After a non event at Brentwood- front bearing failing, and the carb related issues at the ½ hours, I thought that all the problems of this years racing would finally be put behind me.

I arrived at Elmbridge on Friday with the intention of helping to setup for the weekend, and have a test to make sure all was right with the replaced bearings. I was a little apprehensive about the weekend as nothing had really gone right this year, but knew that I needed a quality boat to do the job. The boat started first time, which it hasn’t done in a while, and the moment it got on the water all the worries of having a rubbish weekend were gone. It throttled, handled and had the pace that I knew it would. After bit of adjustment of the pipe, I settled on a setup that would give me a good banker run for Saturday’s heat, and the boat was put away for the night.

After a “quality” golden arches breakfast, and some zombie killing from the night before, I went to have a quick shake down for the day’s action and fuel the boat for the race. This is where things started to go wrong again. For some reason the boat was a bitch to start, and when it did get going it was making some very peculiar shaft noises. There was nothing to do but start to strip the boat in the hope of finding the issue/s. With the 3.5cc racing starting again, I had 30mins, and a table full of engine and shaft pieces to solve the issues. Eventually the problem was found to be the bearing in the thrust housing, which in turn caused issues with the other shaft bearing. After finding replacements- thanks Alan. It was a bit of “rush” to get everything back together again. With the 3.5cc racing coming to a close I had to make a decision about the setup of the boat, “Do I go for the setup I had last night, or do I go a bit more conservative?” I opted for the conservative 2026 and a longer pipe.

Going into the race I didn’t know what was going to happen, but thought that if I can last the 30min then there’s a chance and I could go balls out tomorrow. Phill gave me an amazing start, giving me an early lead and a boat that was going well. After 10 minutes and settled into 2nd place, disaster struck on bottom left. The boat just stopped. Luckily the rescue boat was already there and we only lost a few minutes. Both the plugs had gone and we though that we had resolved the issue when we restarted, only to have the boat stop at the end of pits. After quickly taking off the tank cover we discovered that the pressure feed from the pipe had come off. Putting this back on sorted the issue and we went back out again with no more issues. Loosing 5mins or so I thought that we would be out of it, but after the heat I found myself in 3rd overall!

After a good test session at the end of the day, putting a big 2127 on and shortening the pipe, I was ready for Sunday with more pace than before. Once again Phill did the job on the start and we held the lead right the way through the heat. The only issue that struck happened on the bottom left again, I’d throttled for the corner and the boat would not pick up again. I came straight in thinking that we had picked up some leaves, but it was not the case. The boat was still running and I tried to rev it, but it was refusing to play ball. We checked the plugs and they had both gone. After a quality LMRacing Team pit stop and restart we were out again a running a full pace again. I then settled back into a rhythm and was praying to the boating gods that I make it to the finish. The final hooter came and we were asked to bring the boats in, with a massive smile on my face knowing that we had done enough I cut back from the bottom right to loop in. The problem was that the boat stopped by centre buoy. We had run out of fuel on the in lap!!!

Massive thanks goes to everyone that helped in the running of the weekend, and those that help me as well. It was France 1998 that Phill, Leon and I were all at the same world champs (as Juniors) - look out Hungary!!!