Rookies win Superboat class after rival crews dogged by bad luck in NZ Jetsprint champs

Whanganui's Rob and Ange Coley were perhaps the unluckiest crew in round two of the PSP Jetspint Championships at Shelterview on Friday after having to swap boats and ditch championship points while posting the fastest times of the day. Photo / Lewis Gardner

Round two of the 2019-20 PSP New Zealand Jetsprint Championships had more twists and turns than the Shelterview track itself in Upokongaro near Whanganui on Friday.

The rate of attrition was a factor in varying degrees in all three classes from the Unlimited Superboats to the Group A and Group B divisions.

Relative rookies Scott Donald and Nicole Reesby took full advantage of the mayhem to win the coveted Superboat class in their Wicked II craft with a magnificent final pass.

While the Featherston farmer and his Wairarapa accountant navigator fully deserved victory after consistently improving throughout the day, they were helped by bad luck dogging an extremely quick Glen Head and Hayley Todd from Hamilton and Rob and Ange Coley from Whanganui.

Coley had his Poison Ivy craft humming until problems arose forcing him to park it up and replace it with another from his fleet. That boat was even faster, but unfortunately under the rules of racing a competitor cannot earn championship points after qualifying in one boat and swapping it for another during the day.

Coley continued on and actually posted the fastest time of the day with a 47.109 pass, but the points went Donald's way with the second quickest run of the day.

Head was right in contention until problems with the reverse bucket in his Altherm Windows System craft. The reverse bucket allows competitors to launch craft from their trailers the only way the rules dictate.

Head's crew managed to get it working just in time, but it flew apart in the final run forcing the team out of winning contention.

The Reuben Hoeksema/Jacob Wood team guided Turbo Extreme into third spot as the only team still running in the class.

New Zealand No1 Ollie Silverton from Hamilton and his navigator Shama Putaranui won Group A with their PSP Racing machine after a series of unfortunate mishaps in rival camps.

Whanganui's Ross Travers and navigator Amanda Kittow paid dearly when they began pushing the envelop. The pair had Radioactive leading the charge early in the qualifying rounds, but pushed perhaps a bit too hard in the run-offs for the Top 3 and rolled on the first bend to put them out of contention.

Simon Gibbon from North Canterbury and Whanganui navigator Donna Thomson finished second in Novus Glass, while Sean and Fay Rice from New Plymouth wilted to third in Cosa Nostra.

New Plymouth pairing Kris Rasmussen and Holly Sutherland stepped up a notch from runners-up position in Featherston to win the Group B class at Shelterview. The class perhaps suffered the most attrition with at least three machines crashing out of contention in the countdown from Top 9 to Top 3.

At the end of the Top 3 runs, Rasmussen was leading with Waikato's Karl Beaver and Jay Ammon less then .4 seconds behind and Whanganui's Hayden Wilson and Jaedyn McDonough in third more than a second behind. In fact, Wilson was fortunate to creep into the Top 3 after an ordinary run.

However, in the final wash it was Rasmussen and Sutherland who took the full championship points with a 51.990 run ahead of Beaver in his Beaver Reliever boat and Wilson third in White Noize.