Break point

Steve Curtis, eight times Class 1 World Champion, started with a 145mph crash in the season opener. This is the first of his monthly columns for BOME.

On the 21st February I boarded and headed out to my first race of the 2008 Class One World Championship season in Qatar. It was a leisurely flight and I was greeted at the airport at 9:30pm to be whisked straight off to dinner with the team.

It was fantastic to be back with the guys; there was a certain feeling of confidence in the air about the upcoming season.

The boats were getting shipped from Dubai where they had spent the winter in a great big tent with very little being done to them. This I find really annoying.

The Victory Team, based in Dubai, get to work out of their workshops and stay at home and relax; which makes it not only a lot cheaper for the most well funded team in off-shore history, but gives them a massive advantage going into the first race having tested so much on their home ground.

This was really the decision of series promoter IOTA, but they must understand that the smaller teams need to get back to home base so they can set up for the new season.

The ship that was delivering race boats from Dubai was delayed by a couple of days so we got to have a look around Doha and relax before we had to throw ourselves into a short test programme.

By the time the boat arrived and we had prepared it, it only allowed us for two days maximum of testing. Thank God we were in Qatar, the sun always shines and even on the windiest days you only get a two foot chop on the roughest part of the course.

Testing went really well and Sheik Hassan and I seemed to gel as pilot and throttleman almost immediately. By the end of the first day we were only a second and a half down on the lap record set by myself and Bjorn during last year's Qatar Grand Prix.

On day two the weather got even better, with the wind dropping somewhat and with a couple of set up changes, we broke last year's record by about half a second.

Feeling quite happy with ourselves and very confident we sent the boat back to the workshop for an engine change and to be prepped for the race. In first practice we were two seconds faster. So, still feeling confident we waited for Friday and pole position.

Our first lap put us in the lead by two seconds over Victory 1 - who we felt would be our toughest competitor. Halfway through the second session Victory nicked a third of a second, so we out we went to regain our pole position.

Halfway round the lap we were one second ahead and as we came round the long sweeping last bend the bow of the boat started to climb.

As hard as I pushed the trim buttons down nothing could be done; at 145mph, above 18 degrees, the boat is gone. Fortunately we landed up the right way, but the whole boat was destroyed.

As the boat was towed back to the harbour we were already making plans to run the spare boat. This boat is nowhere near as fast, nor handles as well, but we managed to bring it home in second place - for a valuable 15 points!

So a great start, a terrible middle, and not a bad end. But we're in a far better position than we were in this time last year!

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