Offshore racer Tyler Miller, who owns and throttles the Super Cat M-CON 388 Skater with driver Myrick Coil, will attempt to set a new Dam-to-Dam Challenge speed record in the Lake of the Ozarks, MO this morning. This run had originally been scheduled for the week following Florida’s Sarasota Grand Prix, July 1-3, but mechanical issues prevented it from happening.
The event involves a run from Bagnell Dam in Lakeside, MO to Truman Dam in Warsaw, MO and back. Miller and his team must complete the 188-mile trip in less than 2 hours, 29 minutes and 49 seconds, which is the current standing record. Today’s event follows Miller’s attempt to break the record last year in his personal Skater 368 catamaran, powered by twin Mercury Racing 450R outboards, but the boat unfortunately suffered a mechanical failure.
The plan is to depart from The Neon Taco restaurant on Bagnell Dam Strip around 7:30 a.m. Central Time, where the crew will sound the horn to start the official clock. M-CON‘s Crew Chief Jake Leckliter will act as the team’s “LeMans-style starter” to start the run. They’ll then head towards Truman Dam to touch shore in Warsaw for an official check-in that is being monitored by Midwest Boat Party representatives, and begin the return run to Neon Taco at the Bagnell Dam, race to shore and ultimately sound the horn, which will officially stop the clock.
Miller will be piloting his same 368 Skater, which will be available to track progress via telemetry technology. Fans are invited to follow their run here.
Miller said this year’s on-board team would include his wife Lindsey Miller, Shane Sherman and Leckliter. “Typically, if you’re really trying to beat an endurance record, you would just throw two people in the boat,” Miller says. “Yes, we want to beat it, but we still want to enjoy the experience. Tyson and Tristan Garvin did it, I think, with five people in the boat, so it just makes it memorable. We also think we needed to redeem ourselves from last year. We were on-pace to beat it but just didn’t get it done– due to mechanical failure.”
The Garvins set the original record—2 hours, 29 minutes and 49 seconds—on Sept. 20, 2014, when they ran with Sherman, Andy Sanders and Michael Donahue in their 39′ V-bottom Skater, powered by twin 480-hp Cummins diesel engines with Arneson ASD8 surface drives.
UPDATE: After losing a couple of blades on one (or both) of their propellers with only 40 miles left to complete, the Millers’ attempt to beat the Dam-to-Dam record failed. However, plans are already being made to try again. Watch this space for an exciting announcement on Monday!