[BOATS] Musical chairs at Cabarita

by Sean Henshelwood

(Archived)


After a relatively ‘normal’ opening day during the opening two qualifiers for the fourth round of the Continental Tyres Australian Superboat Championships, day two’s all important finals day was anything but with a number of drivers forced to change teams to keep their championship hopes alive..

Musical chairs at Cabarita
Rnd#4 2009 Continental Tyres Australian Superboat Championships
Round Mountain Road, Cabarita Beach, NSW
7 June, 2009

After a relatively ‘normal’ opening day during the opening two qualifiers for the fourth round of the Continental Tyres Australian Superboat Championships, day two’s all important finals day was anything but with a number of drivers forced to change teams to keep their championship hopes alive..

Reigning Australian Unlimited Superboat Champion Phil Dixon started his qualifying runs much along the same lines as he had on day one, but looked off the pace at the close of the fourth round, a post-run inspection revealing terminal damage to the naturally aspirated 500ci Chev and the retirement of ‘True Blue’ from the event.

“I don’t know what happened,” Phil admitted afterwards. “As we came into the spinout pool the oil pressure light came on and there was a knock in the engine, so we cut it off. Obviously we’ll do some investigation when we get home, but it’s over for this weekend.”

Despite the retirement of ‘True Blue’, Dixon continued to run, moving to his daughter Brooke’s ‘True Blue Too’ which he ran in the Superboat class to gain valuable series points, whilst wife Louise moved into Greg Harriman’s ‘321Ignition’ for the final round and the top ten shootout; sadly neither made the top three.

After setting an awe-inspiring 38 second lap in the final round of qualifying, kiwi star Daryl Hutton looked most likely to gain top points in the Unlimited class, but as he set a blistering pace through his top ten run, the engine cut out forcing the former world series champion into retirement.

“We’d been struggling with a fuel pickup problem all weekend,” Hutton admitted, “but I thought I had it right for the final run, but it just cut out. Fortunately it stopped in a relatively harmless spot because we were really traveling there at one point.”

Hutton’s retirement alongside that of the Dixon clan meant that the final three shootout would be contested between ‘Excalibur’s’ Tony Giustozzi and Mick Carroll and reigning Group A champion Phonsy Mullan.

For Giustozzi and Carroll it had taken almost five rounds for them to even be remotely competitive, but typically, by the close of qualifying, both drivers were posting sub-40 second runs alongside Mullan.

Carroll was first out, setting a blistering 38.945. Mullan was next, but half way around his run, the thundering ‘Triple X’ Superboat ran aground after an electrical failure shut down the engine. “It’s the result of the engine fire we had prior to going to New Zealand,” Phonsy admitted. “It was all due to be rewired next week, so I guess that’s just bad luck. Glad we stopped where we did though because we fair had that thing pumping..”

Mullan’s retirement left the explosive Tony Giustozzi the only contender able to challenge team-mate Carroll for the win. From the outset it was clear the lap would be memorable, and Tony typically didn’t fail to deliver, although despite an aggressive lap, the winner of the opening two rounds of the championship fell eight tenths short of Carroll, leaving the team with total domination of the Unlimited finals with two wins apiece.

Whilst the Unlimited class brought nothing but pain for the True Blue team, Group A presented them with possibly the best win of Brooke Dixon’s memorable career.

After a conservative start to the weekend, Brooke worked her way through the field on Sunday to set the second fastest time of the weekend, dropping into the sub-40s like her father in the Unlimited class to narrowly trail title favourite Slade Stanley.

Behind the pair the battle continued to rage for position between Rohan Smith, Ted Sygidus, Greg Mercier (driving Stanley’s ‘Hazardous’) and Rodney Krause.

Sadly Mercier’s run ended by the close of qualifying after Stanley returned from his final run with low oil pressure, the series points leader failing to start the engine for his top ten run after Mercier retired to leave the final run to Stanley; his finals though hopes were dashed.

That left Dixon on top of the time sheets, the recently turned 21-year old posting a 39.926 second lap to be more than a second clear of the field. Despite qualifying to make the top ten, Mercier, Stanley and then the two Sygidus brothers were unable to start, leaving Rohan Smith second ahead of a surprise Rodney Krause, the Wagga native returning to the top three for the first time in two years.

Krause was first out in the final, posting a respectable 41.5 second lap. Smith was next, the 2002 champ improving the mark to a 40.8. Dixon was clearly on a mission and ran a committed lap, although she admitted to hitting a bank early in the run – the setting sun making vision difficult. Her result, a 40.097 giving Brooke her second win of the year and her third career victory in one of the best drives of the weekend.

“I’m rapt,” Brooke beamed afterwards. “To come to such a difficult track and finish so strongly, especially without my usual team around me (neither team-mate Nathan Pretty nor crew-chief Col Parish were in attendance), that was added confidence that I can motivate myself to victory. I don’t know whether I would have beaten Slade in the end had he not had dramas, but my boat was just perfect.

“I’ve also got to say a special thanks to my brother Shaun who was sharing driving duties with me for keeping the boat straight and doing such a brilliant job himself on debut.”

Cabarita is arguably one of the tightest tracks in the world, and typically the domain of the less powerful 350 class. Again the battle raged between former champion Mark Garlick, his teenage son (and series points leader) Jake and reigning champion Brooke Lucas.

In the end it was all Jake, the junior sensation setting a stunning 43.697 second lap in the final – a hot lap by anyone’s measure, it still only marginally defeated the time set down by his father, the ‘old bloke’ running his best lap of the day to miss the win by just a quarter of a second in the end. “Little bugger got me again,” Mark beamed, “and I love it..”

Series points will be updated and posted shortly.

The Continental Tyres Superboat Championships now enjoy a slight sabbatical prior to the penultimate round of the season at Maryborough on September 5-6, then the final round of the championship back at Cabarita two weeks later (September 19-20). Teams now go back to state level competition with the second round of the Queensland Championships scheduled for Maryborough in two weeks time (June 20-21) and the final round of the Victorian/NSW titles at Melton (August 21-22).

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