Sunday was met with more of the same glorious conditions that the feisty Zapcats excel in and with two teams opting out for the days racing 23 Zapcats lined up for the thrills and spills ahead.
Cornish team Doyster Blue Sheets Racing Zapcat 73 got off to a strong start in Division 2 and took four wins out of their 5 heats in the day, unfortunately getting caught out by a wave in the fifth and flipping their Zapcat. In addition Team Championship Team Relentless 2; Dangerous Brothers Zapcat 74 and Nine Lives Zapcat 35 were battling strong to take top 2 positions in most of their heats.
Blue Sheets Racing 1, Zapcat 03 continued their domination of the 2009 season taking another 5 heat wins in division one. Although several of the division one teams were pilling on the pressure including Team Speedy Hire, Zapcat 38 Daren Ford and the youngest co-pilot in the championship Sam Hunka.
Mother Nature raised the pressure for the days finals as conditions increased and Zapcats teams were faced with relentless pounding surf with reduced time between the awesome sets.
Division 2 saw a seven boat final with Doyster Blue Sheets racing take the first lead from the beach, before the lap was complete Nine lives who had gone into the race in pole position hit a wave and pilot Charlie Brickle went for a swim. The restart saw Doyster Blue Sheets start strong again with Go Commando Zapcat 42 in strong second, when two laps down The Dangerous Brothers Zapcat 74 flipped as swells at the Back markers picked up. A third restart and a 2 lap race with Doyster Blue Sheets again getting a fantastic start with Go Commando and Contact Wait Out hot on their heels, positions remained through out the final, and Cornish Nial Hoddinott and James Keeping celebrated the Gold Medal, with Go Commando finishing in Silver and Contact Wait out in third.
Pilot of Go Commando Zapcat 42 ‘H’ (Andrew) Harriman spoke of the weekends racing “I’ve not had the best of luck this weekend racing, My co-pilot yesterday was injured and I had to replace my stand in co-pilot today, luckily my team mate from last year had come down to show the Commando teams some support, and so we enlisted his help for the latter half of the day. I was co-pilot last year so it was my turn to put Ali through what a co-pilot experiences in the surf conditions.” He continued “Last night racing today was nearly not an option, until I found a replacement for Dale. So too actually finish with a silver medal today I’m really happy with the result.”
Progressing into the Division 1 final had left no room for error during the day with teams getting consistent results in their heats still missing the vital final positions.
As the 9 Zapcats took the start line Mother Nature was still pilling on the pressure. Rana Park took the best line off the start but Blue Sheets Racing 1 were pounding them down the whole way, and took the lead after the second lap. Heading out to sea through the surf after the third lap finishing positions looked set until Westgate, Zapcat 28 Charles Morris and Ed Morris went for a swim. Forcing the rest of the fleet back to the beach for a restart and with only 2 laps no room for error.
Blue Sheets racing got off to a flying start again with Rana Park fighting back for pole, however disaster struck for Neil and Naz on the second lap when they hit a wave and stalled in the surf losing them valuable places. Team Suffolk Zapcat 98 father and Son Greg and Kieran Richardson optimised on this too follow Blue Sheets Racing 1 into the silver medal position with Team Speedy Hire taking Bronze.
Championship and King of the Surf leaders’ Co-pilot Rob Martin couldn’t have asked for a better weekend “We knew the pressure would be on this weekend several of the top teams in the championship prefer the surf conditions and we all want to take the King of Surf title so Craig and I knew there was no room for error. We’ve spent more time in the boat since Bournemouth and tried to make sure we picked the best lines and kept the boat upright through the surf, we know we have boat speed on the straight so if we had to overtake we waited until then to do it so we didn’t have the waves to contend with as well.”
He continued “Craig’s really focused on his driving at the moment and he’s always thinking one step ahead so as we’re taking a corner he’s already thinking about the line he’s going to take around the next one, and it’s paying off we just need to keep up our form now as we know the rest of the teams will really increase their game at the Next grand Prix.”
Attentions now turn to the next event where the determination of the Zapcat competitors will see them aim to stop Blue Sheets Racing 1 in making it a hat trick of Grand Prix wins so far in 2009 and dislodge them from the lead spot on the championship leader board.