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Kiwi racer in line of fire at World superboat champs |
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Written by admin
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Wednesday, 25 November 2009 |
It’s official – the Aussies have it in for Kiwi racers.
This week an Australian motor sport magazine carried a Ned Kelly-style ‘wanted’ poster depicting defending world superboat champion, Canterbury racer Peter Caughey.
Caughey holds first spot in the superboat class at the UIM World Jetsprint Championships going into the final round this weekend.
“It’s been a long break since the last season,” Caughey says, “But after the opener I’m feeling good.”
“I’ve got used to the boat, I’m back in the swing of racing – and during mid-week service my team found and fixed a break in the jet unit, so I’ll expect some extra speed this weekend.”
“Better air pressure and cooler temperatures too,” the experienced racer says, “which should favour the Kiwis.”
Working on the boat in 36-degree heat has been hard, but Caughey’s grateful for the facilities.
“The True Blue team races three of my Sprintec boats, and Colin Parish provided us with a workshop. He’s the UIM rep for Australia, and an engine builder by trade so his help has been appreciated,” Caughey says.
This is a highly competitive sport, in which the 500kg, 1000-horsepower boats complete up to three laps in well under a minute. There can be no mistakes, no loss of form.
Yet these racers are happy to lend each other a hand. “We just helped prepare an impellor for Nathan Pretty, our immediate rival,” Caughey says, “So hopefully he doesn’t gain too much performance from it and knock us off our perch – but it’s all in the cause of good racing!”
Caughey’s team is en route to Melbourne with their TOTAL boat. They’ll call in to MoTeC to make development changes and tweaks with their new MoTeC datalogger.
They’ll also work on Alan Carr and Chris Kent’s boat. The Sprintec clients wrote their boat off last weekend. “We’ve helped them get new sides and a transom and weld them in,” Caughey says.
“Now we’ll be checking that the boat is as close to original spec as we can get it in the short term, so they can race in the World Championship final.”
After that, the TOTAL team will focus on Saturday’s practice and Sunday’s final. For Caughey, nothing less than a win will do.
ENDS
Note: Want to see Carr’s crazy crash at the World Championship opener? Search “crazy as temora crash” in www.youtube.com or click here
Jetsprint calendar
November 28-29 – world championship final – Victoria, Australia
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Last Updated ( Friday, 27 November 2009 )
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