DIALLING IN: POWERBOAT WORLD CHAMPS COVID TESTING
NEARLY one year has passed since Maritimo Racing crossed the finish line of a Powerboat Grand Prix.
The COVID-19 pandemic have seen almost all classes of international powerboat racing put on hold until further notice.
Even with no international racing on the horizon for 2020, Gold Coast-based Maritimo Racing are busily preparing for their UIM XCAT World Championship and Australian Superboat title defence, when that day comes.
Maritimo Racing has used the 2020 extended off-season to embark on an extensive testing and development program with the team’s R30 XCAT, extracting more performance, reliability, and valuable seat time with weekly testing.
Maritimo’s R30 XCAT and equipment was shipped from Dubai back to Australia in December, and has been with the team for testing since January.
“It’s highly unusual for us to get such long periods of time for us to test and develop, dial in, and clock up seat time, when our boats are being transported from race to race throughout the season,” Maritimo Racing spokesman and driver Tom Barry-Cotter said.
“The positive with off-season testing versus during a season, is that you are willing to try things you would never try in a race, and steps backwards still give valuable data to making improvements. We have worked on a wide array of things, and we are finding little gains all the time, when accumulated equate to a couple of seconds a lap, from where we were last year.”
Maritimo has been in regular contact with organisers of the UIM XCAT World Championship and Australian Offshore Superboat Championship, ready for the call for racing to resume.
“All we can do is to continue to develop, improve, and be ready,” he said.