….free!) back to the Deepwater to drop off our work equipment then immediately headed back to Captain Ron’s where we met up with Kap, Gary, and some new to us friends. Captain Ron’s was rocking at this point. No idea how many people were there, but it had to be in the high hundreds, if not more.

We found a side bar that was a little off the beaten path, much easier to carry on a conversation. Hung out for a few hours, had some drinks and pizza (Captain Ron’s pizza is delicious!) and chatted with friends. Shortly after our group headed back to their hotels for some much needed rest, we headed right back in to the thick of the action. The first thing that caught my attention was this massive cruiser that sounded like a rock concert on the water (I posted pics on the site and a video on our IG, you gotta check this thing out). Absolutely the loudest, and cleanest sounding, mobile audio system I’ve ever heard.

Mrs. Hotboat took it upon herself to question the ipod operator (who appeared very young) as to the proper owner of the yacht. When he replied “its my dads boat”, we both chuckled. We hung out there listening to the music until security had enough of the shenanigans. Once we closed that party we went back inside Captain Ron’s where the music was just as loud. Everyone was having a goodtime. We had a few (maybe more than a few) drinks, possibly danced a little, and closed that party around 1:30am. Luckily the shuttle was still running so he headed back to the casa.

Sunday morning came sooner than either of us expected. After self-medicating with a little Tylenol, once again we headed back to Captain Ron’s. The plan was to go back aboard the Celebration and shoot day two from there. As it turned out, my good friend Kap had something else in mind for us. We loaded our gear in to Kap’s boat and cruised over to a massive 40’ boat named “CrazyFish” where a few of his friends were already tied up watching the action. Anne& Terry (owners of the CrazyFish) graciously welcomed us aboard their boat and made us feel completely at home. Thank you very much for your hospitality!

One of the members of my crew was still feeling the effects of the night before, so our stay aboard the CrazyFish was somewhat short lived. But the time we were there was definitely fruitful, I think I got some good shots of the Sunday action. Shortly after messaging for our shuttle (lol, fastest 32’ Cat ever with stock o/b power), we headed back to Captain Ron’s for a bite to eat.

Our late lunch on Sunday was a little disappointing. Disappointing that our excursion was quickly coming to a close. We talked about how nice everyone was that we met. How amazing the boats were, and of course how fast “My Way” ran a mile at 224MPH. That equates to somewhere around 16 seconds per mile. Just for comparison, 80mph is around 45 seconds per mile. Talk about smoking fast!!

The awards ceremony was shortly after lunch. Awards ceremonies usually don’t mean much to most of the crowd. The crowds are there to see the boats go fast, not to see the boat owners, family, crew members, and support people get recognized for their efforts. It was good to see all the smiles, pats on the back, and cheers from the fans (mainly family and friends it appeared) for those who made the trip, ran their boats, and put up whatever number they put up. At this point speed really didn’t seem like much of a motivating factor. Recognition at this point appeared to be more about the journey, and of course making it through the weekend safely, as everyone did. And of course spending lake time with friends and family.

Returning to work today was tough. Tough in the sense that an incredible weekend was over. Tough in the sense that trips and events like this only come on a rare occasion. And tough in the sense that when we do return to familiar waters, we will more than likely compare what we have vs what we have seen and experienced with LOTO. And not that we will be disappointed with what we have, but we will most certainly miss that experience and the friendships we made.

At least until next year.

HB

[orangecrushdaytona]

Outstanding report vic. We will for sure be going to this next year.

[WMC]

Great write up. HB

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[DaNinja]

Hotboat, your write up brought it all back. Great thread to read start to finish.

I am within earshot of the course and your coverage and pictures added to this local's experience. I am glad that you got to enjoy, not only the great boats, but the great hospitality here on the lake. All are welcome here.

Mark your calenders everyone. Week and weekend before Labor Day 2014.