Local pair Team Bermuda and Nuff Said will be among the teams battling for honours and a share of the prize money in the Shootout Offshore on Lake of Ozarks in Missouri during the weekend.

Team Bermuda, comprised of Steven Bridges and David Selley, will again be the team to beat as they presently top the Super Stock class points standings by 27 points in the seven-race IHRA Offshore Series Championship.

The duo have stood on the podium at every race to date this season, having won the St Petersburg Grand Prix and Thunder at Cocoa Beach and finished second at the New Orleans Grand Prix in their 32ft twin-engined catamaran.

Boat owner and throttle man Bridges is now looking forward to the next challenge as he and driver Selley hope to continue their brilliant form and put more distance between themselves and the chasing pack.

“LOTO is a challenging racecourse as it is a small course to begin with and there should be 14 to 16 boats racing in our class, so it will make it even more of a challenge,” Bridges told The Royal Gazette.

“It’s important to get a clean, fast start for the race so qualifying will play an important role in the line up. We hope to qualify well to set us up for the race and we aren’t bouncing off each other going into turn one.”

Bridges and Selley have arrived early in the United States to kick start their preparations for this weekend’s race.

“The team arrived in Florida on Sunday to prep the boat and do a testing session so we are as prepared and ready as we can be,” Bridges said.

“Will do a final test run on Saturday at LOTO just before qualifying as well, so hoping all goes well.”

The pair are making their third appearance at the event where their best finish to date is fifth.

Nuff Said, whose team is made up of driver Luis Martins and throttle man Nick Imprescia, are also holding their own in the Championship.

They are presently fourth in the points standings, 97 points adrift of the leaders, and have finished in the top six at every race so far this year with a best showing of fifth at the New Orleans Grand Prix.

“We are fourth in the points, which is absolutely amazing,” Martins said.

“We are just going to keep at it and our goal is hopefully try and finish every race towards the top.

“We came fifth at this race last year and hopefully we can improve on that. That’s our goal, try and get better and better every time but everybody else is doing the same thing. They are going to be doing their homework and we just have to do ours and hope for a better finish.

“It’s normally a high-speed race because it’s a lake and a narrow lake at that. It can get breezy but it won’t get rough like at Cocoa Beach.”

Teams battled punishing rough seas at last month’s Thunder at Cocoa Beach in Florida, where Team Bermuda picked up their second win of the season after passing leaders Kittredge and Boaz on the penultimate lap of the four-lap race contested in 6 to 7ft waves. Martins and Imprescia also withstood the brutal conditions on the way to finishing sixth.

The pair have also arrived early in the United States to kick start their preparations for their next outing.

The IHRA Offshore Series is a new professional racing championship taking place across multiple states and culminating in the IHRA World Powerboat Grand Prix in Miami.

The inaugural season offers a record $2 million total prize purse, with $1.5 million distributed across the seven national events.