Round 3 of the 2026 IHRA Offshore Powerboat Championship arrived at Cocoa Beach with more than 80 boats, a two-time world champion making a special appearance, rough Atlantic conditions that lived up to every warning, and a Pro Class 1 rollover that closed out one of the wildest weekends of the season so far.
The Thunder on Cocoa Beach has a reputation that precedes it. Organisers had promised high-flying action on Florida’s Space Coast, and the venue delivered on that promise with characteristic indifference to the teams on the water. With the race course positioned by the pier this year, the crowds on shore had a front-row view of what the Atlantic had in store for the field: turbulent, unpredictable conditions that launched boats skyward and tested every setup decision the teams had made in the preceding weeks.
The event ran from May 15 to 17 at Port Canaveral, drawing the largest registered field of the 2026 IHRA season, with well over 80 boats signed on across all classes. The Superstock grid alone was expected to exceed 20 entries, the biggest starting field of any class at any round so far. After St. Petersburg and New Orleans had established the series’ identity, Cocoa Beach was where the championship began to sharpen.
A blowover, an engine fire, and a last-to-first winner — IHRA Round 2, New Orleans
Friday: Brittany Force brings drag racing horsepower to the pier
Friday opened with a Boat Parade along the Cocoa Beach shoreline before the Block Party took over Downtown Cocoa Beach from 5pm. Monster Energy/M-CON brought the show to the Block Party, the class-leading Pro Class 1 team mixing with fans and teams ahead of Saturday’s qualifying.
The weekend’s standout announcement was the special appearance of Brittany Force, the two-time NHRA Top Fuel World Champion and Monster Energy athlete. One of the most recognised names in American motorsport, Force attended both Friday and Saturday, giving the event a profile that extended well beyond the offshore racing community. It was a statement of intent from the series heading into the second half of the season.
Saturday: Qualifying, bracket racing, and plenty of airtime
Saturday’s programme opened with closed-course testing before combined qualifying for Pro Class 1, Super Cat, Factory Stock, and Superstock ran from 11am to 1:15pm. Observers noted there was no shortage of airtime from the opening runs, the conditions sending boats out of the water on the approach to turns and through the choppier sections of the course.
The bracket classes ran in three heats through the afternoon. Classes 600 and 700 went first, followed by Classes 400 and 500, and then Classes 200, 300, and Cat 300 alongside Pro Class 1 Race 1 in the final afternoon slot.
Bracket Class 600 and 700 delivered the close side-by-side racing that the class format is built around, but the session was not without incident. Ultimate Boat Racing (#602) encountered trouble during the Class 600 heat, the second round in succession where the team has faced a difficult weekend. Club Car Wash (S-45) again started taking on water ahead of their race, a third round in succession where the Superstock team has been unable to make it to the start.
Class 400 provided plenty of airtime on its own, the conditions lifting boats clear of the water through the faster sections of the pier-side course.
Among the teams making their Cocoa Beach return was LWR Lake Wiley Racing (#F-44), throttleman Garrett Coonrod arriving alongside Dirt Legal Velocity’s driver Brad Christopher in a joint appearance ahead of the weekend. Coonrod, who had described their New Orleans blowover as something they would never forget, was clear about the team’s mentality: they came to compete for the lead, and a rollover had not changed that. Dirt Legal Velocity Factory Racing (#789) has been a consistent points scorer across the first two rounds and was equally ready to go.
Pro Class 1: Wild conditions and a Turk rollover
Pro Class 1 produced the weekend’s defining moment and its most dangerous incident. The championship-leading class ran two races across Saturday and Sunday, and the conditions at Cocoa Beach made both sessions extraordinary. MTI/GC Racing (#32) was captured catching significant air during Saturday’s Race 1, a visible demonstration of what Willie Cabeza had described ahead of New Orleans as the physical toll of longer lap counts in rough water.
During Sunday’s Pro Class 1 Race 2, XINSURANCE North (#11) went over. JJ Turk and Nick Buis were both confirmed safe after the rollover, the third time in three rounds the pairing have been involved in a serious incident. At St. Petersburg they had suffered a violent rollover, repaired quickly, and returned for New Orleans. At Cocoa Beach it happened again.
Turk’s own account after the incident was characteristically direct. The team had been in contention, battling for the lead, when they caught an unexpected wave in a section where the wind and the sea state combined at the worst moment. “You’re jumping into the face of the wave, and then you have the wind blowing, so once you’re standing up, grabs, you tilt out, boom,” Turk explained. Both crew were out quickly and confirmed unhurt.
The Pro Class 1 field had been described through Saturday and Sunday as producing some of the wildest racing of the season, with boats spending as much time out of the water as in it on the rougher sections of the course. The championship leader, Myrick Coil and Tyler Miller of Monster Energy/M-CON (#6), came into Cocoa Beach with a perfect record across the first two rounds, four wins from four races, and a 39-point series lead. Official results from the round are pending confirmation.
Superstock: 20-plus boats and the youngest team on the grid
The Superstock class came to Cocoa Beach with its largest field of the season, more than 20 boats registered and a class structure where twin Mercury Racing 300 ROS engines and a standardised safety canopy put the emphasis firmly on setup, strategy, and conditions management. Cameron Turk and throttleman Owen Buis in XINSURANCE (S-74) previewed the class neatly: “Superstock is any cat from 28 to 32 foot and they all have to have a UIM ISRA approved safety canopy running twin 300 ROS Mercurys. So we all have to weigh around the same, which makes the class even and we have very tight racing.” With more than 20 boats registered for the round, Turk described the grid as the toughest yet.
Owen Buis carried double duties at Cocoa Beach, also throttling for Clouatre Cartel Racing in the Mod Vee class. Clouatre had won New Orleans and sat second in the Mod Vee championship, so Buis arrived in Cocoa Beach with momentum across two classes simultaneously.
Super Vee returns: Burning Man back in Michigan colours
Cocoa Beach brought the Super Vee and Extreme class back into the programme, with the class running Sunday afternoon. Among those lining up was Chris McAwee with the 499 BMOAR Team / Burning Man Offshore, travelling down from Niles, Michigan in what he described as a 19-hour journey to the venue. McAwee was joined by the Knucklehead boat (#20) out of St. Clair, Michigan, the two Midwest programmes arriving with the course moved closer to the pier adding to the spectacle. “Usually we have some big water here, so it’ll be a good, exciting event,” McAwee noted before tech inspection. The Super Vee class ran alongside Extreme in a combined Race 8 slot on Sunday afternoon.
Official results from the Thunder on Cocoa Beach are pending confirmation from the IHRA.
Full results: ihraoffshore.livemotorsports.com
Sources: IHRA Offshore Series event notes and post-race statements; Thunder on Cocoa Beach Schedule of Events; IHRA National Series Points Standings after Round 2.
