Jetsprinting a Wairarapa success story

PEOPLE don't realise what a big deal the new jetsprint course on Tauherenikau racecourse is, says Garry Smith, one of the country's top competitors.
Success enjoyed by Wairarapa competitors in the season just ended will help, he says.
The new circuit, on the left as you drive in to the racecourse, is virtually complete, he says, and now it's a matter of getting grass established and building a safety fence around it. That fence will be in sections, and each section can carry sponsor advertising. Trust House and Oldfields are major backers of the track, but more sponsors are needed, says Garry.
The layout has been rated by the national jetsprint body as one of the best in New Zealand, and Wairarapa fans are guaranteed some top action there in the next few years.
"It's going to be a big deal," says Garry. "We're not going to have meetings every weekend: instead we want one or two really good meetings a year."
There'll be a national or at least North Island round here next year. Television covers national rounds, so there will be plenty of exposure.
Ultimately the club wants to establish its own big event, perhaps a South Pacific championship, to be held at Easter each year.
Garry Smith, who owns a panelbeating business in Wellington, and Morris Edwards, a farmer and commercial jet boat operator, are both deeply committed to the sport.
Garry has been a competitor in the elite A class for five or six years. He raced motocross in his younger years, went on to a speedway Super Saloon before taking to the water. Lately, however, he's returned to motocross again, partly for fitness and partly to be involved with sons Henry, 9, and Sam, 4, who are both racers
The family are members of the Martinborough Motorcycle Club, which is building a circuit at Tauherenikau ... but that's another story.
It doesn't stop there.
"Mum's a petrolhead," grins Emma Smith, 8.
She's got that right. Catherine Smith has high-octane blood running in her veins.
In addition to navigating for national jetsprint champion Morris Edwards, she drove a jetsprint boat to third in the South Island championships this season, has been a speedway motorcycle sidecar swinger, driven a speedway car (and won a women's race), and driven a drag racer (fastest lady on the day).
In fact, young Emma is the only non-petrolhead in the family. She prefers horses, as does Morris Edwards' wife Juanita, who has three 160km endurance rides to her credit and who travelled to Dubai in 2000 as strapper for former Greytown girl Abigail Cummings.
Morris and Juanita have two sons, who look after the farming activities while Morris enjoys the ultimate job, regular trips to Zimbabwe as a relief tourist jetboat driver, ferrying tourists on the Zambezi River.
That completes a circle for Morris, who established the first jetboat company in Wairarapa in 1985, doing the same sort of work.
As a matter of local interest, the Livingston company Jet Extreme was set up five years ago by Tony Pilcher, son of a Featherston contractor.
"Livingstone is like Queenstown, with bungee, rafting and so on," said Morris. Tony saw the potential and started Jet Extreme using boats built by John Murphy, of Gladstone (who has also featured on this page).
There were a lot of Kiwis involved in the adventure business in the early days, but they have mostly been bought out by British firms.
Tony had two drivers initially, but one left, leaving the other driving seven days a week. Morris, who holds the appropriate qualification but who had decided there was not enough potential in Wairarapa, was invited to help out. He's had three trips to Africa and looks to be even busier in future.
Jet Extreme has just bought a 26-seat boat powered by twin 383 Chev engines together putting out around 700hp. Initially, passengers had to climb down 220 metres into the gorge to do the ride, but a gondola is being built which will probably increase the traffic hugely.