SEPTEMBER HRT REEL TIME

Going from a excellent opening 2009 season, 2010 came around very quickly and with some interesting changes. We sold my hodges and I took over my dads ever so perfect burgess and he moved on to a new adventure going from an English hull to an American Seebold hull.

Formula 2 had been a very hit and miss class over the years with many changes and lack of boats, myself with a few others got together and decided to take this class by the scruff of the neck and try to find a solution to make this class competitive and strong again, making it a stepping stone for young racers to start racing with good boats and good gear before joining formula 1 but at half the running costs. As this is how i started racing.

New Zealand formula one, like all F1 classes, use to run a 2 litre engines before they then stepped up to the 2.5 litre mercury race engine. We decided to put to use all the left over 2 litre race engines and gear boxes that were still in good order and rev limit them to build our new f2 class. So our f2 class consisted of a 2 litre injected motor rev limited to 8650rpm on a mark 6 gearbox. With this put in place we managed to gain a full fleet of boats and a competitive class. I was very please and proud to take my fathers 2009 F1 championship boat which was now my Burgess hull and become the 2010 formula 2 champion to add to the resume. No longer “The Apprentice”

2010 formula 1 suffered a little with numbers and some of us f2 guys also ran up a class to keep the numbers up. The Seebold being a new addition to the HRT racing family was a new project and after some fine tuning did perform well, and finished a very close second in the formula 1 series. I myself was also very happy with securing 3rd overall in the F1 standings.

2010 for us in terms of racing our own boats in NZ is in its off season and we are slowly building things back up to a debut for the 2011 season on the second of January. However we have been given a massive life line to get in some great racing action and be part of the world formula one series team. I have been lucky enough to be selected to be part of the Atlantic crew for the up coming three rounds in china, and another enjoyable factor is that my father
also got a call up to be part of the Qatar team for the final two rounds

This will prove to be a great experience for us with new challenges and to be part of the best of the best in the business. Not to mention maybe a bit of family rivalry with the Hughes’s being on separate teams!

Article and pictures courtesy of HRT racing and Sam Hughes

Comments have been closed for this post.