Sam and Daisy Coleman announced their arrival in the 2019 P1 Superstock USA series last weekend, taking 4 victories out of 5 races to win the weekend overall on their debut for Miss GEICO Offshore Race Team.
The residents and visitors of St Pete Beach were treated to some thrilling action this weekend, when the P1 Superstock and AquaX shows rolled into town. The racing took place on Florida’s Gulf coast, in front of the spectacular Don CeSar Beach resort and even somehow managed to avoid Florida’s seasonal afternoon rainstorms!
It was not all smooth sailing as their Friday preparation was disrupted by the distraction of a grenade being discovered in the hedgerow adjacent to the team’s pit area, with the road quickly and calmly cordoned off by the local Sheriff it was soon identified as a dummy grenade and attention returned to the action on the water and Daisy commented on the incident;
There was no sense of panic anywhere, the Sheriff and the local services were extremely professional and worked quickly to move everyone away from the area while the incident could be dealt with, I’m not even sure anyone noticed!
Our GEICO boat was safely out of the way at the boat ramp so we were fine!
Despite having only limited testing in their brand new P1 Panther 28R, the pair got off to the perfect start winning from Pole position in race 1.
With the starting positions a reverse of each race finish the 2nd race was a tense affair, after stalking Porta Products for 4 laps and unable to find a way around they forced an error into the turn 4 right hander enabling the Colemans to draw alongside on the run into turn marks 5, 6 and 7.
Having to carry an extremely tight line through the corner they very nearly hooked the boat but a good save enabled them to take the lead and a narrow victory.
Sunday’s racing brought more drama as the Visit St. Pete/Clearwater boat led from pole for the majority of race 3, unable to find a pass once again the duo made a move on the inside of turn 1 when the Visit St. Pete/Clearwater boat hooked across their bow, narrowly avoiding an accident the Colemans in the GEICO boat went on to take the win and Visit St. Pete/Clearwater recovered well from the spin to take 2nd place.
The 3rd race win meant they would be in the outside lane once again for race 4’s start, with the conditions blowing up a little the team were unable to move forward and came home in 3rd place with Porta Products, driven by fellow Brits Andy Foster and Charles Morris, taking the win.
In the 5th and final race of the weekend the pair were back on pole position after accumulating the most points in races 1-4 and lead from start to finish to take the weekend’s overall by 11 points ahead of Porta Products in 2nd with Visit St Pete/Clearwater rounding out the podium.
Daisy summed up the weekend:
It was a crazy few days for the team getting the GEICO boat ready for this event, to come away with the overall win by far exceeded our expectations and is testament to the team’s hard work.
We had no idea how we’d stack up when we lined up Saturday, the racing was intense!
It’s a new boat and we only had an hour’s seat time Friday so we’re absolutely delighted to be up here on the top step!
