The opening of the Thundercat racing season took place last weekend in Bournemouth, and what a blast it was for the Evolution5 sponsored team of Darryn Harrison with his new co-pilot James Ion. Darryn is a Project Management Consultant with Evolution5 and this will be his 2nd season racing a Thundercat under the Moku Racing banner with Evolution5 as his sponsor.
On Saturday Darryn and James immediately shot into the lead in the first heat taking an incredible lead from the other boats until the 4th of 6 laps when another team flipped. This meant they had to restart and resulted in them getting off the line 2nd. They were unable to get past the leading boat during the two remaining laps. Unfortunately they later realised that they had spun the bush on the prop, hence their slow start off the line. As a result they had to resort to their no. 2 prop for the rest of the day and subsequently resulted in them getting a 3rd and 4th positions in the remaining heats.
With the necessary repairs carried out, Sunday enabled them to reinforce how quick they are and they won the first two of the days’ four heats. In heats 3 and 4, Darryn had problems pull starting the engine which resulted in them being last off the line, but in his fury, Darryn drove like a demon with James hanging on for dear life! They just flew through the field over the 6 laps to finish an incredible 4th and 5th up with the leading boats
The enduro brought them in to a very credible 3rd position after gradually slowing down over the course of the race due to technical problems with the propeller. Without this they would very probably have taken 2nd place
Another Evolution5 consultant, Capt. Stuart Croxford of Team Endeavour, funded by the Endeavour Fund and Blesma for disabled soldiers, had a really awful start of the season, with his engine giving him loads of problems and him having to sit the weekend out of racing.
Both Darryn and Stuart will be back with a bang at the next event planned for Fistral Beach on 14/15th May!!