A Powerboater Built A DIY Rollercoaster On Lake Of The Ozarks, & Neighborhood Kids Love It

The Lake of the Ozarks shoreline is covered with interesting sites to see, from million-dollar homes to waterfront bars to unique landmarks. But in Gladstone Cove on the 3 MM of the Gravois Arm, in front of a handsome blue house, there’s something you don’t see everyday: a homemade roller coaster.

Built by Mike Ricker, the roller coaster is as intriguing as its inventor: professional safecracker, powerboat aficionado and self-described "hillbilly engineer," Ricker has a long and fascinating history at Lake of the Ozarks.

Ricker grew up in Sedalia, where he and his wife Linda were high school sweethearts. It was she who introduced him to Lake of the Ozarks. “Her mother and father had a place here at the Lake, so Linda came down every weekend as a kid. She introduced me to the Lake and that's how I got hooked. You know how the Lake can hook a person!” he said.

A few years after they were married, Ricker joined his father-in-law’s bank lock service company. And if you’re wondering what a bank lock service company is, Ricker gets that question a lot. “Usually when people ask, ’What do you do?’ I say, ‘I’m a locksmith’ to keep it simple, but sometimes I say, ‘Oh, I’m a safecracker.’”

The Locksmith — aka The Safecracker

Over his career, Ricker did a lot of safecracking. Any time a bank was having trouble with a safe or vault door, they would call. Ricker did everything from recovering combination locks to cracking into vaults. Throughout his 43 years in the business, Ricker saw just about everything.

“It’s just one safe after the other. They're all different, all challenging, and all of them a lot of fun. It was great,” Ricker recalled fondly. His favorite story involved a small bank in southwestern Missouri whose main vault door wouldn’t open.

“Long story short, we showed up and sure enough, couldn’t get it open. Instead of drilling a hole in the vault door and potentially damaging the primary security, we decided to drill an 18-inch hole in a reinforced concrete wall”, he said. “We basically tunneled through the wall and Nick [Ricker’s son-in-law] crawled through and opened the door from the inside. The problem was no more than a small broken spring.”

Now retired from the safecracking business, Ricker and his wife spend most of their time enjoying their real passion: boating. They currently have four boats, ranging from a high-speed catamaran to a vintage Donzi to a simple pontoon; a boat for every occasion.

The Powerboats

“We enjoy all our boats, and people ask, ‘How in the heck do you use all of them?’ I use every single one of them often. I’ve just always loved boating,” Ricker said.

One of the most unique boats in Ricker’s dock is a California Crackerbox, a small, wood racing boat from the 1950s. Crackerbox boats are raced in a two-person team and at incredibly high speeds, considering the boats are a maximum of 15 feet long. “I call her Slap Happy because she's a slap-bottom boat. As you can tell it’s not real smooth riding with the name Slap Happy,” Ricker laughed. “But it’s a great boat too.”

Along with an all-original 1977 Donzi and a 30-year-old pontoon from his wife’s family, the flashiest of the group is Ricker’s 38-foot Nor-Tech catamaran they bought in 2016. “The Cat is a blast. You can’t believe how smooth it is. You can run down the Lake at 80 miles an hour, on a weekday, and it’s just as soft as can be. You’ve got to have your headsets on because it’s so loud, but it’s an amazing boat, it really is!” Ricker enthused. And although the boat is beautiful, what most people remember is the name: Wife’s Money.

“People just chuckle, they love that name. We traveled to a bunch of poker runs a couple years ago around the country and would see people that passed us on the interstate laughing. They would read the boat’s name and see Linda sitting in the passenger seat, it was so funny.”

The Roller Coaster

Along with boating, Ricker has been spending his retirement as a self-described “hillbilly-engineer.” He got his start in amateur engineering making animated Christmas displays at his home in Sedalia, from Santa playing golf to water skiing to fishing. “I just love building junk,” he said. “My Christmas displays were all made out of junk laying around the house, including washing machine parts and other random items.”

Hoping to improve his Christmas display to have Santa Claus flying his sled over the house, Ricker spent months reading books about roller coaster engineering. In the end, he decided rather than a holiday display, he would build a roller coaster for Lake of the Ozarks so neighborhood kids would have something to play on in the summer.

The coaster, like Ricker’s Christmas displays, is a true “hillbilly engineering” marvel, built out of items you could find around the house. He ditched the Christmas theme for a space-rocket look. The rocket body is a plastic barrel. A funnel and tennis ball make up the rocket’s nose, and empty citronella candle buckets are the exhaust vents.

The coaster’s track is made out of PVC pipe. Ricker achieved the bent curves of the track by heating sand in the oven to 350 degrees, pouring the heated sand into the pipe, and then bending the pipe into shape. It cuts quite a picture for boaters cruising by, and with the bright colors and brilliant engineering, it looks like it came right out of a kit. But this coaster is one-of-a-kind.

Ricker finished the roller coaster in early 2021, and kids started riding it that spring.

The track is set up close to the shore, and boaters coming down the Gravois Arm often stop to check it out, sometimes asking questions or complimenting the design. Ricker has even had a few people ask where they can buy one, though he has no plans to sell kits or the design. Watching kids enjoy the coaster is Ricker’s favorite thing of all. He has a daughter and a young-adult granddaughter, who are too big to ride the coaster. Instead, the kids that enjoy the coaster are his “grand-neighbors.” You can see the joy in his eyes as they come to the yard to hop aboard.

“I tell you what, I’d sure love to have a whole bunch of grandkids. If I could say anything to anybody: ‘Be sure your kids have a lot of grandkids for you.’ There’s nothing better. I’ve really enjoyed my so-called neighbor grandkids I have here… That’s how the roller coaster came about.”

For Ricker, the roller coaster and the powerboats capture exactly what the Lake of the Ozarks is about: friendships and family, on and off the water. “It’s just a fun place. It seems like everyone comes here for the same reason: to have fun. What’s really cool is it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, where you’re from, or anything. It’s always been that way.”

Republished from the 2022 issue of Shore Magazine. Read the magazine online or order a copy sent to your door, at ShoreBoatingMag.com.