It was a Wide Open weekend on Chesapeake Bay as the Third Annual Tiki Lee’s Shootout on the River hosted both a poker run and a speed run event with plenty of other entertainment and action to keep a big crowd of high-performance boaters fully engaged.
Located at the mouth of the Black River in Sparrows Point, Md. (just east of Baltimore) Tiki Lee’s Dock Bar served as home base for the event with a live radio broadcast on 98 Rock as poker run participants arrived for breakfast. There were 97 boats registered for the 110-mile poker run, including performance catamarans, sport boats and center consoles. All boats stopped for lunch at Lee’s Landing Dock Bar in Port Deposit, Md., near the mouth of the Susquehanna River and the northern-most reach of the bay. Lunch featured a full menu, pool party and live music. Boats then ran back to Tiki Lee’s for more fun, including a bikini contest, air show and music.
Saturday featured a top-speed shoot-out event sponsored by Mercury Racing dealer Total Marine. Boats ran over a ¾-mile course with a 50-mph limit at the start and a radar trap at the end. Top speed for the event – for the second year in a row – went to the Maryland Offshore Performance Marine Center duo of Andy Imhof and Mitch Kramer at 137 mph in the Teasers 36-foot Skater Powerboats catamaran. David Landsman brought his recently updated 42-foot MTI with twin Mercury Racing 1350 engines to the shoot-out. Landsman, who said he’s still getting used to the boat and getting it dialed in, reached a top speed of 127 mph.
Other notable class winners in the Shootout included the Fastest Woman on The River, Christie Ungarten, who reached 80 mph in her 22-foot Lil Mo Apache V-bottom. Connor Toomey had the fastest outboard-powered cat at the event as his 32-foot Doug Wright clocked a 101-mph top speed. The fastest V-bottom at the event was Bill Nohle’s 50-foot Cigarette, Thunderstruck, which is powered by triple Mercury Racing 1075SCi engines and ran 99 mph. The fastest center console was Jack Cuoto’s 88-mph pass in his 39-foot Nor-Tech dubbed Trimmed Out. Richard Leon’s Fountain, Miami Vice ran 104 mph with triple Mercury Racing 450R outboards. After the speed runs were complete, there was another airshow before a barge was towed into place for the launch of a 30-minute, 6,500-shell fireworks display.
On Sunday the Tiki Lee’s docks turned into a boat show, as participants had a chance to visit with other owners and get a good look at all the boats. Key sponsors of the event include title sponsor LifeMed Institute, Glasstream Powerboats, Total Marine and Maryland Offshore Performance Marine Center.
“It was another great event,” said Jim Renfrow, who co-owns Total Marine with Tom Caruso. “We enjoyed showing off the new GSX models from Glasstream and delivering a new 32 GSX to a happy customer. We can’t wait to do it again next year.”
Learn about the Mercury Racing Wide Open lifestyle and all Mercury Racing high-performance products at Mercuryracing.com.
