Dirty Duck Racing: Local legend continues to break records on the water PT.1

Editor’s Note: This is part one in a two-part series about local businessman and world-record holding boat racer, Slug Hefner

There are many words or phrases that could be used to describe Slug Hefner. Some could even say he’s got a screw loose for wanting to defy physics.

But, one of the rules of Dirty Duck Racing is if there’s a nut or a washer found in the boat, it’s got to go somewhere. The pieces always have to line up just right. If they don’t, Hefner admits you find out pretty quick.

Although, those pieces fall into place a little more often than most as he piloted American Ethanol to a world record speed of 217 mph in 2016 at the Lake of the Ozark Shootout and after a few years out of the game, he’s back with more in the tank.

“Bragging rights,” he said when asked why he returned to the sport. “Knowing I have one of the world’s fastest boats. In a single engine, piston-driven offshore boat, I have the fastest in the world … Today.

“That could change next year but right now, I own that. It’s kind of like when Liberty Valance comes to town. It’s bragging rights. It’s an ego thing. I’ve had that Dirty Duck logo for 30 years and people are aware of it.”

Slug Hefner has piloted and now been an onlooker of Dirty Duck, the current world record holder at 194 miles per hour. Photo provided

It’s hard not to notice the Dirty Duck boat soaring above Westwood Boulevard like a duck looking for a place to land.

For Hefner, that’s not just a boat or a hull or a hunk of fiberglass, it’s a legacy that he’s still building.

Hefner’s return to the sport was marked with another record as Dirty Duck hit 194 mph in the three-quarter mile at this year’s shootout at Lake of the Ozark.

But this year was different for the veteran pilot as he watched from shore and wasn’t stuffed inside the cockpit, a place he knows all too well.

“It’s almost equal,” he said of the stress of being a driver to watching the boat. “I didn’t know what emotion I would feel by watching it. It was very rewarding. Mikell (Smith) summed it up, we were kind of underdogs in a way because American Ethanol has won the Top Gun award for six, seven years straight. But we had people saying ‘Go Duck.’ When they announced that speed, the whole place went nuts. Everybody was cheering and hollering because it’s the second boat to break 190 in the three-quarter mile course. The first twin-engine, piston-driven boat. Ethanol has four engines. It’s harder to compete with a four-engine boat when you have two engines.”

Hefner knows he’s in rare company, something he holds dear.

“There’s less than 10 people that have run in excess of 200 miles per hour,” he said. “I’m one of them … I’ve run a 217. It’s a very elite group. I think people just know who’s done it. It’s a pretty good challenge.”

For reference, there have been 12 Americans walk on the moon, another place that defies gravity.

For even more reference, according to outdoors.com, the fastest speedboat of 2023, for the lay person, is the Nor-Tech 390 Sport. A 12,500-pound vessel that tops out at ... 80 miles per hour.

When Hefner hit 217 in American Ethanol, the boat weighed in between a whopping 15,000 to 16,000 pounds.

As a business owner for decades, Hefner knows the importance of keeping the right people around but that extends beyond the doors of the store and even into the water.

“The challenge was … I had to find the right people to work on the boat, I had to find the right people to build the motors, find the right person to rig it, had to find the right throttle man, the right driver,” he said. “It’s kind of like building a sports teams. It gives you pride in your accomplishment. Everybody worked together …

“I believe if you surround yourself with good people and you have a very visual culture, everybody is aware of the culture and everybody engages in the culture, you’re going to have a good product. You’ll be successful. It’s your people that make you successful. One person can only do so much. There’s got to be all this effort.”

And even though he’s heard for years from people that they purchased furniture from him, it never gets old.

“It’s a good feeling,” he said. “It’s a very good feeling. I wear the Dirty Duck logo on my hat and I’ll have people stop me, ‘Are you the duck guy?’ Some people know I’m from Poplar Bluff and a lot of people know I’m in furniture but it’s amazing how many people come up and say ‘Hey, I bought furniture there.’”

*Read about how the Dirty Duck Racing boat does it what it does in Saturday’s Daily American Republic