Difficult Melton provides astonishing racing..

[H2O Full Throttle]

Rnd#1
2009 Continental Tyres Australian Superboat Championships
McPhersonPark, Melton, Victoria

To say that Melton’s Continental Tyres Australian Superboat Championship season opener was incredible is a serious understatement, it was the kind of event that we’ll be talking about for decades..

From the mere hundredths and thousandths of seconds separating combatants, to the astonishing Superboat final where not one boat recorded a time, Melton had it all.

After setting an early benchmark on Saturday, Tony Giustozzi continued his winning form to claim the top qualifying spot, but was shadowed to the hundredth of a second by team-mate Mick Carroll - neither Carroll nor Excalibur carrying any ill-effects from Saturday afternoon’s contact with the tyres. Behind the Excalibur duo, local favourite and reigning Australian Group A champion Phonsy Mullan was getting quicker and quicker with his awesome new Triple X 2 boat, whilst Dean Finch was back to his best in Kamakazi, but clearly keeping plenty in reserve. Throw in reigning champion Phil Dixon (True Blue) and former world series champion Daryl Hutton (Hooters), and you had all the ingredients for one awesome top ten..

In Group A, as was expected the battle for supremacy was being waged between former world champion Slade Stanley (Hazardous) and recently crowned world champ Nathan Pretty (True Blue Too). Stanley threw down the early gauntlet with a time not too far shy of Giustozzi’s Superboat best; in fact, Stanley held the second fastest time of the weekend on Saturday, and ultimately claimed the top qualifying position for the Group A finals.

One driver however that many of the Group A drivers were keeping tabs on was Phonsy Mullan’s replacement in the Triple X team, Ted Sygidus. Sygidus had been the ‘B’ driver during 2008 and showed that he’d quite clearly taken on board plenty of advice from the ‘boss’ as he threatened the leaders with a cracking qualifying time. Behind him, Rohan Smith, Tremayne Jukes (‘B’ driving Stanley’s boat Hazardous), Greg Mercier and Brooke Dixon were also in close quarters. Despite some new bits for his jet unit just prior to Melton, Mercier’s attack on the top three all but ended in the opening run on Sunday morning after he slipped off the track sending the ‘shark’ backwards into the tyres..

“A bit over-zealous too early in the morning,” he shrugged afterwards. “I thought I’d hit a tyre or something, but clearly the grip in that corner wasn’t there, and I just torpedoed off the circuit.”

Mercier wasn’t the first to suffer in the difficult water conditions, nor was he to be the last.. “The track is very slippery,” Slade Stanley admitted, an opinion echoed by Nathan Pretty.

“It’s full of bore water,” Greg Mercier explained. “It makes a huge difference to the way the boat handles, it’s like water skiing on a fresh water river, as opposed to water-skiing on saltwater. Because of the salt content in bore water, it’s similar to seawater, and as such, the boat, like a skier sits up on top of the water more, and when mixed in with the clay, it becomes a slippery customer to deal with. I thought I’d sorted it, but clearly the bump in the back of the boat shows I hadn’t.. We’ll fix it and be out for the next run..!”

The 350 class too was providing action aplenty with father and son duo Mark and Jake Garlick (Grumpy) battling at the front of the field in their recently modified boat, with Daniel James (Stingray Racing) and Jamie Taylor (Red Roar) fighting over the podium with Conti-Racer’s Brooke Lucas and Chris Bollins. Conti was earning its fair share of attention from fans in its stunning new black and orange livery, but whilst it looked good, it was also fast.. “I’m just going to ease myself into it,” Chris Bollins admitted, “then once we start toget towards the finals, we’ll have a bit of a go.” And go he did, setting a top four time in the penultimate qualifying round to edge out his team-mate, reigning champion Brooke Lucas.

Sadly for the Conti team they had also discovered an intermittent electrical fault that had cost both Bollins and Lucas valuable track time. “We’ll see what we can do to fix it for today, then make sure it’s well and truly resolved before the next round,” team-boss John Bollins confirmed. “It’s just teething problems, all a part of having a new boat.”

Melton presented not just a new season, but one of the biggest fields in Unlimited Superboats Australia has ever seen. Tony Giustozzi showed that he was finally comfortable with his ex-Peter Caughey Sprintec to set a stunning sub-44 second time (43.538) in his third qualifying round to top the timesheets. Behind him team-mate Mick Carroll also went sub-44 (43.997), whilst Phonsy Mullan (44.143), Phil Dixon (44.242), Dean Finch (44.525) and Daryl Hutton (44.703) were all within reach. The stage was set for a stunning round of finals, and the boys didn’t disappoint..

It wasn’t just boys either, with both Louise Dixon and new Australian championship recruit Cheryl Welch also making the top ten. For Dixon the competition was pushing her harder and harder, her 46.535 in the third qualifier well in advance of her best time at Melton and comfortably placed her inside the ten. For Welch, who had journeyed from Perth with son Jamie to tackle the country’s best, her fourth round 46.787 showed just why she is a multiple West Australian champion, neither though were able to make the top three.

By the close of the top ten, it was clear from Tony Giustozzi’s trademark grin that he’d retained the top spot with a stunning 43.280 second lap, but behind him the action was intense. Kiwi Daryl Hutton had been doing an amazing job with Peter Freckleton’s ageing powerplant to set an outstanding time of 43.635 for second, just 0.003 seconds faster than the smiling assassin Dean Finch, with Mick Carroll a whopping six one hundredths further back, but amazingly, out of the finals. Phonsy Mullan elevated himself to fifth, just half a second behind the lead quartet, with Phil Dixon an incredible sixth, seven one thousandths slower than Mullan and well outside a Superboat final, something a little alien to the reigning champion.

“We’re a little down on power to the rest of these guys,” Dixon admitted. “I can’t take anything away from them though they’ve all done a brilliant job, but as disappointed as I am about missing the final three, I’m stoked in a way that I have because it means that Superboats finally has a strong enough field to start some serious rivalries, I can’t wait for Temora..

[H2O Full Throttle]

Whilst the top ten was intense, the final was just incredible; never before had we witnessed such an astonishing round of competition.

Daryl Hutton was first out of the box, the Kiwi looked set to shake Giustozzi’s best lap, but he managed to go just 20 metres before the engine cut out, due in part to a broken crankshaft…

“It’s fried,” team boss Peter Freckleton confirmed later, “half the engine’s melted.. Good thing we had a new powerplant on the way, guess we’ll be fast-tracking that now for Temora..”

Second up was Dean Finch, the 2007 Australian champion going all out in the final.. “What’s there to lose,” he grinned prior to his final run. Up by almost a second at the mid-run split, Finch looked to be set for a blinding lap when all of a sudden his engine shut down sending him straight up the bank (once the power stops running through the jet unit, you lose your steering).. “We broke a fuel line..” Dean admitted afterwards. “It’s never happened before, I’m just glad that with my daughter sitting beside me that it didn’t happen on a fast section of the track, but there’s no damage to the boat apart from the cheap broken bit..”

That left Tony Giustozzi, who regardless of his run, had the weekend in the bag. To record a result in the final though, he needed to complete the lap; preferably without a ‘wrong-way’ and preferably with the boat intact.. He very nearly completed both those tasks..

After Finch’s retirement it was suggested to Tony that all he needed to do was plod around and record a time, no matter how good it was, he’d be classified the round winner.. A muffled, “bugger that, I’m going for a time” was the response from inside the helmet.. It was clear from the first half of Giustozzi’s lap that he had no intention other than to break his best recorded lap and earn the win on outright ability.. With two corners to go though the plan failed to eventuate, after he clipped the tyres on the inside of the penultimate corner, launching him across the bank as he hit the finish line, ultimately recording ‘no result’ with rules suggesting a boat must cross the line ‘in control, on the water, heading in aforward direction and under power’. One out of four aint bad, Excalibur was still well and truly heading in a forward direction..

The crowd went mad and acknowledged Giustozzi’s effort with rapturous applause. It would have been easy to just run around and record the win, but that’s not Tony’s style. “Hey I’m here to win.. I knew we could do the job and I wanted to prove that.. That’s the second time today I’ve missed that corner.. I watched Slade Stanley sneak some time out of there on his run, and I just missed it in my last qualifier and it put me out, but this time I thought it would give me that last little edge.. It didn’t, but boy it was fun..”

Whilst there was no way you could top the Superboat final, the Group A’s certainly tried.. Heading into the top ten Nathan Pretty held the top spot with a best of 44.877 with Stanley right behind (44.935). Going into the finals, Rohan Smith had worked his way methodically into third, just outing Ted Sygidus, with Tremayne Jukes fifth narrowly clear of Brooke Dixon. Greg Mercier recovered from his early off to make the ten, alongside Rob Colman, Darek Sygidus and Simon Zarb.

Sadly Zarb was the first to miss the top three cut after an engine detonation mid-run, a costly failure which saw two conrods exit the engine through the sump.

Brooke Dixon was one of the early boats out in the finals, the Victorian setting the benchmark with a 46.376, her best time of the weekend. As Zarb, Colman, Mercier, Jukes and Darek Sygidus completed their runs, Dixon still held P1.. Rohan Smith had other ideas though and he was the first into the 45s. Nathan Pretty then dropped the mark to a best of 44.829 to top Ted Sygidus who had held P1 with a 45.598, before Slade Stanley stamped his authority back on the class with a stunning 44.353.. The scene was set for a stunning final three.

Ted Sygidus was first out, the local star setting a very quick 45.455, much to the pleasure of Phonsy Mullan. Nathan Pretty then lined up for his run, and it looked quick, in fact to the split he was well into a 44 second lap, but like Giustozzi in Superboats he clipped the tyres on the final corner, launching himself across the line on the bank. It was a spectacular and rare off for Pretty who admitted afterwards that the afternoon sun may have been a contributing factor.

“It was a quick run and I knew I could shave some more off on the final corner, but as I made the approach, the glare off the water momentarily lost me my reference point and that’s all it takes at that speed. I held on to it, but they deemed I was out of the water, so we take the points for third. What I’m most frustrated by though is the damage I’ve done to Brooke’s boat, it’s got a pretty hefty dent in the left side of it now where I hit the bank when we landed, so I’m sorry to the True Blue team that I’ve damaged their gear.”

Despite recording a low 44 second run, the time was disallowed, dropping Pretty back to third. That left Stanley who turned in a quick but safe 44.893 to take victory but only second in the championship points thanks to Pretty's early consistency.

“What a weekend,” Stanley admitted. “It was a great result and just reward for the dramas we had last year and at the world championships. I’m going all out this year for the Continental Tyres Group A title and I’d like to think we could give the world championships at the end of the year a real good shake..”

The 350 Class finals looked like being a battle royale between the Garlick boys, Daniel James and Conti-Racer, sadly though for Conti, the fairy tale debut for the new boat wasn’t to be. “We’ve had to make a few mods for the finals because of our dramas,” Brooke Lucas admitted, “so I think we’ll be right for a time, but probably not a podium.”

They turned out to be prophetic words as Conti was unable to crack the top three despite the best efforts of Bollins (53.363) and Lucas (52.841), the pair unable the catch James (51.467) nor the Garlicks (Jake - 50.132) who at the close of the top ten were separated by just under a second. “I just couldn’t catch the little bugger,” Mark Garlick laughed, “he’s too bloody quick!”

James was first out in the final, the Stingray Racing boat settling in with a 51.809. It was strong, but not strong enough, Mark Garlick setting a 50.616, his best lap of the weekend.. “here’s hoping it’s quick enough,” he laughed, “it’s all I’ve got.” Sadly for Mark, it wasn’t..

Jake was clearly on it from the start line, and whilst he approached some corners with caution he was still able to deliver a stunning lap; 50.568 – seven one hundredths faster than Mum and Dad.

“What a weekend,” Mark Garlick beamed, “I’m rapt.. To have the whole family on the top two steps of the podium is a dream come true..”

For now teams return home to repair and recover from the excitement of Melton to prepare for the second round of the 2009 Continental Tyres Australian Superboat Championships scheduled for Temora in central-western NSW in three weeks time (March 27-28).

Round one of the 2009 Continental Tyres Australian Superboat Championships will be televised on SBS Speedweek on March 22 (2:00pm EST - check guides) and repeated on FOX Sports 'Inside Speed' on March 25 (8:30pm EST - check local guides for confirmation).