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This Saturday will be all about power, speed and concentration when 22 powerboats blast through the surf down in Mercury Bay.

The Whitianga Offshore 100 returns for its eighth year of racing and if you want to secure the best view make sure you're down at Buffalo Beach Reserve before racing starts at 11am.

The Whitianga Offshore 100 returns to Mercury Bay on Saturday, with racing starting at 11am. Photo: NZ Offshore Powerboat Association/Shot 360 Photography

Saturday's event is the fourth round of the 2015 New Zealand Offshore Powerboat Series and will feature two 30 minute races that take place at 11am and 1pm.

There are several categories of powerboats racing and includes anything from single and twin engine boats, right up to twin inboard boats, with horsepowers ranging from 100hp up to 1050hp.

The competitors' ages range from 16-years-old up to 75-years-old and they hail from all around the country but mainly the North Island.

Organiser and ProFloors Racing driver Wayne Valder says preparations have gone swimmingly ahead of the event and all the racers are excited to be returning to Whitianga.

'We've always get great support from the Whitianga locals,” says Wayne. 'They always welcome us to their town every year and the race is very much established in Whitianga now.

'Best of all this is a free event, it's not often people get a free motorsport event so if you're after a thrill then by all means come on down to the Buffalo Beach reserve to watch some racing.”

For the event, teams consisting of two people – a steerer and a co-driver/throttleman – will race around an L-shaped circuit while averaging speeds of around 100km/h.

Wayne says speeds can vary from 100km/h up to 200km/h amongst the different classes of boats.

'The bigger boats will be doing about 200km/h along the beach front, but obviously weather conditions will slow them down slightly, but not too much, and if there's a good swell they'll get plenty of air too.”

Wayne is the man behind the wheel of the ProFloors Racing boat – a 34ft Phantom catamaran that features two 525 Mercruisers race engines which pumps out 1050 of horsepower.

He and co-driver Chris Hanley are the current New Zealand champions and have recently returned from competiting at the Qatar Cup where they placed third in the world in the Superboat class.

'We were in a lower horsepower boat compared to the rest of them as well, so we did extremely well.'

For the past 28 years he's been addicted to powerboat racing and says he was introduced to the sport through a cousin when he was 'just a young fulla”.

The powerboat bug bit him instantly and says it is one of those sports that is 'hard to let of and everybody who's involved has found that over the years too.”

He adds: 'It's very adrenalising and you're concentration is 110 per cent.”

'In the bigger boats when you're driving you're looking 100m ahead of you all the time because it's only two seconds before you're there.

'Obviously, you're control is a lot harder than being on the road because you don't have a brake, and when you get air you've got to make sure that the boat is straight when you land.

'There's an art and a skill to driving an offshore power boat, unfortunately there's no-one to teach you, it's more through experience than anything.”

The Whitianga Offshore 100 takes place in Whitianga on Saturday with races taking place at 11am and 1pm. For the best position to view racing head down to Buffalo Beach Reserve.

For more information visit NZ Offshore Powerboat Associations website at: www.nzoffshore.co.nz

To get your engines humming view the ProFloors Racing Team in action at the 2015 Qatar Cup below: