A Storied Career In Boat Racing Birthed A Business To Make Boats Look Their Best

“I think I might have been conceived in a boat.”

Whether a boat is truly where Johnny Alles first sparked to life or not (surely he wouldn’t be the first!), he’s been the spark behind some of the most famous powerboats at Lake of the Ozarks, and his family-owned company High Performance Marine helps bring a sparkle back into boats at the Lake that have seen better days.

Specializing in fiberglass and gelcoat repair, Johnny’s team does second-to-none work on boats, as well as cars and RVs. “If you scratch up your custom paint, We can bring it back to beautiful again. We can match almost any color,” he said. High Performance Marine helps touch-up new and used boats for many Lake area dealers.

“Even in shipping or while they're handling the boat, sometimes it gets messed up. Or sometimes the customer will take it out and run around for a couple weeks and say, ‘Oops, I did this, can you get it fixed for me?’ You know, that kind of stuff. Dings, bumps and bruises, they're pretty common here at the Lake.”

“We do mobile work. Hardly anybody else is doing that," Alles said. "So if you bump into the dock with your 44 Sea Ray, we can go down to the dock — as long as it's in our neighborhood — we'll go down there and fix it for you, right on the dock too.”

(High Performance Marine’s shop is located at 3755 Horseshoe Bend Pkwy, Lake Ozark. Contact Johnny at 573-216-4151).

Johnny got his start with boats when his parents rented a little place on a lake in Michigan. At age 13, he built a boat out of plywood. “I sent away for the plans out of the back of a magazine and built an eight-foot long, four-foot wide… a little go-fast boat with a 10-horse motor. So the boat ran about 25, and we had a lot of fun.”

When his family moved onto Lake Michigan, they bought a 36-foot Chris-Craft. “We did a bunch of refurbishing on it and they put it into one of the coves over there in Holland and had a slip,” he recalled. “So I went over there and lived on the boat and worked at the marina.”

For three years, Johnny worked at what was then called PowerPlay (now PowerQuest) boats, installing engines and doing all kinds of mechanical work. From there, he worked as a body shop manager at a Chevy dealership. But it was his next job that ultimately connected him to Lake of the Ozarks and one of the most legendary powerboaters to ever cruise these waters.

Johnny applied at Douglas Marine, which builds Skater offshore raceboats. “I worked there for three-and-a-half years as a lead rigger. And when Bob Morgan ordered his new boat — in 2000 (I think it was) — I was first man on the job.”

At Lake of the Ozarks, the name of Bob Morgan is spoken in hallowed tones. A bronze bust of the man is perched on the beach at Captain Ron’s Bar & Grill along side the Shootout Hall of Fame. Morgan was a renowned, world-champion powerboat racer who in many ways helped put the Shootout boat races on the map by bringing other world-class go-fast boaters to Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri: still a relatively unknown place from a national perspective.

Bob had pulled the engines and parts off an older 46 Skater, brought it to the Douglas Marine factory, and said, “Here you go, build me a winner.” Soon enough, Johnny was traveling with Morgan to the new boat’s first race, in Cleveland. That boat was named Big Thunder Marine 100 and would propel Bob Morgan to 2001 Key West World Champion.

Later, Johnny left Douglas Marine, and after spending a year in Iowa, he and his wife were ready for a change. She refused to go back to the frigid Michigan winters, so he said, “I heard Lake of the Ozarks is pretty cool.” She agreed, and so he called Bob Morgan.

“He's like, heck, yeah, get down here. I'll hire you in a heartbeat. So we moved to the Lake and I went to work for Bob and was basically crew chief on the race team and went to Key West with him for a couple of years of racing.”

Alles moved on from the race team, but he recalls when he got the phone call. Nov. 9, 2011. Morgan and his racing partner JT Tillman had died in a boat crash in Key West. On the anniversary of that crash, last fall, Alles posted a picture of Morgan and Tillman on High Performance Marine’s Facebook page, en memoriam.

Johnny still has a miniature of Big Thunder Marine 100 that he built years ago when he was still working for Douglas Marine. He’d tried to sell it to Bob, but they couldn’t agree on a price, so he loaned it to him from time to time. He lent it to the organizers of last year’s Super Cat Fest, where it was on display along with some BTM team jackets and other memorabilia from the team’s racing days. And so Johnny is one of the many who carries on Bob Morgan’s legacy.

Johnny and his family opened High Performance Marine in 2007 to offer their skills and knowledge of boats to the people in need of them at Lake of the Ozarks. But he added, “Once we got here, we decided that this is a pretty nice place to live. We're not going anywhere.”

Need fiberglass or paint repair on your boat, RV, or car? Call High Performance Marine at 573-216-4151