Dean Stoneman (Southampton) and Dean Paling (Southampton) took an emphatic victory during the sole P1 SuperStock Championship race of the weekend on the River Humber, Sunday, 17 June, with a 21 second winning margin in the Hull Grand Prix of the Sea.
Incredibly rough waters and extremely high winds led to the unfortunate postponement of P1 SuperStockaction on Saturday, 16 June, and although it wasn’t possible to run the Match Racing Competition thehuge crowds along St Andrews Quay were treated to some excellent racing in better weather today.
Having taken a victorious hat-trick during the Plymouth Cup event back in May, the Pickfords crew ofStoneman and Paling continued their unbeaten run in their first season of P1 SuperStock action to topthe P1 250 Class championship standings ahead of next month’s Eastbourne Grand Prix of the Sea.
“There was no practice before the race today so it was fair for everyone”, said Stoneman, “I think itshows who can drive the boat to the limit, who has that last little edge, and we were consistent too – it’sgood to have another win. Hopefully we’ll do some testing before Eastbourne, we need a bit more roughtesting and to work on a couple of things on the boat but hopefully that’ll be another good weekend.”
Reigning P1 250 champion John Wilson (Coleshill), joined this weekend by Major Nigel Hindmarsh(London) in place of regular navigator Neil Scarborough (Monks Risborough), took second place in thePertemps boat having been fourth on lap one – a great result for East Yorkshire with Wilson born andbred in nearby Beverley.
Producing a very strong performance, the duo overhauled James Norvill (Newport) and JonCollingbourne (Newport) in the Oval Insurance vessell for third on the second tour and then movedup to second a lap later, shortly before the PaLu boat of Simon Bayles (Battersea) and Philippa Baker(Kensington) was forced out with engine problems.
Miles Jennings (Exeter) and Andy Wilby (Fleet) fought through from sixth on lap one to take thirdat the finish with Oval fourth ahead of Peters & May Racing with Brookspeed pairing Mike Lovell(Southampton) and Luke Elkin (Southampton). PaLu, meanwhile, were credited with the points for sixthdespite not running at the flag.
