After suffering their fair share of wet weather during the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship season to date, Gordon Shedden and Tom Chilton will take to the waves this weekend as they take part in the JPMorgan Asset Management Round the Island yachting event.
The Team Halfords pair will be joined by double BTCC champion
Matt Neal and fellow touring car stars Dave Pinkney and James Kaye aboard Capricorno – a 50 foot vessel best known for winning the famous Admirals Cup.
The vessel will be skippered by John Tildesley, a former national champion in the Sigma 38 series, for the 55 mile race around the Isle of Wight which is set to be the largest yachting race in the world. Over 1800 boats in a range of classes have signed up to take part in the event, one of which will have
Formula One star
Lewis Hamilton on board.
Prior to the actual Round the Island race itself, which will get underway at 6am on Saturday [28 June] from Cowes, Shedden, Chilton and Neal will spend Friday getting a taste of life on the waves as they head out to sea on an Extreme 40 catamaran alongside treble Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie, double Olympic medallist Shirley Robertson and record-breaking round the world sailor Dame Ellen McArthur.
"Capricorno is a very famous racer so it suits to have a yacht full of racing drivers," team communications manager Richard Tait-Harris said. "I just hope they understand that we can't stop as quickly as a touring car! Luckily we have the support of Helly Hansen, who have supplied us with some fantastic offshore race clothing as these guys are used to wearing nomex."
Video blogs, similar to those recorded with Flash and Sonic throughout the BTCC season so far, will be featured on the Team Halfords website following the race, while
ITV's highlights of the event will follow as part of its BTCC coverage during the second half of the season, which resumes at
Snetterton on Sunday 13 July.
