The only all-girl Honda Formula 4-Stroke pairing, Shelley Jory and Libby Keir in 'Team Raymarine', are the 2005, 225hp champions.
The only all-girl Honda Formula 4-Stroke pairing, Shelley Jory and Libby Keir in ‘Team Raymarine’, are the 2005, 225hp champions.
Jory and Keir started the tenth and final race just three points ahead of the team that has dominated this year’s 225hp contest, Rob Lister and Will Nocker in Fat Boy Racing. Lister and Nocker were favourites to win the title before the start of the Condor Ferries Grand Prix finals in Guernsey, but their retirement in the penultimate round and a fifth place in the final forced them to settle for second overall. Two phenomenal wins by Jory and Keir gave them their first ever championship title.
“I can’t believe it,” said Jory, “we’d given up on the title and were really trying to consolidate second or third overall. But after our victory in the ninth round we knew the championship was in our sights and that it was all down to final race. There was so much pressure on us and I was feeling sick with nerves before the start. But then everything just went right for us. We had a good start, took the lead at the first buoy and then just held on to it. When we saw the chequered flag we were elated. It’s been an incredible season and we’ve got the result we were looking for. Fantastic.”
It was quite a different story for Fat Boy Racing, as Lister and Nocker narrowly avoided turning the boat over twice and couldn’t find the form that has been their trademark throughout 2005.
“We’re gutted,” explained Nocker. “The finals just hasn’t gone right for us. We were involved in a collision in the ninth round with Evans Heritage Development that wrecked the engine and put us out of the race. Then we came together in the final with Warmup on lap two and from then on we couldn’t get it together. To be honest, we just wanted to finish and fifth place was enough to give us second overall in the championship.”
Jack Glendinning and Simon Bucknall in Warmup finished second in the final and joint second in the championship alongside Fat Boy Racing. Rupert Pugh and Lee Darbyshire in Heights of Abraham filled third on the podium with sufficient points to claim fourth place in the championship, an impressive achievement in their first year of powerboat racing.
In the 150hp class, New Zealand father and son team Greg and Daniel Brinck driving the borrowed HM Plant Honda Racing returned home having won both of their invitational races. Nick Warren and Helen Whitley-Niland in BAR-GQ overtook Vernon Hunt and Andy Brown in Extreme Chaos on the final lap to claim their first podium of the year with a second placing.
The 2005 150hp championship was won however by Nick Clemson and Paul Trow-Smith in Claygate Bathrooms who finished the final round in thirteenth place.
“We knew we’d won the championship,” said Clemson, “so we swapped places in the final to let Paul have a go at driving. We were just enjoying ourselves after having done all the hard work throughout the season!”
Brothers Clive and Tim Coote in X-Pole finished the final fourth to claim second place the 2005 championship while Peter Kingsbury and Dominic Anderson in Alsford Timber finished eighth to finish third in the 150hp championship. Tony Crossley and Mark Glanville in Delmar Flooring narrowly missed out on a top-three championship position when they were forced to retire from the final race with a split fuel tank, damaged in the rough seas caused by the Condor ferry wake.
The top three teams in both the Honda Formula 4-Stroke 150hp and 225hp championships will receive their prizes, a diver watch each from luxury Swiss watchmaker Ebel’s new Sportwave range, at the 2005 awards dinner to be held in London on January 13 2006.
