Sleepyhead's Turner back at the top

Sleepyhead heads the field in impressive style during the final round of the national Offshore Powerboat Championships, held in Tauranga's inner harbour at the weekend

Sleepyhead sealed the 2006 national Offshore Powerboat Championship title in impressive style at an all-action final series round on the Tauranga Harbour.

The win was the fourth this season for the Auckland-based boat and marked the return of former championship front-runner Peter Turner to the top of the sport in New Zealand.

This year's Armacup title is Turner's fifth and the first for new-generation co-driver Craig Archer, a former United States offshore powerboat champion.

"This is a fantastic result, both for Craig and myself and for the team," said Turner.

"When we returned to the sport last season we set ourselves the goal of winning. We didn't do it first time round but we did it this time. I'd like to thank everyone involved with the Sleepyhead effort and I'd like to make special mention of Craig. This is his first championship win here in New Zealand so it's a special day for him."

Turner won four New Zealand titles with Peter McGrath in the 1990s before taking a break from the sport.

In that time arch-rivals Richard Shores and Wayne Carson took over the mantle of team to beat in their boat Placemakers.

In fact it was when Shores and Carson equalled the four-championship title record Turner shared with fellow Aucklander Graeme Horne that Turner decided to get back into the sport.

That was three years ago and Turner built a new boat and employed Archer to set it up for him.

Archer then became co-driver.

Sleepyhead's win in this year's Armacup Cure Kids championship means that two teams - Sleepyhead and Placemakers - are tied at the top of the sport with five championships each, eclipsing the former record of four jointly held by Peter Turner and Graeme Horne.

Saturday's race was held on a light chop in the inner-harbour and there was drama even before the start as eventual 100 Mile race runner-up Jesse James (Wayne and Grant Valder) struggled to get up to plane, only just joining the rest of field in the final run.

Sleepyhead grabbed an immediate lead from Placemakers, which was momentarily in front at the top end of the course only to blow an engine and take no further part in the race.

That left Sleepyhead with a lead it would never relinquish, albeit with a revitalised Jesse James chasing hard, until it too struck engine trouble.

Third overall and claiming line honours in the NZ Superboat Light class was Fairview Windows & Doors (Warren and Scott Lewis).

Locally based boat The Bat Boat (Mark and Aaron Diggelmann) beat WELBL8 (Tim Fellows and Kevin Ireland) to win the Sports 100 race while Moore Living (Mike Cameron and Jason Frost) beat Triple Trouble (Bob Smith and Mark Taiatini), Growler (Richard Chisholm and Craig Price) and MarineWorkz (Jonathan Martin and Steve Whitford) to the line for overall victory in the 60 Mile race.

Fifth in the 60 Mile and winner of the Formula Honda "class-within-a-class" was Hamilton's Team Altitude (Jeff Weake and Jacqueline MacGowan) from 2006 class winner Light Industry (Greg Bartlett and Mike Urquhart) and 2005 Formula Honda champion Konica Minolta (Greg Brinck and Reece Harrison).