Alexander is going to do it propellerly this time

David Ogilvie | 22nd January 2010

Annihilator hydroplane driver David Alexander travels to Tauranga today  confident of a fourth successive win in one of the sport's major trophies, the Masport National Cup.

Alexander won the event at Tauranga last year after earlier wins at Twizel and Lake Karapiro.

Short of a decent propeller for the recent Whanganui Flying Lap contest on the Whanganui River, Alexander goes north with two.

"We're looking pretty good. Hopefully we'll have a new propeller and the old one fixed. And we've put my big engine in for the weekend - 200-300 extra horsepower."

Just which propeller will be used will be sorted tomorrow at practice on the Tauranga Harbour.

Alexander took an immediate liking to the Tauranga event - winning it helped, of course.

"It was a new event for us, they'll hopefully get a good crowd for it, and it's right in town, rather similar to Wanganui. But plenty of water so you can run a full field."

Annihilator opposition at Tauranga will be the older Annihilator (Warwick Lupton) and Ken Lupton (Annihilator 3).

Lupton hopes to test the new Annihilator at Karapiro before driving it in the E C Griffith Cup at Karapiro on February 6-7.

Outside the Annihilator team, Alexander expects the toughest opponent to be Graeme Weller in G-Force, which  has a new, extremely potent power plant.