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[V8SB] Mullan takes maiden home win
by Sean Henshelwood
Mullan takes maiden home victory
Rnd#4 AFJSA Cup - Australian V8 Superboat Series
Melton, VIC - 25 September, 2011
Sean Henshelwood - 321Ignition Magazine
In almost perfect conditions, and in front of a strong local crowd, Melton’s Phonsy Mullan finally broke through for his maiden V8 Superboat win at home after surviving what in the end had been an event of high attrition.
Set to the single day format of the AFJSA Cup, Melton made it’s return to the annual calendar after an absence of almost two years thanks in a big way to the motivation of ‘Jackhammer’s’ Jody Ely and his team, and a number of other local teams who were all intent on running again on home soil.
Clearly Melton and the western-Melbourne area were happy to see the Superboats back in action as a strong crowd flowed through the gates all day, but it was only those that made the journey early that would play witness to one of the biggest crashes we’ve seen in a number of seasons after Jody Ely’s team-mate and brother-in-law Adam Raverty clipped a bank during his second qualifier in the morning.
The contact triggered off a frightening high speed rollover that for the second event in a row saw the ‘Jackhammer’ boat pointing towards the sky, before landing heavily on one of the islands, taking the breath out of a visibly shaken Raverty and navigator Wayne Stewart.
“The boat was a bit loose this morning, and pretty taily,” Adam admitted afterwards, “but Jody went out after we’d made some changes and admitted it felt alright. The first part of the lap was okay, but I think I hit the cross wash the wrong way and was a bit off line because I grabbed one of the tyres on the edge of the bank, and that threw me up the island, and after the first impact I don’t remember much.”
Sadly that was it for the Jackhammer hull, the second impact seeing the boat come down hard on the jet unit, and for the third time in three events, the hull copped the brunt of the impact.
“I’m not sure we’ll get a rebuild out of this one,” Jody admitted. “That’s three pretty big hits, so it might be time to retire the Stinger and bring the [team’s backup entry] Mackraft out to play.”
Whilst the ‘Jackhammer’ team were lamenting what might have been, not far away, reigning Unlimited Superboat champions ‘Team Solo’ were doing a lot of head scratching themselves after dual Australian champion Daryl Hutton suffered a flame-out in his opening qualifier, putting the Supercharged 440 softly up the bank.
“We’re actually a bit unsure of what happened,” Hutton said afterwards. “There doesn’t seem to be any real reason why it stopped, so we were lucky it did it in an area where we could come to a stop without any damage, but it’s certainly not something I want to see happen again.”
Unfortunately for the Mildura-based outfit, this wouldn’t be their only drama, in the end Peter Freckleton failed to get a run after further issues for Hutton, including a broken blower belt in session two..
As all this was unfolding, Phonsy Mullan was having an almost faultless run in ‘RAM-JET’ thanks in part to the efforts of both Tremayne Jukes (who had spent some serious time working on the bottom of Mullan’s hull) and the man who built his boat, six-time world champion Peter Caughey who had been in Australia with the Triple X team for much of the week prior ‘tweaking’ the hull.
“I’ve had some outstanding help in the last couple of weeks,” Mullan admitted, “and that has allowed me to just focus on driving and getting the most out of the boat.
“In the opening qualifier I missed an apex by a mile, and hit the corner well off where I needed to be and I just held my breath because I knew the boat would have bounced its way through in the past, but it got through the corner cleanly, like it was on rails – it’s been transformed.”
So much so that Mullan was untouchable, topping every session and recording a 41.901 in the top six, Greg Mercier’s 43.556 in Q2 the closest anyone would get to the local driver.
“Apart from a scary moment in the final qualifier after we put a nasty tweak in the boat [which was immediately changed for the finals] the boat was incredible. I reckon we had a low 41 in it, but I wanted the win. I’ve come close before in front of my home crowd, so I wanted it badly enough to make sure we were there in the end and take the silverware.”
After a crazy day, it was Hutton who would take the second step on the podium, despite a best more than two seconds in arrears of Mullan, whilst early contender Greg ‘Crusty’ Mercier was out in the fourth qualifier after discovering a leaking head gasket on the engine.
“It looks like there might be a more serious issue,” he admitted with frustration. “I’m not sure, but with a championship podium on the line in the final round of the national championship in October, I’m not willing to risk it..”
Whilst Triple X team-boss Mullan took his maiden win at home, unfortunately the team were unable to make it a double victory after early pace-setter Ted Sygidus was eliminated in the opening final after a navigational error, and younger brother Darek was defeated by the very man who beat him to the title during the 2009 world championships, Slade Stanley.
Stanley had been out of the seat since the final round of the 2010 season, but was reunited with his world title winning boat which is now campaigned by Adelaide’s Damian O’Leary, and showed he’d lost none of his ability behind the wheel, topping the timesheets in the opening qualifier.
“The boat’s a little different to when I had it,” Slade admitted, “but the corners of the track are still in the same place, and it handles pretty much the way it did when I last drove it, so we should be competitive.”
Despite missing two qualifying rounds thanks to an oil leak in the engine, Stanley (Kryptonite Racing) topped every other session, to face-off in the final against fellow world#2s Darek Sygidus (Triple X) and Brooke Dixon (Hi-Tec Oils) after Tremayne Jukes (Stingray Racing), Rob Colman (Tunna-Gut’s) and local driver Shane Loughnan (Vicious) had been eliminated in the top six.
Dixon was out first, and she showed great skill to shave almost half a second off her previous best to record a 44.044. Darek was out next, and he too had to dig deep to better his best, topping Dixon by just eight one thousandths to go to the top of the timesheets. Then it was Stanley’s turn..
Having set a comfortable 43.490 in the top six, Stanley needed only rely on consistency in his final run to take the top points, dropping the bar to a 43.557 to comfortably take the round win.
Asked afterwards if he was surprised to win after a lengthy sabbatical, the dual world title holder answered “No.”
Despite a smaller than expected field in the 350 Class, national championship points leader Daniel deVoigt made the long haul down from Brisbane with ‘DEVO 2’ to tackle local drivers Troy McKenzie and Shane Allen in ‘Predator’ and rookie Jeremy Kincaid in ‘Pheonix’ for the round win, in his maiden drive at Melton.
In the end deVoigt was just far too quick for the local team, who were struggling to match the Queenslander with their ageing DOEN jet unit, deVoigt almost four seconds faster than McKenzie in the final, with Allen third.
It had been a fantastic result for the ‘Predator’ team, Allen in particular achieving his maiden podium finish, whilst McKenzie could take heart from being within sight of deVoigt during the qualifiers. For them though, a dual podium result was just reward for their efforts, after a couple of mixed seasons where mechanical failures and some stunning incidents have kept them from realising their true potential.
The 2011 V8 Superboat season now heads towards its conclusion at Hi-Tec Oils Park in Temora over the October 29-30 weekend for the final round of both the Tyreright Australian Championships and the AFJSA Cup.
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