POWERBOATING: Shores faces testing time

Doug Laing
A breakthrough win in the Napier offshore powerboat race last year is now just a part of history for Richard Shores who faces an ambush at sea as he tries to make it two in a row on Saturday.
The 44-year-old Auckland merchant bank director, who is well on his way to a record fifth national drivers' championship, is still wary of former four-times champion Peter Turner, and says the Napier race is just the one to keep him on his guard.
Shores, the driver of the 10-metre Douglas Skater catamaran PlaceMakers, has had 25 wins since claiming overall honours for the first time off Buckland's Beach in 1987, including 15 out of 18 in the last three seasons, and all three in the current eight-race series.
But only one has come on the gruelling circuit in Hawke Bay where he first competed in the now non-existent four-litre catamaran Earl's Court about 10 years ago.
A significant swell is expected to provide the fleet's most genuine offshore racing of the season.
He says Turner, who came out of retirement to force a head-to-head battle for the record in the new and slightly-bigger Phantom catamaran Sleepyhead, remains poised to be the buzz-spoiler, despite failing to finish the last two races, last month at Maraetai and 11 days ago on Wellington Harbour.
Shores does however to have a key man under the second of the 13-year-old boat's twin F-16 cockpit covers in navigator and Auckland construction manager Wayne Carson, the 42-year-old former Napier man who showed in the Napier race last year just why he is the sport's most successful navigator.
On his way to his sixth championship - after wins with brother Tony in 1993 and 1999 and with Shores 2000-2001 and 2003-2004 - Carson was in the lead boat from the first buoy, as other leading hopes missed the mark and all but ended their hopes of challenging for the lead.
With mother and race stalwart Colleen Carson listening at the prizegiving later, Carson advised the also-rans: "Always follow the guy whose mum sets the course."
This year's fleet has already had a couple of rough races, with one driver out with a broken collarbone at Maraetai and another boat shearing a motor in the capital's port race.
Even PlaceMakers, powered by two Buick 372ci inboards boat and capable of speeds up over 200km/h, lost a trim at Wellington.
"It's a bit hard on the boat - and the body," Shores says.
New Zealand Offshore Powerboat Association media officer Peter Rolton, who is also Shores' team's sponsorship and marketing man, says offshore racing in New Zealand is undergoing a revival, spearheaded by the return of Turner, a three-times winner of the Napier race.
Brothers Grant and Wayne Valder are also finding their form with Jesse James, another former World championship racer which won at Napier 14 years ago, and FMI Racing, a 10-metre Skater catamaran and Class 3 six-litre series entry, almost caused a boilover last week by leading the Wellington race until the latter stages before withdrawing with steering failure.