LOTO...
Not taking anything away from Greg Olson's old boat, but heads up and pound for pound I'd have my money on Romer's old Skater with its old setup, especially in a lake race. This brings us full circle to John Roth's new 388.
John's 388 is actually a little lighter then Chip Romer's old Skater, and they have made some setup changes to it to increase performance. Vern started going over the major changes "Dave we pushed the motors a little further forward, and the motors are EIGHT INCHES LOWER! The Center of gravity is better, and it takes a set quicker. Look at the Engine hatches, see how much lower the scoops are? There's less wind resistance, we also set the ****** a little *****, and added ******... You know on second thought, probably shouldn't put that out there. We don't want to give them all the trade secrets. There's a reason the fastest Skaters in the world are out here."
After the setup we dove into the motors, and when I asked him what the HP dyno'd at he just looked at me and smiled. "Nuclear." Back when Romer had his boat wicked up for LOTO, we never could get the actual Dyno numbers out of him either, but there was hints thrown around that put it at 1700 - 1800 real HP.
LOTO, we never could get the actual Dyno numbers out of him either, but there was hints thrown around that put it at 1700 - 1800 real HP. If you're wondering what I mean by real, I'm talking about Carson Brummett Horsepower, not "Hot Dyno, Corrected #'s" you get from guys looking to brag to their friends. Carson is a lot like Mercury in the idea that if he tells you it's a 1000 HP, it's going to Dyno a lot higher then that anywhere else, because it will make 1000HP anywhere. The inverse is also true that when you take a 1000 HP from most other places and stick it on his Dyno... Well, you'll end up with that same kind of feeling that everybody got when GPS's came out and their boats no longer ran 100 mph. I did manage to squeak one hard fact out of Vern that he would commit to, and that was "These motors have at least 120 more HP then Romer's setup did when it was set on kill." That would put my personal estimation of HP somewhere near 1950 a side give or take 100. More then 2000 HP, on most Dyno's across the country.