RAY LEE

OBSERVER’S SEAT RAY LEE

Keep Rockin’

Speedboat has been collaborating

with Lake of the Ozarks’ biggest dock party organization, the Super Cat Fest folks, for several years now. They boast to be the “home of the world’s fastest pleasure cats” and they can be found every August at the beautiful Camden on the Lake Resort in conjunction with the world-famous LOTO Shootout.

Lead organizer Alvin Heathman had been inquiring about bringing his dock party vibes out west for some time now. Both Todd Taylor, who runs his event production company Jokers Wild Productions in Lake Havasu City, AZ, and I agreed it could be done and that we could help Heathman make it happen. Thus, the planning began.

We all agreed to make it a casual affair, not unlike the Super Cat Fest in LOTO—free from strict schedules or mandatory itineraries. We contacted Storm Poker Runs’ Christina and Jimmy Nichols of the West Coast’s wildly popular event, Desert Storm to “piggyback” off of each other. The idea was to coax speedboaters from the other side of the country to “come for the Fest, stay for the Storm!” The idea for the back-to-back events was born.

Super Cat Fest West was off and running. Early on, the idea of combining boating and

Above: Speedboat publisher Ray Lee presents a check to Western Arizona Humane Society Executive Director Patty Gillmore. Right: Katelin, Colton, Jason and Laurie Moe with Gillmore and London Bridge Resort owner Thomas Flatley.

music was discussed and never left the table. It has always been my dream to combine my two biggest passions into one event and this seemed perfect for that dream to become a reality. A lot of my friends are professional touring musicians, so we had a good stable of popular bands to choose from.

The multi-platinum ’90s alt-rock band LIT (“My Own Worst Enemy,” “Miserable,” “Zip-Lock”), whose lead vocalist A.Jay Popoff and lead guitarist Jeremy Popoff frequently join me on pleasure boating trips to Lake Havasu each summer, seemed to be the obvi-

Alt-rock band LIT performs at Super Cat Fest-West.

ous choice. They love the river atmosphere and appreciate the boating lifestyle and are an amazing act to see live on stage. So, it was to be. LIT would headline the inaugural Super Cat Fest West event.

Slowly, the pieces began falling into place. Alvin was to recruit his following from the Midwest and further east, and we would enlist all others. We were blessed to have the support of a lot of the players in the industry—without even really knowing what the event was going to be. For that, I am eternally grateful.

My dear friends Dave and Buffie Megugorac of the yellow DCB M44 fame, better known as Bananas XL, signed on early as the presenting sponsor. Then came the lovely Gina Babyak of Eternal Ink / Eternal Tattoos, Brian Golie of Golden West Biologicals, Tim Jones of Riverstone, Gary Smith of the infamous Predator Skaters and so on. The list grew rapidly enough to be able to produce an event worthy of our faithful believers. We did not want to let any of them down. Little did I know just how difficult that task would come to be.

As the many months of planning and strategizing hastily whittled down to a few short weeks and then to mere days, the hurdles came fast, furious and relentless. Between [Continues on page 82]