Key West UIM Offshore World Titles Settled Friday, Nov. 6

Race World Offshore’s own points table puts the last UIM world championship round of 2026 at Key West on Friday, Nov. 6. The richest race day of its season, worth 2,400 points, runs two days later and counts toward none of the four UIM titles.

That comes from the 2026 Points Overview on the Race World Offshore (RWO) site, the scoring document for the Key West Offshore World Championships, Nov. 1-8 at Truman Waterfront Park. Boats race Wednesday, Nov. 4, Friday, Nov. 6, and Sunday, Nov. 8. Every UIM section of the page lists Key West as “Wed & Fri.” Sunday appears only under the RWO/APBA Key West World Championships, where the page calls it the “highest value race day of the season.”

RWO’s site lists 14 race classes: Class 1, Class 2, Super Cat, Super Stock, Super Vee, Modified Vee, Cat 300, Vee Limited and Bracket Classes 2 through 7. Four of them have a UIM World Championship section on the points page. The other ten are scored only by the American Power Boat Association (APBA), which sanctions every RWO event.

Which titles are on the line

UIM Class 1 and Class 2: eight races in four cities (Atlantic City, Michigan City, Clearwater, Key West on Wednesday and Friday), scored 20-15-12-9-7-5-4-3-2-1.
UIM Super Cat: seven races, scored on the 1,200-point scale RWO uses for APBA.
UIM Super Stock: six races, same 1,200-point scale.
RWO/APBA Key West World Championships: all classes, 1,200 points on Wednesday and Friday, 2,400 on Sunday. Teams qualify by racing two 2026 events, and 2025 APBA World Champions are in automatically.

The page doesn’t explain why Super Stock’s world championship is six races long and Class 1’s is eight. Atlantic City is listed as a single race day for Super Cat and doesn’t appear in Super Stock’s count.

It also contradicts itself. One version of the UIM Class 1 and Class 2 section says the two Key West days score the standard scale with “no double points.” A second version lower on the same page scores UIM at 1,200 points per race day and lists Wednesday and Friday at 2,400 each. A Class 1 crew that wins on Friday collects either 20 points or 2,400, depending on which half of the page you trust. The two versions disagree on Key West eligibility as well: “any two APBA or UIM events” in one, “at least two 2026 RWO/APBA series events” in the other.

From two classes to four

The UIM agreement RWO announced on March 9 covered two classes. The release, datelined Monaco, called it a “landmark 10-year partnership” and said RWO teams could compete for UIM Class 1 and Class 2 world titles. “Class 1 has been the pinnacle class for UIM for so many years,” UIM president Raffaele Chiulli said in it.

By June 16, when XINSURANCE announced it was title sponsor of the renamed XINSURANCE UIM World Championship Series, the count was three. That release names UIM Class I, UIM Class II and APBA Super Cat as racing for designated UIM world championships in North America for the first time, with each champion honored at the UIM awards ceremony in Monaco. It describes the RWO-UIM deal as a “multi-year licensing partnership” without giving a term, and says Key West counts as two championship rounds. Super Stock isn’t mentioned.

Super Stock shows up as a UIM class on the points page. We found no release on RWO’s site announcing the addition.

The IHRA crossover

Both catamaran classes that gained UIM status started 2026 committed to a different series. On Jan. 24 the International Hot Rod Association announced that Super Cat had joined the IHRA Offshore National Championship Series: seven national races, a World Championship finale, a $2 million total purse plus tow money, and 11 named teams. Super Cat class representative Vinnie Diorio said IHRA had “put real investment into the sport and followed through.”

RWO’s Super Cat roster now lists six boats. All six team names (Dirty Money Racing, Wicked, CR Racing, Howe2Live Offshore, C.J. Grant Racing and EWB Racing) were on IHRA’s January list.

Super Stock raced IHRA events too. Bernews reported that two Team Bermuda boats finished first and second in Super Stock at the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout in June, an IHRA Offshore National Championship round. On Sept. 30, Bernews reported that the S-25 crew of David Selley and Steven Bridges had won the Super Stock National Championship after a third place at the RWO round in Clearwater. That article doesn’t say which body awarded the title.

IHRA’s own offshore season left less of a paper trail. Its January schedule, reported by WHBL in Sheboygan, listed eight races and said the World Championship event “has yet to be announced.” IHRA’s website carries no offshore announcements, and we found no IHRA statement naming a world championship venue or an offshore champion. The organization cancelled the rest of its stock car season in July, and 12 IHRA-linked tracks, Rockingham Speedway among them, are now listed for sealed-bid auction with a Nov. 17 deadline.

Small fields, shared crews

RWO’s rosters list seven Class 1 boats, each with two 1,100-hp inboards, six Super Cats and 14 Super Stock catamarans on twin Mercury 300XS outboards. Several names appear more than once. Jay Muller is listed as throttleman on Class 1 #5 WHM Motorsports, Super Cat #54 C.J. Grant Racing and Super Stock S-43 Celsius/Valvoline, and Chris Hopgood drives both #5 and S-43. Bill Pyburn is throttleman on Class 1 #3 and Super Cat #1. Billy Moore is on Class 1 #10 and Super Stock S-28.

The Super Stock roster also lists Shaun Torrente as rigger of the S-25 and Cole Leibel as driver of S-1 Raymarine. The two bought ROAR Offshore in June.

With all four UIM titles settled across Wednesday and Friday, Muller could be throttling for three world championships in two race days. RWO’s Key West schedule page doesn’t break out which classes run when; its full schedule link points to an outside GitHub page.

Getting there

Sunset over Truman Waterfront Park in Key West, Florida — Truman Waterfront Park, home of the Key West race village. Photo: Niranjan Arminius via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Official race viewing is at the Navy Mole entrance, and RWO’s event page warns there is “no parking within blocks” of it. RWO points spectators to rideshare, bicycles (helmets required) or the free Duval Loop bus, and says no animals are allowed on Navy property. Races stream live on YouTube and Facebook. The boat parade and street party run Nov. 1 and Nov. 6.

RWO says the Key West entry list will be posted closer to race week. It will show whether the Super Cat and Super Stock fields that came over from IHRA are all on the trailer to Key West, and by Friday evening, Nov. 6, the four UIM champions bound for Monaco should be known.

Should a world title be settled on Friday when the season’s biggest points day is still to come on Sunday, or is RWO right to keep the UIM rounds separate?

Sources: Race World Offshore 2026 Points Overview, Key West event page and class rosters; RWO/UIM partnership release (March 9, 2026); XINSURANCE release (June 16, 2026); IHRA Super Cat announcement (Jan. 24, 2026); WHBL; Bernews.

Lead Image credit: JohnCarbona via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0); Niranjan Arminius via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)