Defending world champion Peter Caughey and navigator Karen Marshall have won round one of the UIM World Jetsprint Championship held in New South Wales, Australia, today.

Caughey’s winning time of 38.99 seconds kept him ahead of Nathan Pretty, on 39.88.

Those are blistering times when you remember this is not a sprint race. These massively-powerful boats tackle more than 40 turns around a confusing network of flat islands.

The water is shallow. There are no brakes, and once the jet leaves the water there’s no steering either, as several racers found out today.

Third-placed ex-pat Kiwi Daryll Hutton has just fitted a supercharged motor to his superboat. “It was pretty wild, and entertaining to watch, but he flamed out and crashed right on the finish line,” Caughey said.

But the biggest excitement of the day came from Al Carr in a Caughey-built Sprintec boat, ‘Crazy As’, and Dean Finch in a twin turbo.

Carr took too tight a line into the last chicane, got some lift and crashed over the finish line at over 110km/h. “It’s a money corner that one,” Caughey says; “Make a mistake there and it’ll cost you places.” Fortunately Carr and his navigator suffered no serious injury, though their boat was written off.

But Finch struck it lucky. “With 1600 horsepower available you’re never quite sure when he’ll turn it up the boost and put in a blinder,” Caughey says.

“He hit trouble at the same spot as Carr, the boat got lift and skidded sideways down the channel – skittering side-on at 130km/h across the finish line. He got his lap time, too, but he’d have needed a change of underwear after that.”

Caughey’s day was not without its drama when the starter motor on his TOTAL boat failed to fire. He sacrificed a qualifying round to replace it. “Thankfully we’d brought a spare starter, but it took over an hour,” Caughey said. “It was a fantastic effort by Dave McCallum, he worked in 36-degree heat with today’s high wind at its worst, the marquee trying to fly, but we got the boat back in the water before the first race.”

Caughey paid tribute to an exciting track. “Forget the six islands, or remembering the sequence of turns,” he says. “The hard part is that in places the water was just inches deep. You could see water but it wasn’t deep enough – hit it and the boat does a big rally slide, which puts you off line.”

“Trouble is, when you’re racing and pushing hard you try to take the shortest line but you couldn’t – and you can’t see the best line, you have to find it by trial and error.”

Still, the Kiwis held their own at the opening rounds, with four New Zealanders – and five of Caughey’s Sprintec boats – featuring in the top six of the superboat class.

Taupo’s Reg Smith was top-placed Kiwi in Group A with third.

Caughey will be watching Nathan Pretty in next week’s final – he’s a professional racer with a supercar background - “And we still see Duncan Wilson as someone to watch in the final round.”

ENDS

Photo caption:
Peter Caughey and navigator Karen Marshall en route to victory at the superboat world championship

UIM World Jetsprint Championship
Provisional Superboat results
Top six only

1 Peter Caughey            NZ             40 points
2 Nathan Pretty             Australia            39 points
3 Daryll Hutton            NZ ex-pat            38 points
4 Mick Carroll            Australia            37 points
5 Duncan Wilson            NZ            36 points
6 Tony Guistozzi            Australia            35 points

ENDS

Jetsprint calendar

November 28-29 – world championship final – Victoria, Australia