Smith's in 'seventh heaven' as he prepares for Kingsbury Grand Prix
Powerboat GP's Chris Davies gives us the low down on local racers ahead of this weekend's Kingsbury Grand Prix
After taking on the world’s best GT15 racers young Harvey Smith is ready to come out with all guns blazing, when he takes to the water at his home Grand Prix this weekend in Kingsbury.
Just over a month ago Smith, along with Thomas Mantripp and Ben Jelf, was in action at the GT15 World Championships, which took place in Jedovnice in the Czech Republic. He returned from the event having finished in a highly creditable seventh position overall. The championship though proved to be a massive learning curve for him and his team especially being his first race outside of the UK. This didn’t faze him though, even when the going got tough on the water and in the jury room. In fact during the fourth heat he finished in fifth place holding off the multiple Champion Jelf as he crossed the finish line. “I’ve wanted to do that since I started racing” said Smith. “It’s tough, fair racing on the water but we’re great friends on the bank.”
“Harvey has a lot of respect for Jelf but to beat him in a heat has given him the confidence to move on” said his father Martyn, who like his son, is a member of Midlands Powerboat Racing Club, which has its home set in Kingsbury Water Park in Warwickshire. Martyn Smith used to race OSY400, 0-500 and Formula 4, where in the 1986 World Championships he finished in the runner up spot.
Where it all started
Like many of today’s racers, Smith was introduced to the sport by his father and after a visit to the 2012 F2 World Championships at Nottingham, where they were guests of Ian Andrews, via a mutual friend Jon Swarbrick; Smith convinced his father that GT15 was what he wanted to race.
Then during the 2013 season he was invited to join a team being put together by the F2 racer Matt Palfreyman. Under his guidance Smith started to establish himself in the class, finishing the season in seventh place. Over the winter they decided to purchase a new boat and after making enquiries they settled on a CSM boat from Andy Goodfellow. At that time Palfreyman had been in discussions with the F1H2O Atlantic Team principle Duarte Benavente and was given the go-ahead to form the F1 Atlantic GB team.
Making an impact
The team has since made an impact on the British circuit racing scene in terms of profile and appearance with the boats using the same livery as those raced in F1 by Duarte Benavente and Youssef Al Rubayan.
Having experienced the F1H2O two-seater ride and the whole ‘razzmatazz’ at the Abu Dhabi Powerboat Grand Prix Smith has now started to mix and establish friendships with the worlds F1 drivers and now wants to ‘join them’. Before that though he has his sights set on racing an F4S as soon as he is old enough, then moving to F2 and ultimately the F1H2O Championship. In the meantime there is the little matter of the PGP RYA British National Championship - Kingsbury Grand Prix to take care of and he’s well aware of the pressure having to perform in front of his friends and local sponsors.
“Yes, it’s nerve racking racing at your local club because everybody expects me to do well. I know it will be tough out there but I really think it’s my time to step up onto that podium at a national round”, commented Smith.
Familiar face on the podium
One man who is very familiar with stepping up onto that podium is Mike Pillow, who was born just down the road from the Kingsbury circuit in the village of Balsall Common. In comparison to Smith’s short racing career, Pillow has in his own words “been knocking on the door of constant success” for several years now. In fact his racing career started back in 1980, although his earliest memories of the sport stretched back further, when he went along to watch his Aunt, Vanessa Pillow race what was then referred to as Class EU (now known as T750) when she started racing back in 1967.
Along the way he’s won countless events and titles including the 1984 World and British T750 Monohull Championships. That same year he also tamed the legendary Bristol Docks once again claiming the T750 Championship title. “My father wouldn’t let me race at Bristol till he thought I was ready” said Pillow.
“The other T750 drivers were mostly novice one’s by comparison and thought the place was too dangerous. Back then we raced with the T850 class who were set off fifteen seconds ahead of us. It felt like racing through boiling water, though it didn’t take me long to catch and overtake them.”
By 1988 Pillow had a change of priorities and retired from the sport. Some years later though Pat Ainge asked him if he would join her race school as an instructor and following one of the classes Pillow took out a raceboat and was once again hooked. “I then went up to Carr Mill just to watch a race and have a chat with a few old friends and got talking with Bill Owen.” It wasn’t long before Owen had found an old T750 hull and acquired it from Geoff Goodman. “I said to my wife that I would only do a few club races, which was my intention but the racing took hold and I ended up second in the British Championship.”
From there Pillow went into the F4S class, “What attracted me to F4S is that with similar boats and running engines that are to a gnat’s whisker identical it provides a level playing field for you to compete on. I know some competitors spend a lot of time and money trying to get their boat perfectly set up, I did that early on in my racing career but it’s still an economical class to race in even if Ben Morse has spent more on paint jobs than I have on my racing this season.”
Morse is certainly the one to catch in the F4S class and Pillow has been working hard to even up the score. “I like Morse, he’s a similar age to me when I raced at Bristol Docks” said Pillow. “The racing has been a lot closer than the results show, so this weekend I’m going to put my experience of Kingsbury to good use, after all I doubt there’s anyone else out there racing that’s done more laps around that course than I have.”
Keeping an eye on proceedings
Keeping an eye on proceedings this weekend is the former racer now Event Director Ian Andrews. After his crash at the Nottingham round of the F2 World Championship Andrews felt it was the right time to hang up his racing helmet but he’s certainly not about to walk away from the sport that he grew up in. “Yes, it true that when I’m out there standing on the bank I miss it, because I love the atmosphere and I still like the feeling of going fast across the water, now though I see myself as having a different role in the sport.”
Andrews has always had a hands-on role as he started out as a mechanic working on his fathers F3 raceboat before assisting with the likes of Andy Elliott and later on with Ken McCroie. As a twenty-first birthday present his father brought him a Burgess F4 hull to race in and since those early days he’s remained a loyal Burgess campaigner almost up to the time of his accident last year. “I actually raced the very first Burgess that had a canopy on” said Andrews. “Initially people were worried about how I would get out of it if I had an accident, though it obviously didn’t affect me that much because I still stuck it on pole at Oulton Broad.”
Since that time Andrews went on to have a chequered racing career as a driver, winning the UIM F3 World Championship in 1995 and again in 2000. He almost made the leap into F1 in 2001 when he was offered the chance to race full time for the legendary Cees Van der Velden, when after an absence of some twelve years, multi-brand racing arrived back in the F1 pits. “I had seen what Velden had done with the 3.1 litre OMC engine and was very tempted.” Andrew’s hopes were dashed though when the family business, Nautic Steel, took a dim view of just how much time he’d be away. “If I had thought it had podium potential I would have tried to persuade them to let me race but if I’m honest I knew they weren’t really on the pace, so in the end it was the right decision to make.”
It didn’t stop him from competing though as he continued to dabble in racing as a ‘guest’ drivers for various teams, along with a stint of promoting the UIM F3 World Championship. It’s his organisational skill that he’s now putting to good use and is looking to expand the racing scene at the Kingsbury circuit. “Due to its narrow confides we are slightly restricted on what can race here but my plan would be to hold two perhaps three club races there next year.” As to this weekend he’s confident that the race will attract a good local crowd. “I’m always surprised when I hear just how many people have entered the park to watch the race, on a summer’s day it’s a very busy place.” As to the race action he thinks the F4S class is ideally suited to the circuit and thinks that Morse will not have it all his own way this weekend. “When I started racing my Dad said if you wanted to know the quickest line around Kingsbury just follow Pillow.”
The action gets under way on Saturday 05 July with official practice starting at 11:00, then the first heat is due to commence at approximately 13:30. GT15, GT30, T850 and F4S drivers will all be competing for RYA National Championship points as the 2014 season reaches the half-way point.
To find out more visit www.powerboatgp.co.uk
Article courtesy of Chris Davies