Korean motorboat racing opens second half
The 2026 season resumed with 137 racers after 31 promotions and 35 demotions in the midseason grade adjustment.
The 2026 Korean motorboat racing season has opened its second half. The first half featured 137 racers, with 109 listed as male and 28 listed as female, competing to keep their grades or move up, while lower-ranked racers fought to avoid suspension from race assignment.
The second-half grade adjustment produced 31 promotions and 35 demotions. In the opening round after the adjustment, upper-tier racers chose stable race management over high-risk moves.
Sim Sang-cheol, a 7th-class A1 racer who leads the wins table with 31 victories, averaged 0.18 seconds at the start and finished second in all four of his starts. Park Won-gyu, a 14th-class A1 racer, had some variation at the start but used his first-turn racing pattern to take 1 win from 3 starts.
Kim Ji-hyun, an 11th-class A1 racer, made 3 starts, finishing second twice in flying start races and winning in an online start race. Lee Su-bin, a 16th-class B2 racer who narrowly avoided suspension from race assignment in the first half, used engine No. 6, which ranked 1st in the confirmation inspection time, to win both an online start race and a flying start race.
Lee Su-bin went 2-for-2 and led the flying start race with a 0.03-second start in the 28th round. Jung Kyung-ho, a 7th-class B1 racer, used engine No. 26 and averaged 0.16 seconds at the start while winning all 3 of his races.
Jung Kyung-ho's 3 wins all came in flying start races, including races from course 3 and course 5. Song Hyo-seok, an 8th-class B1 racer, averaged 0.16 seconds at the start and recorded 1 first-place finish and 2 third-place finishes, while Jeon Du-sik, an 8th-class racer demoted from A2 to B1, averaged 0.20 seconds and recorded 1 first-place finish and 12 second-place finishes.
Lee Seo-beom, a race analyst at Kyeongjeong Korea, said, 'With both the consistency of the leading racers and the changes among racers seeking a rebound confirmed at the same time, the race for wins and the grade competition will continue as intensely as in the first half.'
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