HRT 2011 Race Report
We recently had some news in from father and son racing team HRT Racing from New Zealand. Fortunately, both are okay as they are based on the North Island. The devastation by the earthquake was all done on the South Island. As far as we can tell, all racer colleagues of the Hughes Racing Team are okay though at least one racer sadly had his belongings destroyed. Our thoughts and sympaties go out to those who suffered losses because of the earthquake dissaster.
We of course had a conversation with Sam whether it would be a good idea to publish this story now with so many tragedies going on in New Zealand. Despite what is going on, we jointly decided to publish. People are picking up their lives and racing continues. We see this as testament to human dedication and resilience.
First couple of races are done and Sam, the son part of HRT Racing, was kind enough to write up an update about the racing in New Zealand.
The 2010/2011 season started a little slow this time around with alot of racers leaving things to the last minute getting their boats ready and complete for the upcoming race season. I myself spent a number of weeks away over in china with the world F1 series as well as a stop over in Australia. I didn’t have alot to do with my hull though, just new pickle forks and nose cones with an engine freshen up.
Dad’s Seebold was still being set up and fine tuned as he had a problem with engines getting too hot. With this it was a last minute race against time with the engine at an engineers to be modified and with things out of our control, the engine was not finished and returned in time for our first major meeting.
However my Burgess was ready and fitting fit for our major formula 2 races. We started in pole position one for the beach start and were out of the blocks and gone towards the first turn buoy. We manged to lead the first lap comfortably until disaster struck and my trim pump blew out, leaving us in the down trim position for the race and I was quickly chewed up by the other races and managed a distant third.
We then moved onto another major regatta a few weeks later, which was to hold our north island’s formula one title along with an unlimited open race called the Masport Cup. This is pretty much the biggest trophy in our sport in New Zealand. The old man has been trying for 25 years to secure this prize.
I myself entered the F1 with my f2 2 litre engine with the difference being we can run at 9250rpm in F1 instead of our restricted 8650rpm in F2. I love this sport and racing but I hate seeing my friends and fellow racers crashing and being hurt and on this race we did have a few dramas with a couple of racers crashing out, in separate incidents.
Both of them being very good friends of mine, one driver in particular was hit very hard and with a few tense days we were all very happy to hear the news he will make a full recovery. With things on our side and the boat maybe not being the overall fastest but manging to finish all the races at the pointy end of the field, I was granted the F1 title.
Now dad’s turn in the Seebold to take on the hydro’s for Masport. Ten boats line up for this on a rolling start. There were two tunnel boats with the rest of the field being grand prix hydroplanes. Without a word of a lie the Seebold was at the first turn with all the big boats and he stuck with them as best he could. Once again sometimes the GP boats aren’t always as reliable as the almighty Mercury outboard and as the race went on a couple of the big boats died out. The Seebold held true and was as fast as a little bullet. It really was impressive to watch and something to behold with a second place overall. Maybe next year dad!
PowerboatPro would like to thank Sam Hughes for keeping us up to date with HRT Racing news and his insight into racing in New Zealand. Thanks again Sam and have a good rest of the racing season.
