(3/2/05)

Latest News
from NZPBA National Secretary

Please note that the running of the 2005 Masport Cup was not run at it's
advertised venue, being Manukau/Auckland Speed Boat Club Regatta at Mangere
last weekend due to excessive wind.

It was decided by the holding club to run the said races at Lake Karapiro
this coming weekend in conjunction with the NZGP Hydroplane Driver's Club
Regatta.

All club entries for the 2005 Masport Cup will transfer along with their
entry fee for the said cup.

As the race was over subscribed, there will be a requirement to carry out
time trials.
 

(1/2/05)

Masport Cup Regatta Mangere Bridge

Jan 29th & 30th

Sadly Auckland/Manakau Power Boat Clubs highly anticipated regatta at
Mangere Bridge, January 29th and 30th was cancelled after windy conditions
stuffed what was looking likely to be a great meeting. Large crowds and a
great field of race boats sat in brilliant sunshine waiting for the warm
breeze to settle, but to no avail.

Ken Lupton in Annihilator 3 getting the turn fin out in the sloppy conditions

Most boats ran in the first test session on Saturday, but then in he
interests of safety, organisers decided to postpone the rest of Saturdays
program over to Sunday in the hope of less wind and better water conditions.
The race most had come to see, the 2005 Masport Cup would have to wait for
another day.

The big hydros had headaches, Peter Taylor in the big Rolls Royce Merlin
powered "Aussie Connection" has crossed the Tasman from Victoria, Australia,
and wowed the crowds with the huge rooster tail and awesome V12 noise, but
did damage to the bottom of his boat, as did David Alexander in "Annihilator
2" when he buzzed a hole in his belly pan with the flywheel. Both of these
boats were quickly repaired, as was Warwick Lupton's "Annhilator 1" after
damaging a pushrod, his fixed with an engine change.

The Grand National hydro class was looking good during the practise session,
Scott Coker in "Fair Warning" and Malcolm Wotton in "Renegade" were both
running well. As was Alan Lewis in his Modified Hydroplane "Little Cracker",
a number of the Formula 1 boats, Steve Hughes in "Total Lubricants" fresh
off his 4th Manawatu Gold Cup win was running quick, as was Ian Thomas in
"Twister", and John Hercock in "Advance". Allan Dennis in "California Girls"
was also on the pace.

The boats were packed away to await Sunday to see what the weather would
bring but again the wind came across the track. At 12 noon the drivers met
with race control and it was decided to give the wind one more hour to calm,
but at 1pm racing was abandoned for the day. Most of the F1 tunnels and the
big "Aussie Connection" ran a couple of laps for the crowd before all packed
up and headed for home. Check the Gallery for pic's.
 

(1/2/05)

Manawatu Gold Cup
23 January 2005

Manawatu’s major regatta was run as a one day regatta program to maximize the racing exitement for the crowd attending. This gave teams the opportunity for a laid back day on Saturday to test and get their boats ready for our feature races the following day.

Tony Latimer was the only F1 boat to practice on the Saturday, as he tried to get to grips with his newly imported American Hoffman built boat “MIFFCO”. He unintentionally tested the capabilities of his safety cell when after three laps of practise he blew the boat over at the end of the front straightaway. Luckily Tony was okay but the boat was a little worse for wear. The driver canopy and engine cowls sustained damage and the rear boat cowling was lost. The left pickle fork was also ripped off in the crash. Tony and crew then worked into the evening to swap the engine (which had amazingly stayed dry) onto his other boat “Patriot” for the following days Gold Cup.

Sunday the weather and water conditions were perfect for racing and the programme was underway late morning. Racing was spectacular as amongst our feature races were a number of mixed class races which made for a great show for the public albeit a little rough on some of the smaller boats.

We had two spectacular crashes by the host clubs tunnel boat drivers, firstly our club commodore Kent Dunlop climbed a rooster tail at the end of the front straight in Pete Edmond’s “VDO” F1 tunnel boat. The boat corkscrewed before landing on its roof and then righting itself. (Check our gallery pages for pic’s courtesy of Ross Watson and his video camera). The boat suffered some superficial damage but should be repaired in time for the Auckland/Manakau regatta next weekend.
Youngster Philip Stilwell flipped his “Southern Lights” F3 tunnel boat also on the front straight after flying the boat very high for most of the day. (See his pic’s at http://www.nzgrandprixhydroplane.com/). Phillip also hopes to have the boat ready for next weekend at Auckland.

Results

Carl Augustin 2 litre Inboard NZ Championship
1st Steve Mathieson Midnight
2nd Colin Gapper Tempo Too
3rd Grant Pedder Wild Thing

Ross Knight Open Hydroplane Cup
1st Steve Mathieson Midnight
2nd Brendon Hall Armageddon
3rd Tracy Gapper Avalanche

Sally Nagel Memorial
1st Steve Mathieson Midnight
2nd Brendon Hall Armageddon
3rd Colin Gapper Tempo Too

2005 Manawatu Gold Cup
1st Steve Hughes Total Lubricants
2nd John Hercock Advance
3rd Midge Mallett Cobra
4th Gary Gregory Cut Loose
5th Steve Mathieson Midnight
6th Brendon Hall Armageddon
 

(30/1/05)

News And Gossip

Jan 04

Ben Cawthra is making a return to racing in the Formula 1 class, he has
recently purchased the broken Hoffman F1 boat imported by Tony Latimer late
last year, and hopes to have it repaired and back on the water later this
season.

Tony Latimer has bought the "Oceanbridge" Seebold F1 boat from John Herzog
complete with all engines and spares. He has his Burgess F1 boat for sale
complete, check our classifieds page soon.

Mike Denham of Upper Hutt has purchased the beautiful "Captain Manta" 18
foot kevlar Mcleod ProCom flattie, complete with the tunnel-rammed 454 cubic
inch Big Block chev that John Weller last ran the boat with. Great news that
this boat will be up and running and back on the circuit soon.

(16/1/05)

Mangakino Regatta
Lake Maraetai
Jan 8 & 9 2005
Hosted by Geyserland Power Boat Club

Saturday, one race was held before organizers cancelled racing for the day because of a strong steady breeze making conditions on the back strait to dangerous.

Sunday, the weather dawned fine and water conditions were great. The feature event winners and place getters are all listed below. Congrats to David Alexander who is the new Master of Mangakino and North Island UU Champion and to Alan Lewis who successfully took out the North Island Mod H Championship in ‘Little Cracker’.
 

A great weekend had by all and thankfully not a single accident.

Master of Mangakino.
1st: ANNIHILATOR 2 David Alexander
2nd: California Girls Alan Dennis
3rd: Advance Electrical John Hercock

North Island Modified Hydroplane Championship
1st: Little Cracker Alan Lewis
2nd: Predator Janine White
3rd: Tempo Too Colin Gapper

North Island Unlimited Unrestricted
1st: Annihilator 2 David Alexander
2nd: California Girls Alan Dennis
3rd: Advance Electrical John Hercock

Thanks to Noeline Steiner for this info
 

(11/1/05)

LAKE KANIERE 2ND JANUARY 2005

The Lake Kaniere club hosted their major regatta for the season over the New Years weekend.

Two new Southern Zone records were set on the kilo early in the morning in cool still conditions.
Congratulations to Mike Ryan driving his 427cuin Chev powered McLeod flatbottom 'Gladiator' to a new Southern Zone Procom record of 108mph and to Darrel Friend driving his 350cuin chev powered Ryan Craft Hydro 'Terminator' to a new Southern Zone Grand National Hydroplane kilo record of 124mph.  These speeds are still unofficial and yet to be ratified by the NZPBA.

Kanerie Electric Cup
1st Darrel Friend in 'Terminator'
2nd Jeff Price in 'Exported'
3rd Mike Ryan 'Gladiator'

Jeff Stevenson Memorial
1st Clark Powell in 'Madaz'
2nd Trevor Jones in 'Growler'

King of the Lake
1st Darrel Freind in 'Terminator'
2nd Jeff Price in 'Exported'
3rd Clark Powell in 'Madaz'

Thanks to Jeff Price for submitting these results.

Article from the ChCh press:
Friend joins 200kmh Club

Longtime New Brighton Power club driver Daryl Friend has become the 17th
member of NewZealands exclusive 200kmh club.

Friend lifted the South Island speed record in the grand national
hydroplane class to 201 kmh driving Terminator at the Lake Kaniere ,
Hokitika, Regatta last weekend.

He joined three other New Brighton member, Peter Knight, Jack Ryan and
P.G.Knight , in the 200k club.

Friend, who has been a New Brighton club member for more than 30 years,
continued a great season by winning the Kaniere Electric Cup and The King of
the Lake titles, after earlier taking the South Island Grand National title
at Lake Dunstan.

At the same regatta , another 30 year plus New Brighton club member, Mike
Ryan, broke his class record in the Pro Com flattie class.

Driving Gladiator, Ryan lifted the record to 175kmh . He was already a
member of the New Zealand Power Boat Ass 100mph (161kmh) club.
 

(2-3/1/05)

Report on the New Years Regatta at Karapiro

Last weekend the Cambridge Waikato Powerboat Club ran their major regatta for the season at Lake Karapiro just outside Cambridge. Many boaties arrived early to see in the New Year at one of New Zealand’s premier race sites – staying on to compete in the two day event held on the 2^nd and 3^rd of January. The regatta was a great success with more than 30 boats attending and a good crowd gathering in glorious summer weather to enjoy the racing.

Day 1 saw some top competition as 3 classes raced for their North Island Titles. The Procom class saw New Plymouth based Alan “Midge” Mallett in ‘Cobra’ take top honours in the North Island Title followed by local Brett Mercer in ‘Shockwave’ with relative newcomer Ian Warmington in ‘Sultan’ third.

The ProStock North Island Championship saw some close racing with Brett Mercer once again placing second followed by Malcolm Packer of Wellington in ‘Miss Weta’. Top honours and the North Island championship went to Andrea Robinson in ‘Star Trax’. Wellington based Andrea and husband Geoff have been racing at the forefront of Series 3000 for many years – and this year Andrea was thrilled to take away the title honours racing up a class in ProStock. Thanking her husband, family and crew Andrea was applauded loudly at prize giving in recognition of her achievement, her longstanding racing success and her being one of very few women currently competing in our sport.

This year the Island Titles achieved a new record – two women taking away Island titles for the first time in history. Andrea was joined by kiwi racer Janine White who only recently moved to Melbourne.

Janine was racing ‘Predator’ a modified hydroplane owned by her father Peter White specifically for his powerboating enthusiast daughter. Janine has spent a number of years racing in various classes culminating in her outstanding triumph at Karapiro where she won the Grand National Island Title from top competitors Alan Lewis in ‘Little Cracker’ (3^rd) and Tony Hall in his new boat ‘Tempest’ (2^nd).

Congratulations to both women and lets hope your success may pave the way to more women joining the ranks of powerboat drivers across New Zealand.

Day 1 wasn’t all good news unfortunately – Auckland driver Peter Thomas had a spectacular crash in his Formula 1 tunnelboat ‘Twister’. Peter was racing in the F1 series on the triangular course when his boat caught too much air nearing the turn buoy immediately in front of the crowd.

His boat did a complete flip causing considerable engine damage as well as some sponson breakage. Some in the crowd ran at pace at the view of Peter airborne and coming toward them as they sat on the bank.

Luckily Peter was OK and the boat stopped well short of land meaning no injuries to anyone watching. For a blow by blow look at Peter’s crash visit the GP website on www.nzgrandprixhydroplane.com

The Formula 1 class proved to be a real crowd pleaser offering up some of the closest most competitive racing of the regatta. The three ten lap heats for their drivers series had a different winner in each heat. Not surprisingly Formula 1 boats took top honours in the two additional feature races of the regatta – the Des Geddes Memorial and the King of the Lake. Both were won by veteran F1 racer Steve Hughes of Wellington in his freshly painted and newly sponsored Burgess boat ‘Total Lubricants’.

Steve had only recently suffered a dirt bike accident that injured his leg and shoulder. Still nothing was going to stop him racing even though his cast was only removed 48 hours before the event! Steve fought long and hard on the water to achieve both wins – congratulations to him and his hard working team for a fine performance and a great way to start a relationship with his new sponsor.

Second in the Des Geddes was Wellington driver Tony Latimer in his F1 tunnel ‘Patriot’ with Luke Sharp from the Manakau Auckland club placing third in the Johnson powered F1 tunnel boat ‘Sierra’.

All in all a great regatta run by the Cambridge Waikato club. A great start to the new year and what promises to be an exciting and eventful season.

For more photos of the racing action at Karapiro see the photo gallery page.