Simon Saw takes first win with Brandon Thein taking pole and the drag race

The inaugural KBS F3000 Powerboat Top Gun Championship Series 2012 saw the biggest field to-date of some 16 boats competing for honours at the Putrajaya Maritime Centre on the weekend of 25-26 February 2012.

The qualifying session started after lunch on Saturday with the three top positions as follows : Brandon 47.3s, Kane 48.4s and Awang 48.6s. The qualifying order determined the matrix format for the drag race where Brandon came 1^st, 2^nd Haniff and 3^rd Anuar.

Simon Saw driving boat # 7 blew an engine during practice just before qualifying and the crew could not put a motor together for him in time for qualifying and the match race. Kane Fernandez, chief mechanic for Team Fernandez Racing worked through the night to build a fresh motor for boat # 7 enabling Simon to make it for the feature race but had to start second last on the grid ahead of Colin Ho who was a last minute entry.

There was a lot of jostling for position on the parade lap and on the start, the boats were closely bunched up into the lead that made exciting and spectacular viewing even though some boats failed to keep their starting positions. Brandon pulled away at the drop of the starter’s flag, closely followed by Kane, Awang, Haniff and Anuar. The race saw some close racing between Kane and Brandon with Kane pulling ahead of Brandon coming out of the turns only to be overtaken by Brandon on the straights.

The race continued for a couple of laps before the race was yellow flagged while the rescue teams and marshals were trying to remove out of the course two boats that had broken down. A boat that had deliberately stopped on the racing line was misunderstood as a stranded craft, overwhelming the rescue efforts and this brought out the red flag, by which time, dark rain clouds as well as lightning caused the race to be stopped until further notice.

45 minutes later the rain had blown over, the weather had improved and the Event Director Raja Adam called for the race to restart. Only 11 boats made the restart as a few of the earlier survivors failed to restart their engines and a couple more were literally caught napping.

Brandon got clearly away again, pursued by Kane, Awang and Simon. Kane continued to fight hard going after Brandon and despite losing his boat’s canopy, finally managed to pass Brandon who was also eventually overtaken by Awang. Brandon’s boat was also taking in water (typical of the old wood boats).

Simon who clearly had the quickest boat made easy work of passing and putting everybody two laps down. He was later penalized for overtaking on a yellow flag and docked a lap but still deemed to have finished 1^st on a countback. Kudos to Simon (1^st place), Kane (2^nd place) and Awang (3^rd place) for a well driven race.

We would like to express our utmost appreciation to :-

a)    Dato’ Mohid, Dato’ Zaidon, En. Madzrib, and all KBS personnel for officiating the event, giving away the prizes & souvenirs and giving their full support for this event;

b)    Perbadanan Putrajaya for allowing us to use the lake this time;

c)     All Media personnel for covering this event;

d)    Our valued sponsors – Dynotab/Chemplex Continental Sdn Bhd, Echo Marine & Supply Sdn Bhd, Mercury Marine Sdn Bhd, Revive/Permanis Sandilands Sdn Bhd, World Motor Trader;

e)    all the Pilots / Teams who have come all the way to participate in and support this event ;

And A Very BIG THANK YOU to Everybody who has helped to make this event a success !

For detailed qualifying times and final finish positions, check out Race Results.

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