Peter Caughey wins Suzuki SuperBoat Champs round five

16 June, 2014

 


Photo: Ian Thornton

Photo: Ian Thornton

Peter Caughey and his Enzed team have won the penultimate round of the Suzuki SuperBoat Champs which was held in Whanganui on April 5.

Taking out round four of the SuperBoat Champs sees Caughey defend his four-time world and six-time New Zealand SuperBoat champion title as he also prepares for the World Championships coming up in America in August.

“Up to this point we’ve not only been focusing on the New Zealand champs but in pushing the boat and the team as hard as we dare in pursuit of greater understanding of the team’s capability as the Worlds loom. Is the boat up to it, and is the team up to it.”

Caughey’s Sprintec boat has repeatedly set each event’s fastest time, yet he’s taken the chequered flag less often than his speed might suggest, as chasing ultimate pace can backfire.

“We’ve raced harder than we needed to at times, but for the worlds you need to be on your best game,” the Canterbury racer says. “Racing internationally is a big undertaking, and we want to go there knowing we have a package capable of winning.”


Photo: Ian Thornton

Photo: Ian Thornton

Caughey’s team is aware there are no guarantees, but it takes time – and time spent in the white heat of top-level competition – to fine tune a high-powered lightweight racer like Caughey’s Sprintec-built SuperBoat.

“It’s not easy to find that last two or three per cent of your boat’s ultimate performance, and that is what we have been focused on this season,” Caughey says.

His biggest hurdle will be raising the money to go, Caughey says, but he’s suspended sponsor talks to focus on the last two rounds of this season’s NZ champs, with the points now tight at the top.


Photo: Ian Thornton

Photo: Ian Thornton

He’s had the boat’s motor out, given the hull a few tweaks after its fast airborne exit from the last round, and fettled the jet unit in pursuit of more speed, which should suit the fast, flowing rotation at Whanganui’s Shelterview track.

“It’s a rotation I expect will deliver a level playing field for the top three. Phonsy will have his twin-turbo back in after trying a new motor at Hastings, Hill has good power too, and we’ll all be looking over our shoulders this weekend,” he says.

“The big variable is night racing, it’s difficult, and the faster you go the trickier it is, but it’s difficult for everyone, and traditionally Wanganui prepares well.”

The final round of the Suzuki SuperBoat class will be held in Wanaka (ending under lights) on April 18.

 

1975 Suzuki RE5

Suzuki had high hopes for its RE5 Wankel-engined bike launched in 1975. It had started looking at the Wankel engine in the mid-60s and bought the licence to the concept in 1970.
Apparently all of the big four Japanese makers experimented with the design, Yamaha even showing a rotary-engined bike at a motor show in 1972. But Suzuki was the only one of the big four to go into production. Like many others at the time, Suzuki believed that the light, compact, free-revving Wankel design would consign piston engines — with their complex, multiple, whirring valves and pistons, which (can you believe it?) had to reverse direction all the time — to history.

Westside story

For the young Dave Blyth, the Sandman was always the coolest car and he finally got one when he was 50. “I have always had a rule. When you turn 50, you buy or can afford to buy the car you lusted after when you were 20. I was 20 in 1979 and the HZ Sandman came out in 1978. It was the coolest of the cool — I just wanted one,” he says. “Back then a Sandman cost $4500 new and a house was worth about $20,000. I made about $30 a week so it was an impossible dream then.”
Dave was heavily influenced by the panel van culture of the time. “I started with an Escort panel van and upgraded to a Holden HD panel van with a 186ci six cylinder. I started a van club, Avon City Vans.