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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: LOTO-MO, 28MM
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Re: D & M Motorsports 06 P-4 World Champs!
Zoleckis earn world powerboat title
By Gary W. Young/Lake Sun Publications
Published: Thursday, November 30, 2006 6:20 PM CST
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The D&M Motorsports-Lake Shores Marina team of Joel Zolecki, Harrington and Jason Zolecki bask in the glow of the world title. The Zoleckis own Lake Shores Marina in a cove at the 8MM of the Lake of the Ozarks.
KEY WEST, Fla. Jason and Joel Zolecki, brothers who own Lake Shores Marina at the 8MM of the Lake of the Ozarks, realized a lifelong dream when their D&M Motorsports-Lake Shores Marina team won the P4 Class at the Super Boat Invitational, American Powerboat Association’s UIM World Championships Nov. 19.
With 30-year old Jason at the wheel, and partner and sponsor Brad Harrington of Basehore, Kan., at the throttle, the 28-foot 1990 Saber Marine V-hull boat performed perfectly after getting off to a rocky start on the first day of the three-day competition.
Just getting to Key West on schedule proved challenging when the Zoleckis discovered a cylinder head problem on one of the 415-horsepower Chevy 383 engines. The team planned to hit the road from the lake Friday, Nov. 3, but on Thursday night that plan changed.
“I decided to pull an engine compression and leak down test one last time and found that we had issues,” Jason Zolecki said. “So, we tore the motor down and took the heads over to K and C Precision Engines in Sedalia to be reworked.”
Working pretty much around the clock, the D&M Motorsports-Lake Shores Marina team reassembled the engine Friday, test ran the boat on the lake Saturday, and hit the road later that day for the 33-hour trip to the Keys.
On the first day of competition, Wednesday Nov. 8, Zolecki said the boat didn’t run exactly right, but the D&M team still managed a very respectable third-place finish. Back at the race camp following the first day, Zolecki started crunching numbers and discovered the boat had the wrong gear assembly.
With a full day between races, the team was able to get a new gear pattern in the boat and on Friday’s 19-mile offshore race, D&M ran away from the pack. Since all the boats in the P4 Class can’t exceed 80 mph, Zolecki said D&M’s edge came from racing experience and an advantageous hull design.
“A distinct advantage of the V-hulls is their ability to turn corners sharper,” Zolecki said. “We were able to coordinate the trim and the approach to each turn to make them sharper, more exact and cut down a lot of lost time cornering.”
He said each time he and Harrington cornered around a race-course buoy they could look behind and to the outside to see the other boats swinging wide, losing valuable time on a wide turning radius.
Their strategy paid big dividends by the end of the second day. With about 50 friends, family and others from the lake cheering them on, the power boat championship camp was abuzz with news of D&M’s stunning win.
“There was one guy from Norway who said he was going to lap us on the final day, but after the start of the race we never saw him again,” Zolecki recalled. “After Wednesday’s deal (where D&M finished third with the wrong gear box assembly), how could anybody beat us?”
The Zolecki brothers, who moved to the Lake of the Ozarks in 1996 after purchasing the former Figge Marina (now Lake Shores Marina), met Harrington through the marina when they worked on Harrington’s Baja.
When Harrington bought the 28-foot Saber this spring, Jason Zolecki trekked to New York to pick it up. In August, D&M won at Washington, N.C. in the very first competition. When they took the checkered flag in the final race Sunday, Nov. 19 at Key West, Jason Zolecki said all the hard work finally paid off.
“Hopefully, this is a stepping stone to something larger, or something bigger in professional racing,” he crowed. “I’m a very competitive person, whether I’m playing cards or whatever, so getting a world championship is pretty sweet. I like to win.”
Zolecki and his 32-year old brother, Joel, have been around powerboats most of their adult lives, either working on them at the marina, or racing them competitively. Through their father, Don Zolecki (a lifelong fire fighter, who retired to the lake only to get active at Sunrise Beach Fire Protection District), the men have always competed at the annual Lake Rescue Shootout in August.
“We won our class 7 times out of the 9 years of competing,” Jason said. “The fastest I’ve ever gone on the water was 114 mph in a 33-foot Scarab in the 2004 Shootout.”
Unlike most lakers who always dreamed of living at the lake, Zolecki said he and his family never vacationed here while growing up in Illinois. He was working at a marina in Florida, while brother Joel was a marine mechanic in Illinois when Don Zolecki retired from the Argonne National Labs Fire Dept. near Lemont, Ill.
“He heard rumors about downsizing and they offered him a buyout and he took it,” Jason said. “He made the down payment on the marina here, and we’ve had it ever since.”
Jason Zolecki said winning a world championship was among the greatest thrills in his lifetime.
Gary W. Young is the GM/editor of the Westside Star.
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