Wanganui six power into top-five spots

GIRL POWER: Donna Thomson and Monica Couper, Wanganui's Two A Breast crew, had their best season in the 400s series of the national championships. PHOTO/FILE A_271214WCLGJETS9

Six Wanganui drivers finished in the top five of their respective divisions when the final tallies of the 2015 PSP NZ Jet Sprint Championship season were confirmed.

Final placings for the series after the last round at Featherston's Westview Aluminium Aquatrack on April 26 were delayed until this week due to a review on the boat of Group A competitor Simon Gibbon, with the Cantabrian's points for the season being discounted.

In the Suzuki Superboats, Wanganui's Pat Dillon and navigator Steve Edmonds finished eight points clear of seven-time world champion Peter Caughey, while Glen Head's final-round win lifted the Hamiltonian to third overall, ahead of expat Wanganui former world champion Leighton Minnell.

Head has a lot in common with Wanganui's Rob Coley, with neither afraid to attack the course and risk crashing to get that quicker time.

After some early struggles, Coley had won rounds four and five at Crownthorpe and Wanaka, but then at Featherston a promising day was ended when his Poison Ivy boat clipped a bank and launched through the chicanes on the way to the finish line.

Rob Coley and navigator brother Tony ended up nose-first in the safety fencing in a crash similar to his spectacular wreck during last season's first round at Wanganui's Shelter View course.

The Coleys finished fifth for 2015 but received a special trophy from RSQKRU - the motor-events safety crew they are so friendly with - who gave them the fire extinguisher that was destroyed in the Wanganui crash.

In the Biolytix 400s, Wanganui's Ross Travers and navigator son Shane finished two points ahead of Hamilton's Ollie Silverton to win the national title in Travers' second season.

Travers won five of the six rounds.

However, his 10th at Meremere in round three brought Silverston back into the reckoning, as his two runner-up positions, two thirds and two fourths made for a consistent season.

Wanganui's defending national champion, Hayden Wilson, would finish another eight points back to claim third overall, two points ahead of Te Awamutu's Patrick Haden, while Wilson's navigator Chris Hausman was second in his series.

Wilson won at Meremere and had consistent top-five finishes elsewhere, but the hard crash in round two at Mt Maunganui, which knocked him loopy and left the White Noize boat submerged, ultimately proved costly to the hopes of back-to-back titles.

Wanganui's all-girl crew of Donna Thomson and Monica Couper had a best-season finish of fifth overall, proving Two A Breast does belong among the big boys.

Their best effort was third at Meremere, with fifths in rounds one and three, although further success in the latter half of the season proved elusive.

There was not a Wanganui presence in the PSP Group A class this year, and it was comfortably won by defending champion Sam Newdick, of Hamilton, 12 points clear of Papamoa's Tristan Hynds, with Gisborne's Blake Briant getting up to third.

Dillon, Travers, and Newdick will receive their national titles at the NZ Jet Sprint Association annual meeting and prize-giving to held in Wanganui on June 13.

Final standings:

Superboats: 1. Pat Dillon (Wanganui) 173 points; 2. Peter Caughey (Christchurch) 165; 3. Glen Head (Hamilton) 155; 4. Leighton Minnell (New Plymouth) 155; 5. Rob Coley (Wanganui) 149.

Group A: 1. Sam Newdick (Hamilton) 177; 2. Tristan Hynds (Papamoa) 165; 3. Blake Briant (Gisborne) 144; 4. Russell Dodds (Taupo) 144; 5. Ric Burke (Hamilton) 135.

400s: 1. Ross Travers (Wanganui) 168; 2. Ollie Silverton (Hamilton) 166; 3. Hayden Wilson (Wanganui) 154; 4. Patrick Haden (Te Awamutu) 152; 5. Donna Thomson (Wanganui) 136.