Reigning P1 SuperStock Champion John Wilson (Coleshill) and navigator Major Nigel Hindmarsh (London) took a memorable victory in the Cowes-Poole-Cowes endurance race, Sunday, 26th Augustending a three year run of heartbreak for Pertemps in the annual spectacular.
Taking the lead from the Pickfords P1 250 boat of Dean Stoneman (Southampton) and Dave Flewin just before the Wytch Farm marker, the Pertemps duo led every mile thereafter to claim the crews first win of the 2012 season. The victory also sparked a double dose of merriment for Hindmarsh who celebrated his 38th birthday on Saturday, 25th August.This was Nigels first time navigating a proper offshore powerboat race, he got it absolutely bang on, said Wilson, We had a good line for the run out, it was very rough there with some big wavesI was just hoping my back would hold up after what happened in Eastbourne [Wilson aggravated an old injury there] but having re-set the seat tensions everything worked out fine.
We ran pretty much equal second on the way out to Two Buoys while Pickfords were 10 or 15 lengths ahead but just as we came round the turn, Pickfords lost a couple of boat lengths and on the run to Wytch Farm they looked like they were trimmed too high. We took about half a boat length out of them every two or three hundred yards and got ahead just before Wytch Farm.Wilson added: Weve done Cowes four times now, Ive been in the lead three times before and something has happened so this is a really, really sweet victory. To come back to Cowes, the British Powerboat Festival, and win with no problems or breakdowns is fantastic.
Pertemps tremendous victory ended the incredible run of Pickfords which had taken every other race win so far this seasonthe first year in the championship for car racing champion Stoneman. Although disappointed with second place, cancer survivor Stoneman maintains a very healthy lead in the title race with just one event remaining in Weymouth next month.It was an average start for us, said the Pickfords pilot, There was no indication of the go, everyone just started racing. We were in the lead up until Bournemouth but then John [Wilson] crept up on us and no matter what we did we just couldnt get the nose of the boat up and lost one or two miles per hour on John for the rest of the race.At the end of the day, weve still done well with that problem to score points and John has only gained three points on us in the championship anyway.Finishing in third place overall and third in P1 250 was the Peters & May Racing with Brookspeed pairing of Mike Lovell (Southampton) and Luke Elkin (Southampton), 20 seconds behind Pickfords and just ahead of Edox duo Ian Brusby (Doncaster) and Will Nurse.Miles Jennings and Andy Wilby (Fleet) took fifth in Typhoo, IFX Racings Nick Williams (Amersham) and Aaron Emmett (Amersham) finished sixth with Oval Insurances James Norvill (Newport, South Wales) and Jon Collingbourne (Newport, South Wales) seventh and PaLuSimon Bayles (Battersea) and Nick Stagg rounding out the P1 250 class in eighth.Robert Wicks Powerboat P1 COO commented "Today's racing has been a huge success, it was great to see all the competitors and boats come back safely in such rough conditions, we are continually striving to ensure the Panther is strong enough for even the toughest conditions and today proves we are definitely making progress."Weymouth will host the final round of the P1 SuperStock Championship just three weeks from now on 15th/16th September.
P1 SuperStock ChampionshipP1 250 Class Cowes-Poole-Cowes Result:1 Pertemps (John Wilson/Major Nigel Hindmarsh); 2 Pickfords (Dean Stoneman/Dave Flewin); 3 Peters & May Racing with Brookspeed (Mike Lovell/Luke Elkin); 4 Edox (Ian Brusby/Will Nurse); 5 Typhoo Racing (Miles Jennings/Andy Wilby); 6 IFX Racing (Nick Williams/Aaron Emmett); 7 Oval Insurance (James Norvill/Jon Collingbourne); 8 PaLu (Simon Bayles/Nick Stagg)
