Jet Sprinting: Speed, spills thrill crowds at stadium

Driver Bevan Linklater and navigator Antony Cooper competing at the NZ Jetsprint Championships at Baypark Stadium. Photo/Andrew Warner

Months of planning, negotiating and organising every detail paid off for the organisers of the highly successful ENZED V8 Jetsprint Championships at ASB Baypark on Saturday.

In a world first for an enclosed, outdoor sports stadium, the grass rugby pitch was transformed into a twisting circuit of 5m-wide channels filled with water at a depth of up to 70cm, covering a total of 450m, including hair pin bends and straights. It is estimated 1800cu m of dirt was trucked out of the stadium and stored next door for relaying this week.

Nearly 50 teams from New Zealand, and about six from Australia, entered in three classes - Suzuki Superboats, PSP Group A and the 400s - but would the crowds turn up?

They certainly did in far greater numbers than budgeted for. Estimates put the crowd at between 14,000 and 15,000 with the majority staying from the mid-afternoon start to the spectacular ending at 10pm.

Watching the action live was exhilarating, with the speed of the boats and energy created, plus there were several high-speed crashes when boats flew out of the channels and careered into protective bails that brought the spectators to their feet.

Bay Leisure and Events Limited chief executive Gary Dawson was thrilled with the public response.

"The minute you do something like this which is innovative, and the first time it has been done in the world, there is always a risk because there is no blueprint.

"From a technical point of view, the water stayed in the track, and we were able to keep the water topped up as the boats displace a lot of water. In terms of the crowd numbers, jet sprinting has a huge amount of interest and commercially we sold out the corporate boxes three to four weeks ago."

Baypark is obviously not the ideal fit for hosting rugby but it is for speedway and it certainly proved to be the ideal venue for the jet sprint racing.

The challenge for Baypark is how to accommodate such different users if that is to continue.

But the immediate concern is how to get the stadium back into shape for the North Island Sprint Championship stock cars next Saturday night.

"We have a lot of work to get it ready for that," Dawson said. "There is no Super Rugby game here so that means we have a lot longer than we normally would. We have until July or August to really get it sorted (before the ITM Cup rugby) so we believe we have plenty of time.

"Increasingly this is a speed venue. We have had drifting out here, we've got jet boats ... , that is what it is designed for."