Lake Macquarie delivered a near-perfect backdrop for the opening round of the Australian Offshore Superboat Championships 2025/26. Warm sunshine, light northerlies, and the deep, resonant thunder of twin V8s greeted thousands of spectators lining Marmong Point across both days of competition. For racers, organisers, and the crowd alike, the weekend sent a clear signal: offshore powerboat racing in Australia is firmly back.
The headline Supercat Extreme division drew six boats, with the programme rounded out by a revitalised Supercat Outboard class and Supersports 85 and Supersports 65 grids. Six races over two days produced the kind of close, thunderous competition that once defined the sport on both sides of the Tasman, and the biggest opening-round fleet in more than a decade.
Darren Nicholson and Peter McGrath, aboard Boost Mobile / 222 Offshore, set the tone from the moment the flag dropped. Three starts, three wins, a flawless opening weekend confirming the reigning world champions remain the team to beat in the Supercat Extreme class.
Behind the leaders, the racing was far less tidy. ACME Racing Maritimo spent much of Sunday chasing mechanical troubles that had begun in the first morning warm-up: contaminated fuel, filter changes, and a rev-limit fault that blunted straight-line speed. Those problems forced the crew to sit out one race entirely before they returned and finished strongly.
MOJO Offshore Racing, steered by Bathurst 1000 winner Todd Kelly and Stuart Eustice, showed front-running pace until a thrown propeller left them limping home on a single engine. Venturi Offshore wrestled with cooling-hose failure, and Team Australia Offshore Racing lost an engine and retired early. Even with that attrition, the roar of the Extremes around the lake rekindled memories of the sport's golden years, with the 1000-horsepower catamarans going airborne through the turns as the crowd cheered them on.
Consistency proved the decisive factor in the Supercat Outboard class. Mike Ratcliffe and Carl Wall in The Sting were clinical, winning all three races to bank a perfect maximum points tally at the season's outset. The boat had been fully rebuilt following a heavy crash at Geelong the previous year and ran faultlessly throughout.
KESS Racing, the rebadged Mantis now campaigned by Steve Lancaster and Scott Kelly, chased hard and collected three second-place finishes. Steve Kelly and Scott Richardson kept TCR Offshore on the podium throughout, demonstrating that precision can carry a boat a long way even when raw horsepower is not on your side. After Sunday's final heat, the top three outboard boats completed a formation parade past the crowd, a salute from Race Control that brought a fitting close to some of the cleanest, closest racing the class has produced in years.
The Supersports 85 fleet served up elbows-out competition along with a dose of controversy. Officials penalised several teams for jump starts, missed course marks, and exceeding the class speed ceiling of 85 mph. The tiered penalty system was applied strictly: 30 seconds added for any excess up to 0.5 mph over the limit, a full minute for anything up to 0.99 mph over, and disqualification for any boat reaching 86 mph.
Once all adjustments were applied, Hary Bakkr in The Colonel stood at the head of the class. Winning both Sunday heats, Bakkr carries a commanding points lead into February's next round. Nut Case, crewed by Mark Pecherzewski and Mel Nelson, salvaged two second-place results despite wrestling with fuel-pressure problems. Thunderstruck and Skater 28 traded blows for the remaining podium positions throughout the weekend. The class is built on control rather than chaos, and that character showed clearly in the racing.
With Hary Bakkr having stepped up to the 85 class, the Supersports 65 division opened as a genuine contest. Day 2 belonged to Patty Paczkowski in Valentus, who shook off the mechanical gremlins that had disrupted Saturday to win both heats convincingly. Power Marine carried strong form forward from Day 1, while Cardiac Arrest, crewed by Charlie Di Iorio and Greg Walters, and The Con, steered by Brendan Weeks and Sophie Lancaster, filled the remaining podium places across a series of close, tactical duels. For smaller-hull racing, the spectacle was outstanding: tight turns, near-identical speeds, and a waterfront crowd that stayed engaged from first lap to last.
Lake Macquarie's Mayor joined the broadcast to mark the occasion. Describing the Superboats as "a staple of the Lake Macquarie Action Fest", he credited the event with drawing visitors and injecting fresh energy into the waterfront. "You can hear the engines echo right across the lake - and the excitement that comes with them," he said, after completing his own passenger run at 80 mph.
For the Australian Offshore Powerboat Club, the round represented a significant milestone. The grid was one of the strongest assembled since the mid-2010s, fresh backing from JV Marine World and Porta Products has added resource to the series, and race management under Russell Hamilton ran without a hitch.
The Australian Offshore Superboat Championships 2025/26 now head south to Wyndham Harbour, Victoria, for the next round on 21 and 22 February 2026, before the series continues to Geelong in March and Port Adelaide in May. For anyone familiar with the NZOPA circuit, the DNA running through this competition will feel immediately recognisable: the roar, the rivalry, and the relentless craftsmanship that offshore racing demands, delivered across the Tasman with unmistakable Aussie flair.
In New Zealand the next racing is mid-November at Taupo - we hope to see you there!
