BRADENTON, Fla. (WFLA) — The 2024 Bradenton Area River Regatta kicked off in Manatee County.
“Boat racing, it’s music, it’s kid zones, it’s food, just about anything you could possibly imagine, it’s all world class entertainment and it’s all free,” Michael Dongilli explained.
Picture this, drivers racing down the Manatee River in Formula 2 powerboats that can go up to 120 miles per hour.
Also returning this year, the lighter and smaller “formula lights” powerboats, showing off both speed and razor sharp precision.
“I’m really excited to be here,” said one of the drivers, Becky Nichols. “I came out here last year as a spectator and part of the America Power Boat Association.”
“This year I’m here as a driver,” she continued.
Nichols said she had to put in “quite a bit” of work into the event.
“This is our first year really campaigning an SST-45,” she said. “We’ve races in multiple other categories in the America Power Boat Association, so it’s been a lot of ground work all the parts collected, getting a new boat together, so we’ve been working on this for probably the past few months.”
Nichols took on the surf Saturday in front of tens of thousands of people, kicking off her season at this year’s regatta, one of the largest powerboat events in the US.
“I now everybody puts in a lot of work, this is the first race of the season,” she said. “So, this is really where you get everything started so you want to make sure you put your best foot forward to get rolling and then leading up to the rest of the year.”
For more details on what’s to come for American Power Boat Association racing, click here.
