"It's pretty cool. It still feels a bit unreal really,'' Percy said of his win at the Blokart Worlds, held at Sanson and Ohakea over Labour Weekend.
Percy has every right to be a bit taken aback by his success, given his recent introduction to the sport and the fact he hadn't even competed at a national championships before.
"My mum had actually bought my father a voucher for the have-a-go [session at the Hawke's Bay Blokart Club] at Christmas last year,'' said Percy, 34.
"One of the club members looked around and found us some karts that we bought and we got hooked into racing from there.''
Percy had no idea what to expect at the Worlds, not least because the tracks at Sanson and, particularly, the Ohakea Air Force Base were far bigger than what he's used to for club races on Prebensen Drive.
"You had to learn quickly, and most of it was educated guessing about what mast to put up and what sail to use,'' he said.
"There was one race [at Ohakea] that was probably 25 - 30 knots, and I was the only one to put a smaller sail on, which is a two-metre sail, and that was probably my favourite race and I ended up winning.
"It's tiny little sail but, the smaller the sail, the faster the craft actually goes.''
It all came down to the final race, with Percy eventually prevailing by a point in his 70 - 82.5 kilogram weight division.
The plan now is to defend his title in 2024, which will be on a dry lake bed near Las Vegas.
"That'll be about more sailing-based knowledge, looking for [wind] shifts and that sort of thing.''
Having taken Paper Tigers and Flying Fifteens catamarans around the world to race, moving a Blokart to the United States should be more straightforward.
"It's all packed into a little suitcase and you can wheel it through an airport,'' Percy said.
