That 85 teams are registered for the season-opening St. Petersburg Grand this weekend isn’t just a record for the Southwest Florida venue. At least for the past two-and-half decades, it is a record for a domestic offshore racing season-opener, period.

By comparison, Thunder On Cocoa Beach on the eastern short of Central Florida, which has kicked off the offshore racing season for years, typically attracts 50 to 60 boats.

Significant as the turnout is for the racers and fans, it is even more so for the International Hot Rod Association. The St. Pete affair is the first event of the Ohio-based organization’s inaugural offshore racing season. Of course, there are no guarantees but the boat-count bodes well for future IHRA event, the upcoming season and frankly the sport itself.

With its 85-registered-boat fleet, the St. Petersburg is already on track to be a winner this weekend. Photo by Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

Why the big showing? Smart money, if you will, credits prize money. The IHRA series has a purse. That’s not to say the IHRA might not produce a better overall experience for the racers and the fans—it may well do that but it’s yet to be proven. To is credit, though, the organization promised to pay out $250,000 to competitors in the 2025 Race World Offshore Key West World Championships and made good on that pledge. That was an attention-getter.

Though a green flag has yet fly in St. Pete, there already are good storylines. Shaun Torrente, the 2025 Super Stock-class world champion, for example, has two boats signed up for the weekend. The class itself is starting with a robust—to put it lightly—16-boat fleet.

Among those teams is the XINSURANCE-backed Team Bad Decisions duo of young Owen Buis and Cameron Turks. Both are are rookies in the class, but anything but in the sport.

Another fun team/storyline to watch also involves rookies—but of Super Cat-class kind. Sterling Performance Engines owner Cade Wilson will share the cockpit with inventor/boatbuilder/YouTube powerhouse Michael Howe in the Howe2Live Offshore Skater 388 raceboat. Wilson and Howe will be going up against five other Super Teams, including 2025 Super Cat champions Brit Lilly and Bill Pyburn, Jr., of the Dirty Money Racing team.

Which leads to another intriguing plotline heading into this weekend’s schedule. A few weeks back, Pyburn bought the back-to-back Pro Class 1 world-championship-winning former Defalco team victory raceboat. The catamaran will be back in action this weekend with Pyburn and Lilly sharing the cockpit.

Whether they take one checkered flag, both or none, the St. Petersburg Grand Prix already is a winner on numbers alone.