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Home / Whanganui Chronicle / Sport

Linklater close to title

By Ian Thornton and Jared Smith
Whanganui Chronicle·
1 Apr, 2013 05:25 PM3 mins to read

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One Wanganui driver can all but taste a New Zealand trophy, while another is just thrilled he stopped his rival's winning streak in the unknown territory of Wanaka on Saturday.

But unfortunately the town's top drivers are now probably out of reach of the national championship in the feature class of the New Zealand Jet Sprint Championships after a bittersweet round five on the brand new Oxbow Aquatrack on Saturday.

In the PSP Group A, Richard Murray took on his brother-in-law Ian Carter as navigator and together they upset Sam Newdick's winning streak for Murray to take his first-ever round victory and stake out second on the points table.

Meanwhile, stock car driver turned jetboater Gerry Linklater continued his remarkable consistency to finish second in the JetPro 400s and all but sew up the championship with one round left at Shelterview on April 13.

No one had previous experience to fall back on so the tight new Wanaka track claimed a number of high-profile victims, including Wanganui's defending Suzuki Superboat champion Leighton Minnell.

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Having beached his boat during the elimination rounds, it had to hurt to see current points leader Peter Caughey of Canterbury miss his first final after taking a wrong turn in the Top Five eliminator.

Ray and Nicky Ferguson won the round, while local Dave Hopkins was second.

Minnell not being there to exploit Caughey's brain fade meant the Cantabrian retained his spot on the leaderboard and is now 12 points clear of Wanganui driver Pat Dillon, who moved up to second overall.

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Dillon had his own problems, coming out of the water during qualifying after clipping a shelf on the inside of turn three.

He took a wider line for the rest of the day to make the final three, but went out again after carrying too much speed into the same corner.

Murray, basking in his first ever victory, could sympathise after two DNF's himself before a smoking 54 second time proved the quickest effort over the last three rounds.

"It was terrible in the morning, I couldn't get my head around the track, got lost twice. I was thinking, 'we're not going to have a good day here' but it turns out we did."

He brought in Carter as Kesty Manning was still recovering from their hard roll at the Hastings rounds.

After a 54s time saw them into the final three, a 55.225 time was enough to win the round with just 0.269 of a second separating him from runner-up Duncan Wilson and third-placed Newdick.

"It was the eighth season, it just shows how hard they are to get," Murray said. "We've stopped [Newdick's] win streak, which is awesome and a feat on its own."

Murray was also delighted that out of 28 Chev engines and only two Fords, including himself, that he got a win for his brand.

Both he and Newdick are now well clear of the rest of the field, with the Hamiltonian holding the key advantage.

Meanwhile, Linklater knows he just has to keep calm and drive on as he only missed winning the round by 0.071 against Brett Thompson and Megan Brodie.

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"It was a bit of a handful to start with, it's a very technical track.

"We just hung in there and hoped for the best," said the four year veteran.

Learning the margin for error in jetboats is much smaller than stock cars, Linklater's continued run of podium finishes has him 11 points clear on top of the leaderboard.

He now looks ahead to a barnstorming finish in Wanganui in two weeks.

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