Photo courtesy of speedonthewater.com
M•CON Racing is back for the 2021 season! After the long and hard year that was 2020, we’re excited for high speed thrills and a great time on the water in 2021! Continue reading below to find out more about this upcoming season!
If you happened to be boating on Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks between mile markers 18 and 23 last Saturday, there’s a good chance you saw a Supercat-class Skater 388 catamaran turning practice laps. There’s also a good chance you were confused by what you saw, as one side of the 38-footer carried its original painted STIHL graphics while the other flew vinyl AMH Motorsports team colors.
But what you really saw on the Central Missouri waterway was the new M CON raceboat for the 2021 season.
You can blame Lindsey Miller, the wife of team owner and throttleman Tyler Miller, for the quandary. Naturally curious, she wanted to see what was below the AMH wrap. What she found was the 2016-completed catamaran’s original STIHL paintjob.
“I saw pictures of it on Snapchat or whatever the kids are using these days,” she said, then laughed. “Some of the STIHL side of the boat, some of the AMH side.”
Soon enough, however, the raceboat will be wrapped by Pro DeZigns with new M CON graphics.
Not only does the M CON team have a Skater 388 raceboat currently under construction at the Douglas, Mich., facility, it has a Skater 438 in its stable. But the new raceboat won’t be ready in time for this season and its larger sibling simply wasn’t competitive in the Supercat ranks, so Tyler Miller started looking for a replacement boat. Aaron Hope, the Florida-based owner of the AMH Skater 388, was ready to sell and the two struck a deal.
Like prior M CON raceboats, the cat will be powered by Sterling Performance engines. New to the team’s 2021 program, however, is its driver. Performance Boat Center’s Myrick Coil, a veteran offshore racer with two Supercat-class world championships to his credit under the PBC banner, will share the cockpit with Miller.
The two shared the cockpit together as teammates for the first time during last year’s inaugural Offshore At The Ozarks event. And they’re thrilled to be running together.
“I am so excited to be racing with Myrick,” Miller said. “He’s not quite old enough to be a legend in the sport—but he’s close to being a legend in the sport.”
Said Coil, “As a friend, as a racer and as a customer, Tyler is as good as they get. He’s a true gentleman, someone for the fans to look up to. I want to get him in the winner’s circle. I want to get him there every time we race.”
Coil, who will continue to share the cockpit of Performance Boat Center’s Super Stock-class 32-foot Doug Wright catamaran with fellow PBC staffer Rusty Williams, is on loan from the Osage Beach, Mo.-based full-service multi-brand dealership. If Performance Boat Center gets back into the Supercat ranks, Coil will be part of that team. But for 2021 at least, he’s part of the close-knit M CON group that includes crew chief Jake Leckliter and crew/transport manager Craig Amptmeyer.
Though Miller had strongly considered repowering his larger Skater with Mercury Racing 1100 Comp engines and campaigning it in the Class 1 ranks this year, he opted out given the primary obstacle—COVID-19 travel re-entry restrictions—international teams will face this season. Yet he has not given up on that plan.
“The 438 is a great boat,” he said. “It definitely was not a failure—it accelerated great—but was six or seven feet longer than everything else in the Supercat class. It will be super-fast and competitive with 1100s in Class 1. Peter Hledin, Tony Cutsuries and everyone else did a great job with the 438. And we’re heading up to Skater tomorrow to cut the deck-line on the 388.”
As for the 388 he just purchased, Miller plans to sell it at the end of the 2021 season and campaign the new version—along with the 438 in Class 1—next year. He had considered joining Super Stock-class competition with a new 32-foot Doug Wright catamaran, but has since scuttled that notion.
“I’m a big-boat guy,” he said, then chuckled. “I’m a bigger guy. I need a little more room and a little more power.”
Still, for the Millers and the entire M CON team, the 2021 season has significance far beyond a replacement boat, a new driver and ambitious future plans. Tyler Miller lost his sister, Jamie, to breast cancer, on December 3, 2020. She fought the disease courageously for two years. She was 44 years old.
M CON’s 2021 season is dedicated to her—and her name, with a pink ribbon, will be in the graphics on both sides and the deck of the boat.
She could never watch the races because she was always worried for my safety, but always called or text before every test session the day before and race day mornings as well,” said Miller. “No matter how we finished she again was always there to congratulate us for just finishing
“I will forever miss her calls and text before and after the races which will be a huge void for 2021 and all the years to come,” he continued. “It’s going to be extremely hard to see her name on the boat and not have a call or text to follow it up with best wishes.”
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Original article from speedonthewater.com
