Luis Martins is inspired by the start that he and Nick Imprescia have made to the 2026 IHRA Offshore Championship in the United States.

The professional powerboat racers are presently sixth with one top-five result after the opening two rounds of the seven-race series and are keen to make inroads in their 32ft twin-engined catamaran, Nuff Said.

“It’s definitely encouraging and as long as we are competitive and in the top half I am happy,” Martins told The Royal Gazette.

“Obviously we all want to win the race and that’s what we’re trying — we’re trying to win.

“Hopefully we can get on the podium but I’ll let time take its course and when it’s that time it’s that time. I’ll just try to keep racing hard.”

Driver Martins and throttle man Imprescia finished sixth in their season debut at the St Petersburg Powerboat Grand Prix in Florida in March.

“St Petersburg was a beautiful race, “Martins said.

“We were leading on the second lap and then I misjudged a buoy and was going towards the wrong buoy. By the time I corrected myself it put us behind about four boats and we just couldn’t get back towards the front again.

“We had to race hard to try and stay with them because we were in their wash, which was hard because it was not clean water, but we still came out with a sixth-place finish which was OK.”

The local team then bounced back from a poor start to place fifth in their next outing at last month’s New Orleans Powerboat Grand Prix in Louisiana.

“We had a difficult start and fell back into twelfth place or so but then we came up and finished fifth, so that was great,” Martins said.

“I am definitely happy and over the moon with our finishes in the first two races.”

The New Orleans Powerboat Grand Prix was an eventful one for the team, with their boat was damaged in a collision with a rival boat at the start.

“We got hit at the start of the New Orleans race after getting squeezed in again and had to do some bumping and got a little chip on the port side of our boat,” Martins said.

“We are having some difficult starts and it’s very, very competitive at the start. Everybody is fighting for that one corner and it’s either you stay very aggressive and hope to get through it, stay aggressive and get knocked like we did and then pull back so it don’t get worse, or you just pull out of it one time and start behind.”

Expectations are high for the team to deliver this season after finishing runners-up at last year’s Race World Offshore Key West World Championships in Florida.

“It was such a good finish in Key West that a lot of people, especially our local family here in Bermuda, are now expecting us to be top three all the time,” Martins said.

“People are like ‘what’s happening Luis, second and then fifth or sixth’ and I’m like ‘hey mate, take it easy’.

“More than half of the fleet is very competitive and able to win a race, so it’s not like two or three boats are that much faster.

“All the boats are doing the same speed, so it’s just a matter of who gears the boat and prepares the boat correctly for that actual 40 minutes of racing.”

Martins admits the team have a target on their back having proven that they can hold their own against some of the world’s elite at this level.

“They know that we are right there in the mix and race hard,” he said.

“We are definitely competitive but every race is different and it all depends on your set- up and how good you hit the mark.

“The weather changes and for a boat the water is different every ten feet so you have to set up for it like an hour and a half before the actual race.

“It’s about hitting the mark and sometimes you hit it right and you are really fast and sometimes you hit it not so right, where you’re slow at the beginning but fast at the end of the race or vice versa.

“But we are definitely learning the boat and getting better and better every race and feeling more comfortable.

“You never stop learning and every race is a learning race. Something happens differently and you learn how to do it better by a mistake or just racing.”

Bermudians have already enjoyed success in the IHRA Offshore Championship this year with Steven Bridges and David Selley winning the St Petersburg Powerboat Grand Prix and finishing runner-up in the New Orleans Powerboat Grand Prix to secure top spot the Championship standings after two races.

“That was awesome that another Bermuda boat won it,” Martins said.

“I was over the moon with that for sure and it’s always nice when one of us wins.”