Key West Worlds Class To Watch—Bracket 500
If the 2024 Key West Offshore World Championships started today, the Super Stock class would have the largest fleet with nine boats currently registered for the races in Key West, Fla. And that will surprise absolutely no one who follows the sport. The Super Stock class has grown steadily in recent years and could, per class rep Ryan Beckley, have as many as 15 teams competing at the November 3-10 event produced by Race World Offshore.
Seven Bracket 500-class teams have registered for the Race World Offshore Key West World Championships so far. Photos by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
But the second largest-class for Key West at present isn’t one of the “spec” offshore racing categories such as Super Stock, Super Cat or Mod V. It’s the Bracket 500 class with seven teams signed up and more likely to follow. The class was hot throughout the 2024 American Power Boat Association Offshore National Championship with five to six teams competing at most races and its momentum is continuing right into the Key West Worlds.
The Bracket 500 class consists of predominantly 28- to 30-foot, open-cockpit V-bottoms—mostly of the single-engine kind—limited to a top speed of 75 mph.
Running the XINSURANCE/TFR/Golf N Gator team raceboat, veteran throttleman J.J. Turk and driver Nick Buis earned the APBA Bracket 500-class National Championship this season. Buis and Turk also ran the XINSURANCE/Statement Marine raceboat to at Mod V National Championship. The cockpit duo will compete in both categories in the three-race Key West Worlds.
Buis said he enjoyed competing in both classes. But what he liked most about Bracket 500 was its simplicity.
The Bracket 500 class has enjoyed a strong presence throughout the 2024 season.
“All you have to do at the end of the race is hand in the box and hope you didn’t go over 75 mph,” he said, then chuckled. “Because Mod V is a spec class there are a number of technical inspections—boat weight, gear ratio and so on—that have to be done after each race.
“Both Mod V and Bracket 500 are a lot of fun and I enjoy them both, but the Bracket 500 class, and all the Bracket classes, are just simple and fun,” he added. “It’s a lot less stress than racing Mod V.”
Though Johnny Saris of Performance Marine/Saris Racing Engines is running in the Bracket 600 class this year in Key West thanks in part to the cancelation of the Offshore Powerboat Association National and World Championships in Englewood Beach, Fla., he has extensive experience competing in the Bracket 500 ranks.
“Class 5 (the longstanding name for Bracket 500 class under the Offshore Powerboat Association) is probably the most versatile Bracket class there is,” he said. “It’s always been one of the stronger brackets. When I was racing Class 5 in our Kryptonite V-bottom, we had 15 boats at the Jupiter (Fla.) World Championships in 2012. That’s the beauty of the Bracket classes—there are strong years and lighter years, but they always come back around.”
Known primarily as a Super Stock-class throttleman, veteran offshore racer Beckley is running the Bracket 500-class Sweat Equity raceboat in Key West this year with owner Greg DiRenzo. Beckley last shared the cockpit with DiRenzo at the season-opening Race World Offshore 7 Mile Offshore Grand Prix in Marathon, Fla. He’s looking forward to getting back in the single-engine V-bottom with DiRenzo.
“It’s ‘cost effective,’ super-close racing with a really fun bunch of people—at a safe-ish speed,” he explained. “Almost any type of boat can run at 75 mph.”
But the trick, Beckley added, is not running any faster.
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