Caughey ups the pace for SuperBoat round two

Five-time NZ SuperBoat champion Peter Caughey fizzed as he parked the trailer Thursday night.

His mighty new 570 MegaMonster motor has finally found some form.

“It’s always a great feeling when you’re out on the river on territory you know, testing, and the ENZED boat is lighting up – you don’t really need to read the data to know when it’s flying, and she was going tonight!” he says with a grin. “Even crew chief Dave’s eyebrows were flickering after the run – we both knew the boat was going fast.”

“We’ve found more speed, higher rpm, and it’s all coming together – it’s a much happier package that’ll leave Canterbury Friday night for round two of the New Zealand SuperBoat champs at Featherston on Sunday.”

Caughey debuted the boat at December’s opening round and struggled to get it to race tune in time to clinch that all-important win.

“After the last race we had a huge list of details we wanted to pick up on and explore. We went through the data on our datalogger, spoke to our American specialist and he suggested the biggest fuel injector available – which we’ve already got and the motor’s still screaming for more fuel, so we’ll use Kiwi ingenuity and make our own, or machine theirs!”

But that time in the workshop nearly didn’t make the test after flooding on the Waimak took time to recede. “The river was still high and dirty, but we found water to do the testing we needed,” Caughey said.

“We’ve retuned the jet unit to suit the motor, and that’s paid dividends too, and we’re really looking forward to going racing this weekend.”

Caughey’s a perfectionist and will still do some fine-tuning to suit the boat to the Featherston track.

“The promoters have selected a good track rotation for this weekend with some fast stuff which will suit the high power supercharged and turbocharged boats which may close the gap a little. Having said that, Featherston has always been a good track for a boat like our Sprintec, powerful nimble boats have almost always won at that track.”

Caughey is looking forward to a challenge made all the sharper by the arrival of the current Australian SuperBoat champion, Greg ‘Crusty’ Mercier, to contest three rounds in an older Sprintec boat with a 500 small block motor, “a potent little package” navigated by his wife, Dorinda.

“With Crusty, and the likes of Wanganui’s Leighton Minnell and Pat Dillon we should have some close, fast racing at Featherston’s Twilight meeting, with the quickest players racing in the final at 8pm.”

Provisional points, top five after round One

1 Peter Caughey – Canterbury – 30 points
2 Pat Dillon – Wanganui – 29 points
3 Leighton Minnell – Wanganui – 28 points
4 Steve Bron – Feilding – 26 points
5 Ray Ferguson – Lower Hutt – 25 points

2013 Jetsprint calendar

Round 2, January 20, 2013 – Featherston
Round 3, February 24, 2013 – Meremere
Round 4, March 3, 2013 – Hastings
Round 5, March 30, 2013 – Wanaka
Round 6, April 13, 2013 – Wanganui