World SuperBoat champion Peter Caughey says there’s everything still to play for after finishing round one of the ENZED UIM Jetsprint World Championship at Meremere today in second place.
The five-time world SuperBoat champion battled fuel-pump issues during Saturday’s practice and qualifying, and sacrificed four chances to practice the track rotation as his team assessed the information from his MoTeC data recorder, and repeatedly stripped and checked the pump.
They tried to get a new one flown in, but that ploy failed and they were running with 30 per cent less fuel pressure than their massive methanol-fuelled V8 really needs.
“Sacrificing runs let us assess what was going on. Removing the fuel pump is not a five-minute job, but the good news was we couldn’t see an obvious reason for the drop in performance.”
Caughey reckons it just reached a critical wear level, and dropped enough to affect performance.
“Heck yeah. A fuel pump on a motor like this, with this type of injection, you need consistent delivery – the same amount of fuel at the same rate every time, and we tune around it – this is not an electronic system.”
But the team was confident the pump had stabilized, and was delivering fuel at a consistent rate – sure, 25 per cent less than they wanted, which drops the power delivered by 30 to 70hp, but he thought they could work with it.
It’s no wonder Caughey is relatively comfortable with second place. “We have to be very pleased, we are just one point off the top of the podium heading into Baypark’s tight and demanding track, which suits our boat.”
Caughey said, “We sacrificed some runs on a difficult rotation that sent us both ways through a tricky chicane we’re used to tackling just once each time, with a boat we couldn’t be 100 per cent confident about, at a world championship racing against 21 entrants to snare a top-16 place. It was never a given that we’d make it through, and if we hadn’t, we’d be lining up for Bay Park a good 15 points adrift.”
Caughey paid tribute to his team. “They put in a mammoth effort in high temperatures – it hit 38 degrees under our awning – and without a breeze for most of the day.”
Still, they had to watch Glenn Head beat them into first, whose 44.481-second time took first by tenths of a second from Peter, on 44.746 seconds, with Richard Burt in third on 45.13 after a day marked by crowd-pleasing crashes and navigational errors.
And as Peter says, “If I have to be second, it may as well be second to one of my own boats. We put a lot of effort into building Glen’s Sprintec craft, and it’s great to see it’s delivered the goods.”
Peter and the team are heading home to Canterbury tonight, where he’ll be getting another fuel pump, and fitting it before the flag drops for the second, and final round of the ENZED UIM Jetsprint World Championship round at Baypark.
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