Veteran powerboat racer Andy Stoneham reckons the best is yet to come from his 28-foot Skater (Don’t Hate) that smashed the S-class race record during last weekend’s Around the Island Powerboat Race.Competing with cousin Anthony in the cockpit, Stoneham covered the race course in a blistering 33 minutes and 35 seconds to better the previous record (34:37) held by Ricky Sousa Jr and Steven Bridges by more than a minute.Had it not been for a conservative approach, Stoneham believes he might have circumnavigated the Island even faster in ideal racing conditions.“I think the boat could have gone even faster on Sunday,” he told The Royal Gazette. “But since I’ve been having mechanical gremlins for at least three years in a row I sort of went at it tentatively. The conditions were fine but I decided to race conservatively because we still have to make it the whole 60 nautical miles.”Stoneham, 50, was by far the fastest boat on the day. But he said breaking the record was the furthest thing on his mind.“As a racer I never go looking for records because when you do they tend to elude you,” he said. “My first objective is to make it around the Island safely and then secondly win the S- Class and thirdly if there’s a record being laid down then you just accept it.”Stoneham’s journey around the Island did not go without its share of scary moments as spectators on pleasure boats ignored repeated warnings to stay off the race course.“We had a couple of near mishaps with pleasure boats where people wouldn’t keep still,” he said. “But as far as racing goes we had a pretty clean run, meaning we had no mishaps.”The veteran racer, who has won multiple class and overall line honours over the years in the annual powerboat spectacle, said he wasn’t surprised to see the FB-Class Phantom piloted by brothers Tonka and Stacey Simpson take overall line honours this year.“That was no surprise to me because the stagger (staggered start for each class) is so far out that the smaller boats have a big advantage to be first back, especially when we have weather like we had on Sunday,” he said. “Each class is supposed to be staggered enough where everyone should get back close to the same time. But I’d say the stagger has been off for a quite a while now.“In the old days the stagger was laid down so that a smaller boat could actually have a shot at being the first one back and so on. But the stagger has been off for a quite a while and so when we have a stationary high (little or no wind), which is what we had on Sunday, the advantage goes to the smaller boats because they have such a head start.”Stoneham has been racing with his cousin for the past four years and in that period the duo have evolved into a reckoning force.“We have a very good chemistry in the boat,” he said. “And when you have a good chemistry then you actually have to talk less and that chemistry between us has prevailed for a while now.”Stoneham has been racing powerboats for more than two decades.So what keeps him motivated?“I love racing and then I love boats,” he declared. “And I’ve raced just about everything there is to race around here.”