US hydroplaners take on New Zealand
EVAN PEGDEN
Two American entries and at least one Australian will take on a strong Kiwi lineup in a series of top-level grand prix hydroplane racing events in Waikato this summer, including the 2012 world championship.
The Chicago-based Johnson-Wolfe Racing team sent their GP boat Renegade to New Zealand by ship overnight (NZ time), due to arrive on January 17 in time for some shakedown racing during the AE Baker Trophy Australasian grand prix hydroplane unlimited championship on Lake Taupo from January 28-29.
Marty Wolfe will then drive the boat, which won the 2009 American and Canadian championships, in the 2012 UIM Grand Prix Hydroplane Championship on Lake Karapiro from February 3-5.
He will be up against fellow American J Michael Kelly, who is returning to race retired Christchurch driver Peter Knight Sr's The Boss for the second time, having raced here in the 2009 world championship in the same boat, finishing third.
The same year Kelly won the world unlimited hydroplane championship. He specialises in the much bigger unlimited capacity, turbine-powered boats in the United States.
Renegade will be shipped back to the US after the world championships to arrive back in time for the North American season, but Kelly will return to race The Boss at Karapiro from March 3-4 in the 100th anniversary of the EC Griffith Cup – the Australasian unlimited open inboard championship.
Grant Harrison, who won the world title here in 2004, is bringing his new boat GP1 from Australia for the Karapiro racing, leaving it here in between the world championships and EC Griffith Cup and flying between Australia and New Zealand to contest both events.
The Australian who won the last world championship contested in New Zealand in 2009 – Victorian Brett Niddrie – is not returning with the Paul Burton-owned Warlord, having retired from racing. He is now working as technical advisor for Waverley driver Ken Lupton.
The Lupton family Annihilator team, which now comprises four boats driven by Warwick and Ken Lupton, David Alexander and newcomer Chris Picard, have been putting a lot of time into testing recently with Warwick, who won the world title in 2006 and then last year in Australia, now with a new boat.
Otorohanga driver Scott Coker will be back in his boat Fair Warning, in which he won the Griffith Cup earlier this year, while Aucklander Graeme Weller, who currently holds the AE Baker Trophy and Masport Cup, has sold his boat G-Force back to an Australian buyer but is understood to be working on a drive for this summer.
evan.pegden@waikatotimes.co.nz
- Waikato Times