Broadco Coming Back With 2019 Season ‘Reunion Tour’

Fans of the Broadco offshore racing team, which won a Super Boat International World Superboat-class world championship in 2014 and exited the sport at the end of the following season, will be able to catch 40-foot MTI catamaran in action at no less than three races this season. According to St. Clair Shores, Mich.-based team owner Chuck Broaddus, the team will compete in at least three races: the July 6-7 Sarasota Powerboat Grand Prix July 6-7 and the July 27-28 St. Clair River Classic—two of the six stops in the American Powerboat Boat Association Championship Series—and the Nov. 3-10 Race World Offshore event in Key West, Fla.

Chuck Broaddus will share the cockpit of his Broadco MTI catamaran with fellow offshore racing veteran Mark Niemann for at least three races this season (click image to enlarge). Photos courtesy/copyright Pete Boden/Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.

“We are calling this the ‘Broadco Reunion Tour,’” said Broaddus. “We are super-pumped. We want to go out and have a good time, rekindle relationships with our old racing pals and get the boat back on the water.

“The boat is just sitting,” he added, then chuckled. “It’s more saleable when it’s on the water. And it is still for sale.”

Broaddus will drive the twin 750-hp Ilmor engine-powered 40-footer this season and his family members will be the team’s crew members. Joining him in the cockpit to tackle the throttleman and crew chief duties is veteran offshore racer Mark Niemann of Phantom Nine team fame. Niemann’s Marker 1 Marine shop in Sarasota will be the Broadco team’s Florida home. Formerly with Scorpion Racing Engines, Frank McComas will be the team’s “man in the bilge” on race days, and in the coming weeks will go through the canopied catamaran’s current engines.

“With the races in Sarasota and St. Clair, we have our two home-markets covers,” said Broaddus.

The boat is heading into paint this week at Lafata Custom Paint in Roseville, Mich. Once the paintwork is complete, it will be dressed in what Broaddus described as a “minimalist look” with vinyl graphics that include the names and logos of Broadco, his property restoration business, and Gearheads Haircuts for Men, a barber shop owned by his wife, Kellie, in St. Clair Shores.

Said Broaddus, “We are super-pumped. We want to go out and have a good time, rekindle relationships with our old racing pals and get the boat back on the water.” (Click image to enlarge.)

“We brought the boat back from Missouri a few weeks ago and it’s being painted right now,” said Broaddus. “Aside from the Broadco and Gearheards graphics, the general idea is to leave space for additional sponsors—or one big sponsor—we pick up along the way.”

After the St. Clair contest, the team will take a break and assess the events ahead, meaning Broaddus and Niemann could add one more race to their roster. Broaddus said that depending on where the Supercat Racing owners group decides to compete—the ABPA event in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., the RWO event in Clearwater, Fla., or individual team combinations of both—they might add anoter Sunshine State race to their 2019 competition roster.

“After St. Clair, we’ll take a breather and see how it plays out,” he said.

Broadco Coming Back With 2019 Season ‘Reunion Tour’

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