Diary
WE WON!! "THE ONLY ALL GIRL TEAM WINS THE SCOTTISH HONDA GRAND PRIX"
03 May 2005
Sorry for the delay in writing, Libby and I have only just come down off our winning podium place and back to the real world!
I had every intention of writing in the winter to you all to let you know what Team Raymarine was up to, but failed miserably so a quick re-cap.
Most importantly I have a fantastic new navigator - Libby Keir. I was approached at the London Boat Show by Libby's father ( who is very important at Honda UK) and was asked if I would consider Libby as my new female partner in crime. We met 2 days later and have been inseparable since. Libby and I have spent the last 2 months training to together under the professional eye of our teacher Neil Holmes and have had some intense training sessions as well as a lot of laughs.
The boat has also had a stressful winter - last year I had a lot of trouble with the structure of the hull, so I bit the bullet and had the hull completely re-done. The boat was actually turned upside down and spent the winter at Desty Marine - thank-you to Neil and Jeff. The money we actually spent on the bottom of the boat, Libby and I could have had our own bottoms lifted and 2 boob jobs!!
Honda offered all the race teams an excellent part exchange deal on our race engines for the latest Honda engine; complete with race warranty. So I also went for that option.
Geoff Purves a very experienced race engineer also joined the team and has looked after the new engine with loving tender care and prepared the boat with perfection.
I also had some great press opportunities during the winter. The boat was on display at the London Boat Show, 1/2 pages in the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mirror, and I have done a couple of excellent after dinner presentations which have gone down a storm and I know have 3 more bookings! I must say though most of the success of my after dinner speaking is down to my superb personal DVD footage which is all prepared by Dave - Nautibuoy Productions, powerboat racing cannot be explained without all the visuals - thank-you Dave.
Last but, by no means least - Raymarine remained our sponsors and have actually signed me up for the next 2 years as an ambassador for them - a great honor.
So new hull, new race engine, great sponsor, our own personal engineer and 2 highly trained girlies at the wheel - the result is history!! Thank-you to everyone for all your help and support throughout the winter.
1st Race of the season - Scottish Grand Prix
So we set off on a 10 hour drive with the boat to sunny Scotland!!! NOT! Thank-you Dad for helping me with the driving and thank-you to Mum and Libby who kept us amused all the way!
Friday was press day and as Libby is Scottish we completely dominated the press and we managed to take the presenter of Scottish TV out in the calm before the storm. As we returned to the marina the gales began to blow!!
By Saturday morning it was gale force 9, cold and wet!! The Honda marquees had tried to blow away during the night which had most the staff of Cougars were up at 1am trying to secure them down. The race officials made a sensible decision and cancelled all racing for the day - there was nothing else to do except have lunch and go shopping!! it was hard!!
Libby and I were pretty hot favourites to win and we had had a lot of press so my nerves were beginning to show as the pressure was on and Libby was rightly nervous too for her first race - with all the training in the world you cannot explain to anyone the adrenalin on the start line of a powerboat race!! We now had another 24 hours to wait before we could get out first race of the season in the bag!! The Honda party took our minds off it a bit as we took over the local bowling alley - an excellent night, thank you Karen for organising it all.
Sunday - the wind had blown itself away and the sun was out - hooray! Libby had put her lucky charm on the team on Friday night, at Drivers Briefing she had pulled the ACE card out of the deck which had gained us POLE position on the start line.
Dream Team Television do all the filming of the races for Channel 4 (the 5 programs will be shown on prime time TV on Saturdays in October) all the onboard cameras are placed on the boats the day before and then the recorders are turned on as we leave the wet pits, but due to technical difficulties on another boat, our on board camera was not turned on, so as we were being led out by the Paceboat to muster, a rib drives right up to us and one of the camera men jumps onto our boat in James Bond style, climbs into the deck, turns the recorder on and jumps back off again!! - amazing - thank-you guys, you are destined to fall in one of these days!!
We led the race from start to finish. Libby had no reason for any nerves she was fantastic, totally in control and cool as a cucumber. She urged me on for the whole 51 minutes of the race, never letting me get complacent about the lead we had gained from the start.
The sea was not calm by any means, it was actually a very confused, rough sea with one of the most difficult courses of the whole season, so Libby and I were absolutely thrilled when we took the chequered flag!! We actually screamed our way across the finish line!
Well I am sure I have lost your attention by now, so I am going to sign off - thank-you once again to everyone for all your help, support and encouragement.
We are off to the Isle of Man on the 23rd June for the next rounds - watch this space or if you can't wait for my e-mails listen to Radio Solent who are still my biggest fans!!
Love Shelley
Driver Team Raymarine.
