Hauling Your Boat to the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout
The 38th Shootout runs August 29 and 30 on the Grand Glaize Arm. If your boat is coming from out of state, the truck is the part people leave too late.
The Lake of the Ozarks Shootout is the largest unsanctioned boat race in the country, and the 38th running is set for Saturday August 29 and Sunday August 30, 2026 on the Grand Glaize Arm, just south of the Grand Glaize Bridge. Dog Days serves as race headquarters. Racing starts at 8:00 in the morning both days with registration opening at 7:00, and watching from the water is free.
Boats run a three quarter mile straightaway and the top classes clear 200 miles per hour. Plenty of the boats that show up did not get here on their own bottom. They arrived on a truck, and that part of the weekend is the part owners tend to plan last.
Schedules do shift. Confirm the current lineup on the official Shootout site before you book travel around it.
Why so many Shootout boats arrive on a truck
A serious go fast boat is not a casual tow. The rigs are heavy, wide, and worth more than the truck pulling them, and a lot of owners are coming from Florida, Texas or the coasts rather than from somewhere in Missouri. Towing a forty foot catamaran fifteen hundred miles behind a pickup is legal in plenty of cases and still a bad way to spend three days before a race.
So the boat gets loaded, the owner flies in, and the two of them meet at the Lake. That is the normal pattern for anything competitive, and it is why late August is one of the busiest stretches of our year for boat transport.
When you actually need to book
Sooner than most people think. There is one truck and one driver here, so the calendar fills in the order the calls come in and there is no second rig to hand your boat to when the week gets tight.
- Two to three weeks ahead is comfortable for a standard width boat coming from a nearby state.
- Longer than that if the boat is wide enough to need permits, because each state issues its own and they take time to come back.
- Book the return at the same time. Everyone wants out on the Monday and Tuesday after the race, and that is the single tightest window of the whole event.
If you are reading this in race week, call rather than fill in a form. We will tell you honestly whether it can be done instead of taking a booking we cannot keep.
Beam and height decide everything
The first two questions we ask about a race boat are how wide it is and how tall it sits on the trailer. Length matters far less than owners expect.
Beam is what separates a routine haul from a permitted oversize load. Under the legal width limit for the states on the route it moves like any other boat. Over that line it needs an oversize permit from every state the route crosses, and at greater widths it also needs escorts and daylight only travel. None of that is a problem. All of it needs lead time and it changes what the trip costs.
Height decides the route itself. Bridges and overhead wires do not move, so once the boat is on the deck we know what we have to clear. Canopies, arches and towers that do not fold get measured before anything is planned, not discovered somewhere in Arkansas.
Measure the widest point, including rub rails and any overhang, and measure the height on the trailer rather than in the water. Those two numbers are what we price the lane from.
What an oversize run actually involves
Once a boat is over legal width, the trip stops being a straight line on a map. Every state on the route issues its own permit, each with its own conditions, and those conditions frequently include approved routes, allowed travel days and daylight only movement. Wider still and a pilot car has to be arranged and scheduled alongside the truck.
All of that gets priced into the quote before pickup rather than appearing on an invoice afterwards. It also explains why a wide boat booked with ten days notice is a harder job than the same boat booked with three weeks. The same applies to pontoons and tritoons, which are wide by design, and to any hull tall enough that height decides the route rather than width.
What 242 miles per hour looks like
The 2025 running was the 37th, and the first at Dog Days after sixteen years at Captain Ron’s. It also produced a course record that will take some beating. Darryl Cuttell and Steve Curtis put the fifty foot Mystic Darana Hybrid, twin turbines, formerly Spirit of Qatar, down the three quarter mile at 242 miles per hour, demolishing the previous 221 mark and taking Top Gun.
The 37th Annual Lt. Governor’s Cup. Video from the official Lake of the Ozarks Shootout channel.
Boats at that end of the field are custom, turbine powered and worth more than most houses. They do not get driven to Missouri. They get trucked, and the people trucking them plan it months out.
Getting a race boat ready to travel
Race boats travel better than most, because owners already keep them tight. The prep list is still worth running.
- Canopies and covers come off or get strapped flat. Highway speed destroys canvas that felt perfectly secure in the slip.
- Anything loose in the cockpit comes out, including electronics that are not bolted down.
- Drain what needs draining and disconnect the batteries.
- Photograph the boat before pickup. We photograph ours too, so there is a shared record at both ends.
- If a marina or a shop is releasing the boat, hand us the contact so we arrange it directly instead of you standing in the middle.
Coming to the Shootout?
Send the two ends of the trip and the beam. We will price the actual lane, and tell you straight if the week is already full.
The race is not the only thing happening
Shootout week carries a poker run and a street party alongside the two days of racing, which is part of why the transport calendar around it gets so tight. Boats are not just arriving for Saturday morning. They are arriving for a week, and a lot of them are moving again the moment it finishes.
The Shootout Poker Run. Video from the official Lake of the Ozarks Shootout channel.
Getting it home is the harder booking
The Monday after the Shootout is the busiest day on the water and the busiest day for trucks. Half the field wants to leave at once, and the boats going the furthest are usually the ones that have made no arrangement at all.
Booking both legs at once is the fix, and it is what most of our repeat customers do. One truck, one driver, same person at both ends of the weekend. A broker cannot promise you that, because a broker does not know who is going to accept the load off the board in September.
Carrier, not a broker
Most of what comes back when you search for boat transport is a brokerage. They collect a deposit, post your boat to a load board, and whoever accepts it is the person who shows up. For a family runabout that is a nuisance. For a race boat heading to a national event it is a real risk.
We are the truck. Xclusive Transport Services is a licensed motor carrier, USDOT 2817526 and MC-939339, hauling since 2015 with no crashes in the last twenty four months and an A plus rating with the BBB. You can look every bit of that up yourself on the FMCSA site before you speak to us, and we would rather you did. There is more on how the company is built if you want it.
Based minutes from the Grand Glaize
Home base is Eldon, so the Lake is a short run and Missouri pickups happen most weeks. That matters in race week, when a boat needs collecting from a marina on the Thursday and nobody is driving in from three states away to do it. See Lake of the Ozarks boat transport for the local detail, or Missouri for statewide runs.
Beyond that we run point to point anywhere in the lower 48, which is how most Shootout boats get here in the first place.