As I’m sure everyone will agree Rounds 3 & 4 of the Zapcat National Championship were simply fantastic. Watergate Bay, Newquay hosted the weekends racing which made up not only Round 3 & 4 of the National Championship but was also Rounds 1 & 2 of the King of Surf.
The waves weren’t as big as some of the racers are used to at this gorgeous location but the 2 foot swell made for some exciting racing. Along with clear sunny skies the spectators on the beach couldn’t ask for more.
Now to the racing…a couple of old faces turned up to join in with the fun this weekend, firstly Boat 21 Myfanway Rides Again, Rich and Lisa Thoroughgood came out of retired, bought themselves a new boat painted it black and pink and had an awesome weekend on the water. We also saw a return of the Huntzpill Boyz in Boat 72, Ashley Chappell and Ryan Jones who raced hard on Saturday made it into the final and came away with 1st place in division 2. Boat 49 Randall & Payne, Justin Whithorn and Chris Baldwin grabbed 2nd followed closely by father and son team 44 Blue Sheets 2, Steven and Robert Pidsley.
The division 1 final saw some close action but reigning championships Pegasus Vortex Racing, Mick Pritchard and Baz Minns stormed to the front just at the right time to take the 100 points and achieve 1st place podium position. With their team mates Vortex Racing Craig Davis and Rob Martin taking 2nd place, Team Vortex increases their lead on the team racing leader board. With two of the commando teams, Commandos Predator, Bligh Julius and Simon Butters and 37 Go Commando State of Mind, Richie Lake and Graham Mann taking 3rd and 4th place the team title is going to be a close battle over the rest of the season.
Sunday again saw the sun shining and crowds lined the golden beach of Watergate Bay to watch the action of Round 4 of the 2008 Zapcat National Championship. As the surf had slightly increased we had even more action than we did on Saturday and some of it slightly out of the ordinary! The red flag was raised by the safety boat on the water, but there weren’t any incidents and everyone was still in their boats, so what was happening? It all came clear when we saw approx 15 dolphins swimming around the course and we’ve been told by the safety team that some of them were babies. So racing stopped and our safety team kept a close eye on them until they were well out of the way.
S
oon after racing continued we changed from beach starts to deep water starts so we could finish the days racing as the shore dump became quite heavy and teams were struggling to hold their boats in line, this made the racing even closer just in time for the finals. In the division 2 final boat 77 The Exe Jets, Rob Wickham and Ben Toogood took an early lead but their throttle cable snapped and they had to retire leaving boat 35 Nine Lives, Charlie Brickle and Adam Bushrod to take third place, 2nd place was awarded to rookie team boat 10 Seavation Vortex, Dan Smith and Nathan Parker with the winners of division 2 being 36 Royal Marine Zapcat Association, Nick Clarke and Tim Johnson.
Division 1 final saw some of the closest racing so far this year and boat 01 Pegasus Vortex Racing showed us just way they were crowned champions last year and again took 1st place followed by boat 88 Team Bladerun, Tristan Haigh and Mike Hammer and boat 02 Vortex Racing Craig Davis and Rob Martin.
We would like to thank everyone at Watergate Bay for another fantastic weekend and can’t wait to go back there in September for the final round of the 2008 Zapcat National Championship on 19th & 20th September.