Brad Christopher started offshore racing just 18 months ago and already had a season most racers dream of.
Running in the Bracket 700 class with Connor Langheim, the duo won the APBA National and World Championships, the Monster Energy Triple Crown and swept the Race World Offshore championships including Key West, Florida. The Dirt Legal/Velocity Factory Race Team was so dominant, there was only one race where they didn’t finish on the podium.
It was a major turnaround from their first race in Sarasota, Florida, in 2024 when they had trouble even starting.
“Our kill cords came off on the green flag,” Christopher said. “I didn’t realize that you needed that much slack in the kill cords. That first race was a big learning curve for us.”
Christopher has learned a lot since his 2024 Sarasota Powerboat Grand Prix start, spending the next year dialing in the Velocity 22 Punisher race boat. Working with Velocity Powerboats President Scott McCormick, an accomplished offshore racer, they dialed in the boat.
Christopher tested more than a dozen propellers at Mercury’s Lake X outside of Orlando and when the ocean got rough, he’d take the 22 Punisher offshore in Daytona. The boat was originally set up for speed runs at the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout.
“It was a totally different setup for Class 7,” Christopher said. “We moved the battery to a different position, kind of getting the weight more forward versus all the weight in the rear.”
Christopher estimates he has more than 125 hours running the 22 Punisher. “At 100 hours is when I felt like I knew what the boat was going to do in each situation,” he said.
Langheim and Christopher didn’t have direct helmet communications all season, so Christopher would use thumb signals to tell the throttleman how to trim the tabs. (Christopher could talk to the shore via a handheld VHF radio.) Eventually, they added controls to the driver spot, allowing Langheim to focus on throttling and the engine trim.
By the end of the 2025 campaign in Bracket Class 700, Dirt Legal/Velocity Factory Race Team was unstoppable. At the 2025 Key West World Championships, the team won all three races in the nine-boat class. Even more impressive, their cumulative race time was 21 seconds faster than the second-place finisher.
Christopher grew up racing motocross but lost his leg in a 2012 accident. Having watched the offshore races in Jacksonville, Florida, Christopher always wanted to get out on the water and mix it up.
“When I lost my leg, I was trying to figure out other things to do, so I bought a speedboat to go out and do poker runs,” Christopher said.
He had watched YouTube videos of the Joey Gratton Memorial Fun Run or The Toy Run, so he bought a single-engine Velocity 290 SC. Between poker runs and offshore racing, Christopher gets plenty of time on the water.
Christopher is planning to race in the Bracket 700 class in 2026, but he will occasionally run the Jackhammer boat. The championship-winning 22 Punisher is for sale, offering a turnkey package to anyone looking to go offshore racing. Christopher isn’t looking to change classes, rather he wants the class to grow.
“I’m trying to help build the class, so if I can build a couple of Velocity boats and then sell them, turnkey, ready to race, and they’re proven race winners,” Christopher said. “Two guys can buy a boat for $75,000 a piece, go out and race it, and have a blast.”
