The marathon format 4 races over a weekend is proving to be very popular and ensuring that teams are on their A game with boat set up and maintenance.
Taupo presented relatively flat water Saturday with only the back straight and outer turn marks cutting up a little, the occasional cross wake from larger tourism boats in the mix also added some fun for the smaller boats. Espresso Engineers walked away with 2x 1st with current NZ1 Rainbow Haulage behind them and Doric following in 3rd. Doric DNF’d the second race but made strong repairs overnight and came out swinging on Sunday.
In the smaller classes we had 11 boats take the water and there was some close racing between Supersonic and The Blue Pill in race one and even closer again into turn one of race two. Supersonic walked away with 2x 1st place with Fury II second and third in the consecutive races and The Blue Pill 3rd and 2nd.
We had two generations on the water from two different families, with Peter Wingate in Chindit and son Michael Wingate debuting in Coranto as well as Mark Helms in CRD Automotive and son Mike Knight in The Blue Pill. Mark showing his son he still has the touch taking away Nominated Speed on Saturday and throwing the takings straight on the bar!
Sunday a slightly different story…
Forecast was for 10kmh NE-E winds and they eventuated but local knowledge would have told those that wind of that strength from that direction doesn’t chop up the bay in Taupo so we’d have flat drag racing water.
Nominated Speed was again taken out by Fury II.
In the 140HP class Coranto sorted all their issues from Saturday and out the gate had to chase down Gold Ship in both races. Coranto had just a little more top end speed than Gold Ship and managed the pass in both races to take both wins on Sunday. The dog fight in the 140 class was the class to watch over the weekend and with Coranto dancing all over the place falling from chine to chine it certainly put on a spectacle for the spectators.
At the other end of the field Doric also resolved their issues from Saturday and come out firing taking a commanding lead and win in Race one before a mechanical issue in their steering forced them into an early retirement in race two. Espresso Engineers managed a 2nd in race one and a 1st in race two with the conditions proving too light for Rainbow Haulage who settled in for a 3rd and 2nd respectively.
In the 60 Mile Championship a cat was thrown amongst the pigeons for sure with Supersonic keeping up their speed and form from Saturday to take a narrow 200m win in race one before a commanding 800m win in race two over Fury II. The class over the weekend had 11 competitors in it and the fight for 3rd place was between 4 boats, Hypersonic, Chindit, The Blue Pill and the debutants in No Hurry. Chindits retirement in the final race handed the 3rd overall spot to Hypersonic for the weekend.
A commendation should be made to the team in the 1750 Bullet, No Hurry, who put on a great show all weekend, had the bullet sitting nice and even after early retirement due to mechanical issues in race three they got back out for the final round and managed a 4th overall in the 60 Mile championship in that race!
All eyes now onto Whitianga 22-23 March for the final round (4 races).
NZ1 is now all Espresso Engineers to defend with a 550 point buffer over the next four races.
60Mile is a field to watch, Supersonic has closed the gap to 50 points behind Fury II and with some uncommon flat water at Whitianga could see an upset but with the expected return of Midnight Express anything could happen to smear the points.
We’re expecting 3x 80MPH v8 Inboards, 8-10x Sports 200 boats, 3x Sports 140, 3x Sports 300 and 1-2 Sports 65MPH boats to turn up on top of the 3x 600hp supercats, so it’s great to have numbers up at 14 from last years 6-8 and if Whitianga pulls some great weather we’re hoping to get those numbers closer to 20 boats, it’s hard yakka rebuilding a community and sport!
Story supplied by: Ryan Archer. Photography Credit: Liss Mackay
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