Here’s this week’s WCJ Weekly Racing Roundup, where we check in with the organizations, racers, and championship battles shaping the 2026 personal watercraft racing season. This week, HydroDrags builds anticipation for its November World Championships with a new class aimed at recreational riders, Great Lakes Watercross heads into its season finale after a stretch of rough water and even rougher points battles, Pro Watercross kicks off three straight weekends on the Road to Havasu, and IHRA confirms its championship-stretch schedule remains locked in.
HydroDrags
With the FuelTech HydroDrags World Championships still more than three months away, series founder Billy Tew is already building momentum for the November 21-22 event at Sunset Cove Amphitheater in Boca Raton, Florida, promising more than $8,100 in total payouts across the weekend’s lineup of classes.
Tew confirmed HPT Turbochargers-backed rider Joey Jimenez as one of the riders to watch heading into the event, noting Jimenez is a two-time winner from the May Nationals in both the Unlimited and Turbo No Nitrous classes. Payouts vary by class, with Turbo No Nitrous and Unlimited offering the largest purses at $700-900 for first place, while Pro Stock, Pro Spec, Superstock, and Sea-Doo vs. Sea-Doo each pay $500 to the winner. Junior racers (ages 13-16) compete for a smaller purse topping out at $300. Most classes cap entries at 10, though Turbo No Nitrous and Unlimited allow up to 20 racers each.
Spectator admission remains affordable, with single-day tickets running $30 in advance through the HydroDrags app ($40 at the gate) and weekend passes at $40 online ($50 at the gate). Kids 10 and under get in free.
One class organizers are especially eager to grow is Drag Slaloms, a closed-course discipline introduced this year for both stand-up and runabout riders. Racers launch off the pad, run 660 feet before breaking off to hit a set of markers, then turn back through the markers again before racing back to the pad for a photo finish. “Harder than it looks and not all about speed,” Tew said, adding that several traditional drag racers who tried the class during testing came away with a new respect for it. The format is aimed at giving recreational and closed-course riders in Florida a class of their own, and entries are limited.
As with previous HydroDrags events, registration is handled exclusively through the series’ mobile app, available on Google Play and the Apple App Store, where racers can also find complete rules, waivers, and discounted room blocks near the venue with a reserve-now-pay-later option. Tew reiterated the series’ continued emphasis on safety and technical enforcement to keep racing fair and competitive, with entries limited across every class due to the venue’s time restrictions. The event remains IHRA sanctioned, with FuelTech as title sponsor and Chris Jr. Performance presenting.
Great Lakes Watercross
It’s been a busy stretch for Great Lakes Watercross since we last checked in following Traxler Park in Janesville. That June 27-28 weekend, held alongside Janesville’s Star-Spangled Saturday celebration, brought out a big crowd and an even bigger fireworks show, though Mother Nature had the final say — the last two motos were canceled due to thunderstorms and lightning. Novice Ski Lites went to Reiss Williams, while Emerson King topped Runabout Lites, with GLW crediting the city of Janesville and the Rock Aqua Jays for hosting one of the series’ most spectator-friendly stops.
From there it was on to Harbor Beach, Michigan, July 18-19, for the Harbor Beach Cup, sponsored by Jarman Powersports and featuring some of the season’s richest payouts — $6,000 to the Runabout 1100 Limited winner and $2,000 to the top Sport Spec finisher. Photographer Troy Fisher, a familiar name behind the lens throughout the GLW season, called Harbor Beach the largest and roughest course the series had run all year, yet said it somehow produced the tightest racing at the front of the field. The weekend also brought a jolt to the season-long Team Points Challenge, with Jet Stars and RNR emerging from Harbor Beach dead-locked atop the standings at 1,398 points apiece heading into the final rounds.
Racine, Wisconsin, played host August 1-2 for Rounds 7 and 8 at North Beach, a weekend GLW had already marked as a double-points event before a single wave broke. And the waves were the story — Lake Michigan served up 6-8 foot conditions that forced organizers to scrap Saturday’s closed-course program entirely in favor of freestyle and free-riding, pushing both rounds to Sunday with a single long moto each. Racer Travis Branson described the conditions as challenging for everyone on the water, recounting a broken fuel pump after landing off a wave in Ski GP2 and a borrowed boat from fellow racer John William Osborne to get back on the water. Branson finished the weekend 6th in Naturally Aspirated, 3rd in Ski GP2, and 3rd in Sport Spec. Despite the rough water, GLW thanked Racine County, Enjoy Mount Pleasant, New American Home Improvement, Ignite Race Fuel, Kwik Trip, Freestyle Factory, Watcon, and Jarman Powersports for helping pull off the free, family-friendly weekend, which also included the Midwest Beach Championships volleyball event on North Beach’s sand.
With the double points from Racine now factored in, the championship picture heading into the finale has taken real shape. Justin Eblin holds a comfortable lead in Sport Spec at 555 points over Travis Branson, while Joe Clark has built a similarly strong cushion in Ski GP2 with 517 points. Several other races remain tighter: Marvin Gahagan leads Pro Am Ski Lites at 434 but is being chased closely by Whitney Treder, Dustin Voss, and Justin Treder, all within 33 points of the top spot. Runabout GP2 is even closer, with Kyle Niquette (474), Alex Dobson (472), and Carson Petersen (447) separated by less than 30 points after Petersen’s double-points weekend in Racine helped him claw back into contention following two missed rounds. Ryan Rasmussen leads both Veterans Runabout Lites and Runabout Lites, Justin Treder tops Vintage Ski 550, Jason Seeley leads Runabout 1100 Limited, and Lane Clark holds the advantage in Junior Ski GP3. The Team Points Challenge stood at Jet Stars 1,398, Jet Jockey 1,324, and Ignite’s 2 Wicked 1,277 heading into Racine, though an updated tally following that weekend’s double points had not yet been released.
All of it sets up a season finale at Red Arrow Park in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, August 21-23, presented by Visit Manitowoc. The free-to-watch weekend will run a tight schedule, with practice and two motos Saturday followed by a final chance to race and Round 10 Sunday, with season championship awards presented immediately after. Payouts for the finale include $1,750 to the winners of both Ski Limited and Runabout Lites. Beyond the on-water title battles, GLW is also asking its community to weigh in on end-of-season honors, including Rookie of the Year, Most Improved Racer, Most Valuable Racer, and the Ed Bohat Memorial Sportsmanship Award, with nominations open through the series’ online form. Troy Fisher Photography will also run a giveaway tied to the Manitowoc round, with details to follow on the GLW group page.
Pro Watercross
Pro Watercross co-owner Shawn Dudek — who also serves as showrunner for East Coast Watercross — provided fans with an extensive update this week, previewing a stretch of three consecutive race weekends on the Road to Havasu National Tour. Dudek said the run marks some of the busiest racing the organization has put on all year, and he’s healing up well from a recent leg injury, noting he’s still working back up to full weight-bearing but progressing steadily.
First up is Round 6 at Lake Verona in Avon Park, Florida, August 14-16. The event has drawn strong community backing, with the City of Avon Park and its Community Redevelopment Agency partnering to install checkered-flag banners along the historic downtown ahead of the race weekend, an effort the city said it hopes to reuse for future racing events. Dudek said the weekend will include a racer party at the Phouse, a bar near the event’s host hotel, the Hotel Jaracaranda, a 1920s-era property he described as a can’t-miss stay for anyone attending. A freestyle competition, supported by Tigercraft, will follow the day’s closed-course racing and run into the sunset hours. Admission remains free for spectators, with food trucks on-site throughout the weekend, and local sponsor Cabrera Motorsports was already on the ground ahead of race day, thanking sponsors for their support as the team prepared to compete.
From Avon Park, the tour heads straight to Round 7 at Lake Thunderbird State Park’s Hog Creek Campground in Norman, Oklahoma, August 21-23. Dudek said the narrow-cove layout should race similarly to a well-received stop the series ran in Lubbock, Texas, and that he’s optimistic about how the new track map will play out.
The tour then moves to Sylvan Beach, New York, for a combined East Coast Watercross/Pro Watercross event — run as a single race weekend under two sets of trophies — before a break precedes the tour’s Lake Havasu stop at the Windsor, held the weekend immediately before the IJSBA World Finals. Dudek noted that racers do not need to have qualified through the season to enter the Havasu event; anyone who hasn’t previously raced a Pro Watercross round is welcome to show up and compete. Pro Watercross will also be on hand to assist with World Finals operations.
By Dudek’s count, the four races remaining this stretch will bring his personal 2026 total to 16 events between Pro Watercross and East Coast Watercross, a pace he called wild even by his own standards. He acknowledged the series’ social media has been quieter than usual as the team resets ahead of a three-week run on the road, but said racers still have time to qualify for World Finals if they haven’t already locked in a spot.
IHRA Professional Watercraft Series
IHRA’s Dustin Farthing confirmed to The Watercraft Journal this week that the series’ remaining schedule is holding steady, with Williamsburg, Virginia, still set for September 4-6 and the season-ending World Cup in Lake Havasu City running September 15-20, with Monster Energy bringing a band to headline Friday night and freestyle motocross and BMX entertainment planned for Saturday and Sunday. With several other series racing this weekend and next, WCJ is keeping this update brief for now — look for a fuller IHRA report as Havasu draws closer.
From closed-course drag racing in Florida to championship deciders on Lake Michigan, this week’s roundup is a reminder of just how much ground the 2026 season covers — geographically and competitively — as organizations head into the stretch run.
