Weymouth Bay, scene of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic sailing action, will welcome watersports of a completely different kind less than a fortnight from now when the P1 SuperStock UK Championship makes its first ever visit to Dorset for the hotly anticipated season finale.
Taking place over the weekend of 15th/16th September, Britains top powerboat racing series is set for a truly dramatic conclusion with an unprecedented four races planned across the two daysweather permittingto determine the 2012 champions in both the P1 250 and P1 150 Classes.
Pickfords duo Dean Stoneman (Southampton) and Dean Paling (Southampton) lead the headline P1 250 standings with a healthy 25 point margin and the Weymouth finale will mark a welcome return to action for Paling, having missed last months Cowes-Poole-Cowes endurance spectacular after jarring his back in practice.
Pickfords (pictured above) maintained its excellent record of finishing every race on the podium on P1 SuperStocks annual visit to the Isle of Wight but its unbroken run of victories did come to an end at the hands of reigning P1 250 Champion John Wilson (Coleshill) and Major Nigel Hindmarsh (London) in the Pertemps-backed Panther 28SS.
Were hoping to go out and win all the races in Weymouth, said Stoneman, the 2010 FIA Formula 2 car racing champion, Weve never been there before but were confident we can get back to winning ways; we had some problems with the weight of the boat in Cowes but that should all be sorted. Well just go out, race as hard as we can as always and hopefully win the championship in stylethats the aim.
Second in the P1 250 standings ahead of Weymouth is Typhoo, Miles Jennings (Exeter) and Andy Wilby (Fleet), but the battle for the runner-up spot in the blue riband class will likely come down to the last lap of the final race with just 13 points covering five crews.
Currently in third position, seven points behind Typhoo, is the Edox boat of Ian Brusby (Doncaster) and Will Nurse (Hayling Island) which is just two points clear of a current three-way tie between Pertemps, IFX Racings Nick Williams (Amersham) and Aaron Emmett (Amersham) and Peters & May Racing with Brookspeeds Mike Lovell (Southampton) and Luke Elkin (Southampton).
Seventh, only four points further adrift, is Oval Racings James Norvill (Newport, South Wales) and Jon Collingbourne (Newport, South Wales) while Simon Bayles (Battersea) and Philippa Baker (Kensington)who was replaced by Nick Stagg in Cowesare eighth in PaLu after a luckless season.
In the ever-popular P1 150 Class, a highly unfortunate disqualification from second place in the Cowes-Poole-Cowes results due to a missing engine cowling means 2011 champions Team Purple go into the season finale some 19 points shy of the top of the standings in third place.
Husband and wife Stuart and Sara Cureton (Lindford) had been on course to challenge for victory last time out, but when the cowl came loose in the rough conditions it was game over. Team 73 pairing Rose Lores (Stubbington) and John Donnelly (Hampshire) took a richly deserved win to go into second in the championship one point ahead of Purple.
David and Kirsty Toozs-Hobson (Arundel) therefore inherited second, having originally finished third, and the husband and wife pairing go into the deciding weekend in Weymouth with a handsome margin at the top of the points table in Macdonald Mermaid.
Fourth placed Black Magic, piloted by father and daughter Vince and Jade Berridge (Hemel Hempstead), is just one point further behind Team Purple while Powertech Marine, Sam Whittle (Hampton Hill) and Andy Streeting (Camberley), and Pertemps Mission Motorsport, Mark Neale (Tedworth House) and Daisy Coleman (Salisbury) are locked in a tight battle for fifth position.
As always, the P1 SuperStock powerboats will be joined in Weymouth by the P1 AquaX Championshipthe only jet-ski category in Britain which competes on the open sea rather than at inland waterparks.
Provisional timetable:Saturday, 15th September: 12.30hrs Qualifying followed immediately by race 1; 15.15hrs race 2Sunday, 16th September: 11.30hrs race 3; 14.15hrs race 4 followed by podium presentation at the Powerboat P1 race centre located on Weymouth Pier.
