Broadco MTI Sold, New Owners Going Super Cat Racing
For a couple of races and maybe more this season in the American Power Boat Association Offshore National Championship Series, which begins May 19-22 in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Super Cat-class offshore racing fans will have another familiar boat to watch. The 2014 Super Boat International Superboat-class world championship-winning Broadco MTI catamaran has been sold to Will and Tina Rodgers of Daytona Beach, Fla., and they plan to compete in the Super Cat class.
Thanks to new owners Will and Tina Rodgers, the Super Cat-class Broadco catamaran has a new home in Daytona Beach. Photo by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
The couple purchased the 40-footer from Chuck and Kellie Broaddus of St. Clair, Mich., and they come from the world of drag racing—both boats and cars. Will Rodgers will throttle the 40-footer. A former marine mechanic and current engine man, he brings extensive mechanical experience to the cockpit. Tina Rodgers, a world record-holding Top Fuel Jet Boat driver, will drive.
“We want to hit a couple of venues this season,” said Will Rodgers, who is still involved with a Top Fuel-class National Hot Rod Association drag racing team on a “consulting” level. “We went to a couple of events last year and met Myrick Coil, Gary Stray and Steve Curtis, and they were all very encouraging. And I have to thank (former Miss GEICO throttleman) Scott Begovich for putting my wife in the Miss GEICO cockpit a few years ago. She got the bug for it.”
Tina and Will Rodgers plan to start their Super Cat-class entry with a few races this season.
No longer Broadco, the catamaran will run as Dramatized Offshore Racing and will be dressed in new graphics. A lifelong powerboat enthusiast, Rodgers said that though he and his wife will take things gradually during this their rookie season, they plan to be competitive. At some point, he may build Super Cat engines of his own, though for now he is sticking with the twin 750-hp Scorpion mills that came with the boat.
“I don’t want to show up and be embarrassed,” he said. “I want our competitors to be worried about us. It’s a good, safe boat, and a really fast boat.”
Said Grant Bruggemann, the Broadco team’s throttleman and team manager during its world-championship season, “It’s an awesome boat. I’m happy to hear it’s coming back to the racecourse and we will have another boat in the Super Cat class.
“Just don’t forget to hold your line in turn No. 1,” he added, then laughed.
Though the Broadco cat has been for sale since 2015, Chuck and Kellie Broaddus refused to move it part by part. They wanted to sell it as a complete offshore raceboat ready for Super Cat-class competition and they accomplished that goal. Still, the finality of the sale and this weekend’s delivery in Daytona Beach was bittersweet.
“I cried when we drove away,” said Kellie Broaddus. “So many great friends and so many great memories.”
Added her husband, “We wish Will and Tina the very best. If they put their hearts and souls into it, the former Broadco boat will continue its legacy.”
The Broaddus family was already thinking about selling the cat after its world championship season in 2014, but the team’s first race of the 2015 season in Cocoa Beach, Fla., cemented that decision. During that event, Broaddus and then-Broadco throttleman Grant Bruggemann caught a sponson and barrel-rolled twice. The entire experience, from the crash itself to the expense of repairing a badly damaged raceboat, was enough for them to put the cat on the market.
Check out the sequence of Broadco’s roll in Cocoa Beach, Fla., in 2015. Photos courtesy of the Broadco team.
“Our luck ran out, a bad wave put us on our lid,” Chuck Broaddus said. “But that’s part of boat racing, and the process of wrecking and putting it back together rounded out our boat-racing career.”
Between the couple’s insistence that their MTI be sold as a compete Super Cat-class raceboat and the skinny market for such products, the Broadco cat took years to finally sell. In 2019, Chuck Broaddus ran it in a few races with throttleman Chris Hanley of New Zealand in preparation for the Race World Offshore-produced Offshore World Championships in Key West, Fla. Broaddus and Hanley took second place in Wednesday’s contest and the checkered flag on Friday. A fuel pump issue knocked them out of Sunday’s double-points contest and landed them in fourth place overall.
With first- and second-place finishes at the 2019 Race World Offshore World Championships in Key West, Fla., the Broadco team proved its MTI catamaran was still a formidable competitor.
But it was an outstanding performance by the entire Broadco team and a fine high-note on which to end an equally fine offshore racing career. While competing against the likes of Billy Mauff and Jay Muller in WHM Motorsports and the late J.R. Noble of STIHL team fame were among the highlights for the team during the years, the 2019 season may well have been the most enjoyable during its 10 years in the sport.
“That was the most fun we ever had racing,” said Chuck Broaddus. “It was such a relaxed week with Chris Hanley and his family.”
Enjoy more images of the Broadco team in the slideshow above.
“We are sad to see them leave the Super Cat class, and offshore racing in general, as they were great stewards of the sport and amazing people to have raced alongside,” said Tyler Miller, the owner and throttleman of the M CON team and Super Cat owners group representative. “We wish the best to Chuck and Kellie and the entire Broadco team on their future endeavors.”
Though a high-performance center console is in the near future for Chuck and Kellie Broaddus, offshore powerboat racing will forever be part of their personal fabric. They plan to attend a few races this season as fans.
“We are going to miss everybody in offshore racing, but particularly our Super Cat teammates and fellow competitors,” said Chuck Broaddus. “Super Cat is a family, and they invited us into that family wholeheartedly. We are going to miss all of them, but we’ll still go to a few races here and there.
“That’s not to say we wouldn’t consider racing in the future if all the stars aligned,” he continued. “But for now, at least, we’re at the end of an era. We created a legacy with the Broadco boat, and hopefully the new owners will be able to carry it on.”
Said Chuck Broaddus, “Super Cat is a family and they invited us into that family wholeheartedly.”
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