KEY POINTS:
After many years racing together, the Valder brothers - Grant and Wayne - have parted company ahead of this season's offshore powerboat competition.
But it's not because the boat got too small for the siblings through any fall-out. Throttleman Grant, 43, is leaving driver Wayne, 36, to join Tony Coleman who has stepped up from the Honda class to Superboats.
Grant Valder and Coleman returned from Chicago on Tuesday after inspecting their new million-dollar Douglas Skater and, after production delays that have put its finish date beyond this year's shipping schedule, arranged for the racer to be flown to Auckland next month, just five weeks from the season opener in Taupo.
"Tony asked if I'd be his throttleman if he bought a new boat. My sole motivation is to see the sport expand," Grant Valder said.
"We will have six very competitive boats in the open class now.
"There will be more than 12 boats capable of doing more than one hundred miles an hour this season.
"Gary Gleeson is moving up from Honda class to Superboat Light class, other guys are moving into Honda class and they should have 16-plus racers this season so it's good to see the sport pushing on."
He is a past-president of the NZ Offshore Powerboat Association and brother Wayne is the current president. They raced together through the 80s, put family commitments first in the 90s and have raced five seasons together since coming back.
It will take him time to train a new driver, Grant said, so he feels the experienced pairings of five-time national titleholders Richard Shores and Wayne Carsons in Placemakers, and Peter Turner, in Sleepyhead, will be hard to beat despite new regulations aimed at levelling the racing field. "There's no substitute for time behind the wheel."
The top class will be hotly contested this season after the NZOPA standardised the power plant, all six boats required to run Mercury 525 big-block V8s. This brings New Zealand into line with the United States, the aim also being to limit "chequebook racing" where teams spent vast sums on power gains and the same winners kept on winning.
The hulls must be no longer than 35 feet and no wider than 10 feet.
There are four United States-built Douglas Skaters and two New Zealand-built Phantom hulls - but none of the six is identical, so there is expected to be some difference in handling and speed in various conditions.
Shores, who won in 2000, 2001 and 2003-05, is confident his boat, Placemakers, has an edge in cornering because of a slightly narrower hull.
But he also is not going to know for sure how Placemakers will go with the new power plant until the last couple of weeks before competition opens in Taupo on January 27.
At the moment, "it is in a thousand bits, we're waiting on new drives, we're waiting on new propellers".
The motors have been fitted on rails because they are not sure how weight changes will affect balance and riding.
Shores said: "The boat has been gutted, we've taken out tanks and wiring and extra hosing because the Mercurys are a stand-alone unit.
"It's been modernised and repainted and we're well into six figures for the changeover,"
He was disappointed the short block V8 they ran last season was so temperamental - "We won half the races and broke down in the other half" - and after losing to Turner in 2006 is looking for consistent top-two placings. And lower maintenance costs.
"There was huge cost in maintaining and rebuilding the engines, you were always conscious of how many hours they had on them."
The new motors drop around 40 horsepower but have better torque so Shores expects just a small drop in top speed and is confident they can average 120mph in good water.
Like Valder with a new driver, he'll be nervous despite the five-title run with Carson, feeling out the new boat a challenge.
"You're always nervous before you go racing for the first few times again then you settle down mid-season on - you can practise all you like but it's nothing like having other boats next to you at high speed."
Turner, who won in 1992, 1994-96 and last year is also back in Superboats.
There is rumour that US racer and former world speed record holder Rique Ford, who was with Graeme Horne when his boat flipped in a spectacular crash in practice in 1999, will be back to watch early events and may bring boats out to compete in two classes. The Australian Red Bellies team is confirmed to return after competing last year.
The Taupo event, on the Sunday of Auckland Anniversary weekend, will again be preceded by a Poker Run and the Round the Island ski race on the Saturday.
