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[BOATS] No joy for Az U Do at worlds
by Sean Henshelwood
Az U Do complete year inside world championship top ten
2009 UIM World Jetsprint Championships
Rnd#1 – Temora, NSW, November 21-22
Rnd#2 – Melton, VIC, November 28-29
2009 had proven a mixed season for former AUS#2 Greg ‘Crusty’ Mercier and wife Dorinda, the duo suffering a litany pf problems early before returning to form late in the national championships to take a string of podiums. Heading into the UIM sanctioned world championships during November, they were confident they could end their nine year love affair with the 400 Class on top of the world.
“I can’t wait for the world championships,” Crusty grinned in trademark fashion at the thought of taking on old foes New Zealand. “The way the Continental Tyres season has finished, I think we’re as good a chance as we’ve ever been of taking home a podium, and potentially a title.”
With just a handful of weeks between the conclusion of the national championships and the opening round of the ‘worlds’, Crusty like many of his peers, sent his powerplant back to the mechanical brains trust to find just a little more sniff.. “Brian [Moe Engine’s Brian Cassar] has given the engine a few tweaks and we’ve tried a few different things to extract a little more speed from the old girl (the boat, not Mrs Crusty), so we’re hopeful we can challenge Slade [Stanley] and Teddy [Sygidus] for the win,” he nodded.
Sixth fastest in the opening qualifier turned into fourth fastest in session two, Crusty ending day one at Temora quietly confident of improving on Sunday, it wasn’t to be.
Sadly for the Crusty’s things didn’t quite go to plan with the team left scratching their heads on Sunday after a significant drop in performance. “We’ve got no idea. We changed things in the jet unit, and then we started fiddling with the timing to extract some more speed, but it just wasn’t angry – it was nowhere near the boat it had been during the season. We’ll keep trying though and see what we can do.”
By the close of Sunday’s qualifying rounds, the popular Victorian team had dropped to eleventh place, only able to shave just two tenths of a second off their Saturday best whilst the rest of the field had made in some cases up to a full second improvement. Crusty was not a happy boy, his demeanor even more frustrated at the close of the top 12 elimination final where he threw everything he had at the boat and found just six one hundredths of a second.
“I don’t know what happened,” Crusty shrugged post-event. “We made some slight adjustments after the final of the Australian championships (where Mercier placed second behind Slade Stanley), and we just didn’t seem to have the same sniff. I was flat the whole lap, from start to finish, and as much as we altered things, we just couldn’t extract any more speed.”
“It’s frustrating, we had one of the quickest boats in the country, and now we’re struggling to make the top ten. We’ll work on it though and you can be sure we’ll be back next weekend to make up for lost ground.”
When the dust cleared it was revealed that the Az U Do team had recorded ninth place in the championship points, just eight in arrears of points leader Stanley, but with little chance of bridging the divide and challenging for the world crown.
Prior to the Melton final, the team eventually discovered the drama they had at Temora… “It’s in the rev-limiter. It’s cutting in too early, which explains the reason why we made some dramatic timing changes and nothing happened. It also explained why she wasn’t angry,” Crusty explained. “We had all sorts of visions of having to replace camshafts and doing all manner of mechanical things, but it turned out to be electrical!”
Sadly, despite pinpointing the problem, the silver shark was still holding station at Melton on the opening day in the bottom half of the top ten. “I dunno,” Crusty shrugged, “I just dunno…”
Some serious head scratching overnight by the Az U Do crew, which by this stage included Cassar, former champion Ken Kesper and the experienced Gary Scantleton saw only minor tweaks made to the boat for Sunday morning where despite one navigational error, Crusty managed to find more than a second to make his second top 12 elimination final.
“I don’t know how much more she’s got, but we’ll give it our best,” he frowned before the run.” Unfortunately it provided him with a slower time than his final qualifier, but again it was within hundredths of his best, the final result classifying him eleventh, more than two and a half seconds off the outright pace.
“All I can think is that it was me,” he growled. “I’m certainly not making excuses but we were flat everywhere and we just didn’t have the killer we had during the final rounds of the national series where we were just tenths shy of Slade. Congratulations to him for backing up his Aussie title with world championship win #2 (Stanley’s last world title victory came at the wheel of ‘the Shark’, as did his second placing behind Nathan Pretty earlier this year), it was well deserved.”
With the Australian season now over, focus now turns to some much needed R&R after a hectic end to the year, although for the Mercier team the break will also see the shark converted from Group A specification to Unlimited Superboat as the Crusty’s step up to the elite class of competition, with their ex-Dixon 500ci injected all aluminium powerplant.
“I can’t wait,” Crusty grinned in customary fashion. “Grrrrrr.”
You can catch all the action from the 2009 Continental Tyres Australian Superboat Championships on SBS Speedweek and FOX Sports 'Inside Speed' (check local guides and keep an eye on www.v8superboats.com.au for dates and times). Also visit www.speedweek.com.au for clips of events.
Az-U-Do Racing are proudly supported by; ACOL Creative Skylight Solutions, Moe Engines and 321Ignition Magazine.
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2009 UIM World Jetsprint Championships
International Group A (400 Class)
Championship points (points after two rounds of two)
1. Slade Stanley (80), 2. Reg Smith (75), 2. Brooke Dixon (75), 2. Darek Sygidus (75), 5. Ted Sygidus (74), 6. Shaun Dixon (69), 7. Jake Garlick (68), 8. Chris Farr (64), 9. Greg Mercier/Dorinda Mercier (62), 9. Bevin Muir (62), 11. Rohan Smith (58), 11. Baden Gray (58), 11. Andrew Guthrie (58), 14. Daniel Walton (55), 15. Robert Colman (54), 16. Chris Bollins (49), 16. Mark Garlick (49), 16. Tremayne Jukes (49), 19. Rodney Krause (44), 20. Damian O’Leary (42), 21. Brooke Lucas (39), 22. Mick Manini (38), 23. Chris Kent (37), 24. Greg Harriman (34), 25. Kevin Laugesen (32), 26. Phil Wheelans (30), 27. Blair Gibbard (27), 28. Alan Carr (25), 29. Shane Loughnan (24), 30. Darryl Squires (22), 30. Kieran Krause (22)
www.azudoracing.com.au
www.v8superboats.com.au
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