After another wildly successful Desert Storm Poker Run & Shootout in Lake Havasu City, AZ, one of the event's owners has apologized for a calibration error in the radar guns that led to inaccurate speed results during the Shootout portion of the event.
Following the Shugrue's Shootout, Tim and Amanda Jones were crowned 2024 King and Queen of the Desert for their respective runs in their 388 Skater, Dial 911, powered by a pair of Carson Brummett turbocharged engines. Tim's reported speed was 199.5 mph, while Amanda's speed was 187 mph. Third place overall went to Steven Sundling (171.5 mph).
However, during the Shootout, some individuals observed peculiar discrepancies regarding the reported speeds coming from the event's radar guns. Lake of the Ozarks Shootout Executive Director Leah Martin and husband Justin, along with Shootout Editor Christy Wagner and husband Chris (who were in Lake Havasu to potentially start a collaboration between the two speed exhibitions), were on board the Start & Finish boats and noticed the elevated speed recordings and attempted to notify officials. Speedboat Team members Bob Teague and Ray Lee also noticed the inaccurate speeds early in the event and also informed officials.
After the conclusion of the Shootout and upon further inspection of the radar guns, Desert Storm co-owner Jim Russell discovered that the settings on two of the four radar guns employed had been inadvertently switched, consistently recording speeds between 10-20 mph higher than the actual speeds displayed on board each boat’s GPS.
“Desert Storm owns four precision radar guns, two of which are state-of-the-art, and these are used in parallel to ensure accuracy and duplicity at the course finish line, and two are used to monitor trap speeds,” explained Russell.
“I reviewed the speeds recorded from both of the finish line guns and found all to be very close between the two guns,” Russell continued. “Consequently, I didn’t think that the guns were in error. Nor did I expect an error in these expensive devices. However, after getting them back to our office, I retested the calibration of all four and horrifically discovered that, in fact, both of these guns were displaying consistent and identical errors, just as Bob (Teague) and Ray (Lee) thought. I might add that our older guns, used for trap speeds, were dead on calibration accuracy.
“Upon investigation, I learned that these guns have a unique ability to correct speeds when the angle of attack is increased from a straight line. This is accomplished by entering a cosine value into the microprocessor and is seldom needed in our application. I was horrified to learn that a large value had been entered into both of these guns with the effect of adding a calculated small amount of speed to the reading to correct, in our case, for a non-existent cosine error.
"I owe apologies to anyone affected by this inexcusable mistake on my part, in not ensuring that the guns were all calibrated immediately before the runs began on Saturday. You have my pledge that will not happen again, especially as we are striving to build our Shootout to a more important level,” said Russell.
The event was returned to a true 3/4-mile course with a 40-mph speed limit at the start box, after eliminating the 40-mph restriction last year, allowing competitors to start from a 1/4-mile back and enter the start box at whatever speed they achieved.
To help the Desert Storm Shugrue's Shootout attract more competitors for next year’s event, reigning King of the Desert Tim Jones has generously donated $20,000 towards prize money for 2025.
Radar-run readings notwithstanding, the 2024 Desert Storm Poker Run and Shootout represented a home run for owners Russell and Steve Ticknor, who pooled their resources and skills a couple of years ago to acquire this high-speed extravaganza. The 2024 installment was the second consecutive event under their new tenure.
The fun actually kicked off the previous week with the staging of the Lake Havasu Boat Show. Despite some unseasonable heat, the turnout was good, with all of the usual exhibitors on hand. Then, beginning the following Wednesday, it was nonstop fun and action every day, starting with the Kruisin' For a Kause charity rides event, Street Party, Poker Run, and finally, the Shootout.
"It was the biggest Street Party ever done," Russell told Speedboat of the multi-million dollar presentation of extraordinary performance boats and products. "In addition to the 1.2 miles of exhibitors, we filled Springberg McAndrew Park, as well as Birch Square, a side street, which was new this year. We filled Scott Drive and we filled Mulberry, which added another quarter-mile of vendors. We were actually full over a month ago, and we had a waiting list of nearly 100."
The Poker Run was preceded by the annual Parade of Power, in which participants travel from Thompson Bay through the Bridgewater Channel and under the London Bridge as they're photographed from the official helicopter. This year, the parade was led by the First Responders and the Kicker “Boom Toon,” and the Condor Squadron of Van Nuys, CA, flew vintage WWII military aircraft to begin the run with an aerial fly-by. Russell said around 125 boats took part in this year's Poker Run.
Look for full coverage of Desert Storm in the June 2024 issue of Speedboat.