#99 Fountain crew celebrate 'toughest race'

Saturday 10 May 2008

#99 Fountain's Craig Wilson celebrates his victory in the Italian Endurance race

Reigning Powerboat P1 Evolution class champions James Sheppard and Craig Wilson have said that their win in the #99 Fountain Worldwide boat in today’s Italian Grand Prix of the Sea Endurance race was probably one of the hardest of their career.

The team was lucky to even be entering the race after suffering travel delays from the US that left them arriving in the San Benedetto del Tronto harbour early this morning. Although the team took advantage of the retirement of a number of leading class runners, they had to push themselves to the limit as they tried to catch the race-leading #77 Lucas Oil entry of Nigel Hook and Shelley Jory.

“I’ve never had to work so hard in my life,” said pilot Sheppard after emerging from his Ilmor-powered Fountain boat. “My hands hurt. Everything hurts. We didn’t have much setup time, but there was some superb stalking by Craig that allowed us to get ahead in the closing stages of the race. That was tough, but a great start to the year.”

Throttleman Wilson was equally exhausted after the race. “We got left behind a bit at the start, so we struggled early on in everyone else’s wake,” he said. “We’ll keep working on the boat tonight, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”