Julian Maldonado—Offshore Racing’s Stealth Fighter

When hurricanes forced the cancelation of the last two races of the American Power Boat Association’s season, many national championships were decided. One was in the Super Stock class where owner/driver Reese Langheim and throttleman Julian Maldonado claimed the honors in the 32-foot Victory, Jackhammer.

Multi-time world and national champion Julian Maldonado (center) doesn’t say much, preferring to let his throttling talk for him. Photos by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

The 2024 national title followed a world championship in 2023 and the Offshore Powerboat Association world championship at the Englewood Beach Waterfest in Englewood, Fla., in 2021, Maldonado’s first race in the class. He and Brian Guy also won the world championship in Bracket 700 class in the 21-foot Superboat, Jackhammer, in 2021.

Not bad when you consider that Maldonado is 27 years old.

For the 2025 season, Maldonado and Langheim are stepping up to the 500R Factory Stock class with a new 38-foot AMP catamaran powered by twin Mercury Racing 500R outboards. Boats in this class ran Mercury Racing 450R outboards since the category was created in 2021. Mercury Racing has phased out the 450R and teams are now building boats with the bigger outboards or re-rigging their current boats with the new motors.

A leg injury sidelined Maldonado for the 2024 Race World Offshore Key West World Championships.

Langheim sold the 32-foot Victory cat in the offseason, but the team has another Victory that it could race in XCAT in Europe or bring it over to the United States and rig it for Super Stock. Maldonado’s wife, Madison, is expecting the couple’s first child, a son named Maverick, in mid-February and the XCAT season starts February 15 weekend, so Maldonado wasn’t getting on a plane to fly 15 hours to the United Arab Emirates.

Total Immersion
Julian Maldonado’s story is by no means new. He grew up in performance boating and was lucky to be in the right place at the right times. While he was in high school, Maldonado worked at Pro Marine, a high-performance parts and accessories supplier for the recreational boating industry.

His father Ricky raced Formula 1 and Mod-V boats in the U.S. and ran drag boats after the family moved to The States from Puerto Rico. Ricky’s father raced the 40-foot Skater Powerboats catamaran, Winston, in Puerto Rico with owner/throttleman Pepe Llama and Ricky and his dad raced a 30-foot Phantom with twin Mercury Hi-Performance outboards as well.

When he was growing up, Julian tried conventional sports, playing soccer in high school. “I was too short for basketball and not big enough for football,” he said, then laughed.

Julian also raced four-wheelers and go karts. But he was always tinkering on one boat or another he owned, improving its performance and selling it before moving on to the next one.

Though his golf-cart days are done, Maldonado still has a long list of what he’d like to accomplish in offshore racing.

Three years after Julian got out of high school, the vaunted Victory team came over to the United States to race. Julian was helping Matthew Caldwell at Caldwell Racing Technologies build high-performance V6 outboards. They took a Formula 1 boat to the Clearwater, Fla., race in 2018 and met the Victory Team from Dubai that was campaigning two Class 1 boats.

“One thing led to another and I ended up working for Victory,” he said. “That’s what got me heavily into offshore. At the same time my dad started racing with Reese. I would be at the races with Victory, but I was also helping Jackhammer.”

At Key West in 2018, Julian ran the Victory 32-foot pleasure catamaran as a pace boat and he worked there for a year and a half until the COVID-19 Pandemic hit. The Victory team took its equipment back to Dubai.

While he worked for the Victory team, Julian made a few trips to Dubai for a couple weeks at a time. He was involved in everything from boat construction to testing Class 1 boats. The experience was invaluable.

“I would go over for a couple weeks at a time, but I never moved over there full-time,” Julian said. “With Madison there was no way that was happening.”

Making His Own Path
Julian tested every raceboat that his father was involved with and entered his first race in Bracket 700 class with Wency Soto in Moorehead City, N.C., during the pandemic in 2020 in the 22-foot Velocity, Jackhammer. The format for the weekend was back-to-back races on Saturday and Sunday and the team finished second on the first day.

On Sunday, they tried to run behind (the late James Jaronzyk) in his 22-foot Progression in the rougher water, but Salto and Julian spun out. “We were battling, but I think we battled the wrong way,” Julian laughed. “We went for a swim in our second race.”

Guy bought the Velocity, repowering it with a new Mercury Racing 300R, and he and Julian raced together from 2020 to 2023. During that time, Julian logged plenty of test time in the different Super Stock boats his family had rigged.

Brian Guy ran with Maldonado in the Bracket 700 class.

Racing is a family activity for the Maldonados. Ricky first ran with Langheim who was having problems keeping his 32-foot Blade catamaran from Australia upright. When Langheim, who calls Pawnee, Ill., home, bought the Victory, the Maldonados rigged the boat and Ricky was in the throttleman’s seat. The duo established itself as a serious threat in 2019 and 2020.

At that time, Dominick Steele, who is engaged to the youngest Maldonado, Alejandra, bought the 30-foot Skater that had previously been owned by Ryan Beckley. Ricky and his wife, Eder Valle, have an older daughter, Adriana, and another son, Ricardo, 30.

Steele and Maldonado earned their first checkered flag at Shootout Offshore. Photo by Jeff Helmkamp copyright Helmkamp Photos.

Either Ricky or Ricardo will throttle for owner/driver Pete Riveiro in the 32-foot Fazza, The Firm, in 2025.

When asked to describe his kids, Ricky said that Julian has his mother’s personality while Ricardo is more excitable like dad.

While dad throttled for Langheim, Julian throttled for his future brother-in law in the boat sponsored by Steele Industries in 2022. Their first race was the notoriously challenging Thunder on Cocoa Beach.

“It was very rough,” Julian said. “The boat was awesome. If I knew what I know now, we would have done better. We ran third for a few laps but tripped and stuffed and had to back off.”

With the Steele team, Maldonado had the opportunity to throttle several raceboats.

At the next race at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, Julian put the Super Stock class on notice as he and Steele put the boat’s shorter length and advantageous power-to-weight ratio to good use. They took the wire-to-wire win. In return, APBA officials made them add 500 pounds to their boat in attempt to create some parity in the class.

“That’s where everything went downhill for the little Skater,” Julian said.

At the next race in Sarasota, Fla., there was some serious carnage in the Super Stock class. After the start, owner/driver Cole Leibel and throttleman Gary Ballough in the 32-foot Victory, Big East Construction, rolled heading into the first turn on the first lap. Then on the restart, Shaun Torrente and driver Sean Conner, tripped off a wave in their 32-foot Doug Wright, CMR Roofing, and the boat broke apart on re-entry.

The race was red-flagged, but Julian and Steele were on another part of the course in front of the Lido Beach Resort and they rolled.

The Steele team paid its dues in the Super Stock ranks.

The Steele team switched from the Skater to a 31-foot legend built in Dubai for the rest of 2022, but things didn’t go as planned. “We never could figure out the thing,” Julian said. “During testing it was fast, but on the racecourse, we could not get a grip on the thing.”

A New Venture
The Maldonados became friendlier with Reese Langheim and his wife, Sara.

“We were working on Reese’s boat all the time and Reese said, ‘I want to get a boat shop,’” Julian recalled. “I think he got tired of paying re-rigging bills after flipping boats.”

Julian found out that a boat dealer/service shop near where the family was based in Florida, Manatee Marine in Palmetto was for sale. They made the deal and Julian and Sara Langheim are the owners. The original plan was to name the company Manatee Marine Unlimited and eventually transition to Marine Unlimited, but too many people know the Manatee name so they kept it.

Sara Langheim co-owns Manatee Marine Unlimited with Julian Maldonado. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

Sara Langheim spends a significant amount of time in the Palmetto area because she has a side business buying and selling houses in the area. Her son, Connnor Langheim, works for that business.

“Two people own Manatee Marine Unlimited, but there’s a whole bunch of people involved,” Julian said.

“It works because we work together as a team,” said Reese, who owns a concrete construction company in Illinois. “I’m here for all his questions and he’s there for all my questions.”

Added Sara, “Julian is one of the most knowledgeable people in the boating industry. We cover a lot of different variables in the boating industry and he can take care of any kind of customer.”

Even though the raceboats are sexy, Julian says the company’s bread and butter is outboard-powered fishing boats. “What funds the day-to-day is the local business,” Julian said. “We’re in a fishing market.”

Manatee Marine Unlimited takes advantage of the relationships the Maldonados have developed with boat companies in Dubai. The company is the exclusive dealer for H:Craft Boats in the United States and carries Valor performance catamarans.

When Ricky Maldonado moved up to 450R Factory Stock class to race in the factory-backed 38-foot Doug Wright with Logan Adan, Julian replaced him in Jackhammer. He and Reese had raced together in the OPA World Championships in Englewood and learned they gelled well in the boat.

“We understand each other pretty well—in the boat it’s very mellow,” Julian said. “We’re just good friends and blend well together in the boat.”

Said Langheim of his throttleman, “It works because we work together as a team. I’m here for all his questions and he’s there for all my questions.” Photo by Cole McGown copyright Powerboat P1.

The age difference between the two—Reese is 46—doesn’t impact their racing or business relationships. “We’re just good friends.” It helps that Julian is seen by those who know him as the proverbial “old soul.”

One thing that separates the Manatee Marine team at the races is that it shows up ready to win. Members will make an appearance at the pre-event parties, but that’s about it.

“If we want to have fun, we’ll stay here and go to the sandbar,” Julian said. “Going to a race still needs to be fun, but we’re there to win. Aside from building the business, we’re there to win.”

Since the two teamed up, it could be argued that Julian and Reese are the favorites in Super Stock at every race and they’ve won more than their share. At the Race World Offshore season opener in Marathon, Fla., last year, they won on the racecourse but were penalized because their truck driver didn’t know he was supposed to take the boat straight to inspection after the race, according to Maldonado.

“He went back to the pit and started washing the boat,” he said. “It wasn’t even 10 minutes. The rules are the rules. We get a penalty and lost the win.”

The 2024 season was an up-and-down one by Team Jackhammer standards. Julian and Reese won at Cocoa Beach, Fla., St. Clair, Mich., and Sarasota, Fla., and were the runners up at Lake of the Ozarks and Sheboygan, Wis.

Jackhammer has been the most dominant team in the Super Stock class for the past several years.

Like most experienced throttleman, Julian said he doesn’t like flat-water races, mostly because he has to relinquish control. “They’re so much more dangerous to me,” he said. “You go into a corner at 118 or 120, lifting isn’t going to do much more. It’s up to the driver to get through the corner.”

Winning means having a target on your back in more ways than one, and the Jackhammer boat has been the subject of plenty of questions and suggestions.

“Any time anyone has come to us with anything, we’ve said, ‘The boat is open,’” said Julian. “You’re welcome to look at whatever you want to see.”

He said that because he and his family spend so much time preparing all the Manatee Marine Unlimited boats beforehand, having to take apart an outboard at the race site isn’t easy.

“We don’t bring mechanics with us to a race,” Julian said. “It’s me and Reese and Connor and Mike. We don’t bring a team. All the work is done here.

“I know when I get to a race site, we just need to put the weight where we want it to be, put fuel in it and put it in the water,” he continued. “After every race, the boat comes here and it gets gone through from top to bottom.”

Asked about his Super Stock competition, Julian says he respects and gets along with all but a few of the other racers. He calls A.J. Bogino, who was the wheelman in the 32-foot Doug Wright, CoCo’s Monkey, “the best driver in Super Stock,” adding, “That kid will almost flip a boat 10 times and not flip. I would love to run with him.”

But Julian also remains confident in his and Reese’s abilities in the boat. “Who do I know I can go into a turn with and beat?” he asked rhetorically. “Most of them.”

The new 500R Factory Stock boat is expected to be ready for the Cocoa Beach, Fla., season opener in May, but it will most likely be a thrash because the Manatee Marine Unlimited crew was waiting for the new AMP boat to arrive from Dubai.

Julian said he would like to work up into Super Cat or Pro Class 1 someday. But the team at Manatee Marine isn’t quite positioned to do so quite yet.

“Super Stock is manageable because we can work on the boats,” he said. “For me, if you put a car engine inside a boat, I don’t know how to make it work. If you’re going to play in the big leagues, you need to have your ducks in a row.”

He watched the Super Cat video series produced by Scrapyard Media and Speedonthewater.com last year, and said he would like to see something like that done on Super Stock.

One vehicle you’re not likely to see Julian getting back in anytime soon is a golf cart. When all the teams arrived in Key West for the 2024 Race World Offshore world championships, Julian and Reese borrowed a golf cart and went to a party for the 450R Factory Stock class at Hank’s Saloon. He parked the golf cart in a public lot. He gave the keys to someone else and he and Reese walked back to the house they had rented after visiting a couple of other events.

When they got back home, Julian noticed that the golf cart wasn’t there. He walked all the way back down to Duval Street and started driving it home.

“Like a dumbass, I hauled ass through town and when I was turning onto our street, it went right over and my first instinct was to put my leg down,” Julian said. “I was sober, I was just going too damn fast.”

Maldonado wound up with broken bones and some ankle damage. Now he has a steel rod in his leg.

As of early February, he said he was almost back to 100 percent. “I can’t do everything I did before,” he said. “I’m almost there.”

Ricky Maldonado said that his son’s experience has been as critical as natural talent to his and the Jackhammer team’s success. “With Reese, Julian clicks really good,” said his proud father. “Julian is a true champion. I think he’s the best by far. He’s going to be really hard to beat.”

Just don’t expect him to say it.