Indeed I saw several exceed 70 this past weekend. By far Chris Wood had the best speed,in the end I think David Preusse won 1st. I need to get some props going and a new build.......
This statement is kind of misleading......Not racing myself I spent a great deal of time watching very closely and analyzing what was going on in 20 hydro.....
I really wanted to see if we [JAE] could improve on the boat for heat racing...I was particularly interested in their "race water" performance.
The water was up and down all weekend and the JAE type of boats all handled the "race water" very well.
Chris Wood,Ron Zaker Jr. and David Preusse and possibly Paul [gooycheese] were more than capable of running in the mid to high 70's on the Hobart race course........
Even David Halls heavy prototype JAE.21G2 was all over the 70 mph mark with the new A-A motor but as usual at any big contest,
in order to finish first,first you must finish......once again this axiom proved to be true......
During the entire contest Chris was definitley leaning on the needle harder that Preuss or Zaker......there ain't anything wrong with that....
It was obvious Chris was there to race and there is no doubt about it Chris' new boat is right there......
David Preusse and Zaker just had a bit more conservative approach to a race strategy.......After the finish of every heat David Preusse and Zaker would take the come in
lap and lean on the needle coming back to the pits....
Their boats would stage up in the same rpm range and speed as Chris' boat would during the race......the staged up speed of Chris,Ron and David Preusse in their heat racing
set-ups could all be covered with a postage stamp......
All the JAE type boats at Hobart ran very well.....It was obvious that the only difference between the JAE inspired boats was testing set-ups,driver experience and overall race strategy.
Rod Geraghty
