Carr Mill Trophy

Carr Mill Trophy 24th July.

After two race meetings on the churning waters of Windermere we were once again in our own back yard at Carr Mill Dam.

A split field of club boats and international class catamarans meant that we were looking forward to a very busy day with the start being pushed back till 2 pm to help accommodate a charity fishing competition which was also taking place in the morning.

As already mentioned, we had five formula 2 cats adding to the fray in the form of Robin Stoddard, Steve Hoult, Ian Blacker, and Mette Bjerknes, with young Harvey Smith in formula 4. Also Chris Loney who elected to race in the club race instead in his attempt to make up his points deficit to Mr Bill.

The cat drivers mostly had different agendas, with Ian Blacker getting some welcome seat time in, Robin Stoddard trying to get his engine back on song after barrel rolling in the recent international event in Lithuania, Steve Hoult running a new engine in, and Mette, well what can I sat About Mette except that she totally wiped the floor with the opposition. Her boat was set up beautifully, and the way she drove it was a master (mistress) class, fast off the dock, blisteringly fast on the straights and cornering as if on rails.

Unfortunately, Robin could not shake off the gremlins and had 4 DNF’s, and Steve Hoult only unleashed the full power of his outfit in the final heat where he was not too far behind Mette.

Ian Blacker consistently improved his performance over the afternoon, and due to the innovative handicapping system devised by Jason Brewer, won the catamaran meeting, with Harvey Smith completing less laps in his lower powered outfit taking second place honours.

And so to the club race with the usual suspects who have mostly raced all races at Windermere and Carr Mill this year but with the addition of Steve Cash racing the Windermere training boat. Also it was good to see Roy and Jen Battarbee out on the water for the first time this season.

If we were expecting an easier ride after the calm and fast conditions at Windermere on the previous meeting, we were in for a shock. There was a north easterly wind blowing which whipped the water up to a frenzy leading up to the U Turn and the right hander making conditions difficult to handle and changeable from lap to lap, and as can be seen by the many photographs on the LPRC photos website, the boats were getting well out of shape.

The handicapping was very close with some private dices going on between boats of similar speeds, and different winners of different heats depending on who had the best start. It really was difficult to predict the outcome but in the end the conditions favoured the bigger Windermere boats who occupied the top positions on the overall results. Fortunately this wasn’t the interclub otherwise LPRC would have been thrashed.

So the winners on the day were

LPRC: Chris Loney.

WMBRC: Paul Scott

Catamarans: Ian Blacker.

Overall Day: Prize Paul Scott.