Coley battles Caughey to the wire in SuperBoat championship

Peter Caughey leads the Superboat series after the third round in Waitara.

Whanganui's Rob Coley and his new Nissan twin-turbo boat have moved up to a share of second place in the MouthFresh SuperBoat championship, although there is now a lot of daylight to Canterbury's reigning champion Peter Caughey.

Coley finished runner up to Caughey at the third round of the Altherm Window Systems New Zealand Jetsprint Championships, after a typically wild afternoon at Waitara's Methanex Aquatrack on Saturday.

In a round where there were a few crashes and plenty of near-misses, the often wide-open racer Coley was not one of them, as he threw down the gauntlet with a 40.8s lap early in the day, in what was just the second event he has raced his new boat.

Caughey and Coley reached the final eliminator with Rotorua's Nick Berryman, who had been consistently quick but then had a navigation issue to remove himself from contention.

Coley had one moment's lapse on the course's hairpin, which saw him finish in 42.57s, and then the master Caughey went out and won the round with a comprehensive 40.3s lap – once again pulling out the fastest time of the day right when it counted.

A multiple national and world title winner, Caughey said it is not unusual that setting the benchmark time early can add pressure on a driver to go even faster, whereas Waiuku is more of a technical course.

"There's then a real temptation to over-drive, which is a risk – especially on a track like this.

"It's a bit of an exaggeration to say you've got an F1 car on a go-kart track, but there were times we felt we had 200 horsepower more than we need."

Provisional results moved Caughey up to 90 points, with Coley and Berryman tied on 76, while Hamilton's Sam Newdick drops back with 71, and Whanganui's Richard Murray enters the Top 5 with 69 points – after making the Top 9 eliminator in Waitara.

However, with a 14 point lead, Caughey only needs to reach the Top 5-8 elimination races in the remainder rounds to claim another title, so Coley & co will be hoping the ice-cool veteran makes a big mistake or has major engine trouble to give them a sniff.

In the Fowler Homes Group A, Whanganui's Ross Travers had to settle for fourth place, which still leaves him third in the series but with a widening gap to Canterbury's Simon Gibbon, who has Whanganui's Donna Thompson as navigator, and Hamilton's defending champion Ollie Silverton – who dominated Waiuku.

"Ollie cleaned up, real impressive," said Travers.

"It was right on the edge, if not passed the edge."

Gibbon was runner up in Waitara, while Pauatahanui's Andy Ryan got up to third, as Travers went from second place after the Top 9 to missing out on the Top 3 eliminator of two tenths of a second.

"Quite happy with how the motor's going. It was a tight rotation, so you go across your own cross wash."

Travers got airborne on one run and although the boat landed safely, the impact jarred his shoulder and neck, causing him to "button off" on his other drives through that turn.

The Whanganui racer had a large influence on the Top 3 of the Stinger Boats Group B division, as third placed Bevan Schuler (Eltham), runner up Whanganui expat Kellie Minnell and winner Patrick Haden (Te Awamutu) were all using former Travers parts in their boats – from batteries, to blades and fuel pumps.

Round 4 is in Hastings on March 11.