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2011 Top End Sprint Results
After a year’s gap, the challenge was back on to conduct the 29km sprint up the mighty Hawkesbury River. While the early engagement with the Hawkesbury 120 ski racing organising committee wasn’t perfect, we were in a much more positive situation than in previous years for the race on Sunday 28th August.
The main activities begun on Friday, with a Show and Shine event at McDonalds carpark at McGraths Hills (next door to Windsor), primarily for the ski race teams, as it was also their registration day. The little red Miss September taking part to give the event some class.
Next up it was scrutineering on Saturday for our race boats. It was great to get plenty of assistance in terms of officials and scrutineers to get the work down. The majority of the competitors got all of their gear checked and sorted out for the next day’s race.
Sunday dawned with the weather looking good for the race. Official duties out of the way, it was off to the ramp. For a few competitors their luck wasn’t with them, which meant they didn’t get to the ramp. For some it was mechanical dramas later in the week leading up. For a couple it was dramas after scrutineering on Saturday afternoon. And the hardest luck story for not getting to the ramp would have to go to our own Steve Moran. Just minutes before lining up on the ramp, Stevo found a leak in the fuel tank in Beefa. Especially frustrating knowing that the little hydro was an outside chance of a
potential win.
As you know, the event was integrated in with the H120 ski race. So once we were lined up on the ramp at Sackville, we simply had to wait for the ski racer’s sweep boat to give our guy’s the signal to hit the water.
Boats generally entered the water in order of start wave, so we didn’t have too much congestion in the lead in area. The race boats getting started courtesy of a flag boat start at race speed, running the boats from next to the Sackville car ferry, to the flag drop at launching ramp at Sackville Ski gardens.
All boats entering the water ended up getting away cleanly. The first battle of each start wave was who was going to get to the first bend, a right-hander, in front.
Professional photographer Michael Kemp, from Ultimate Image Capture, was located along the race course and picked up a number of our competitors.
As the race progressed, an early race lead was earned by Hawkesbury River local Wayne Smith in his LS1 Chev powered KT, Loose in the Dark. Wayne was showing plenty of the speed, much the same as he did in the in the Bridge to Bridge race earlier in the year before he came to a premature stop. Ron Beasley in his unlimited outboard was hot on the heels of Wayne for the majority of the race.
As the competitors filtered past the photographer, it was plain sailing until the race’s only female racer kept the shutter clicking. Driving Miss September in the Classic Vintage class, Lisa Toyer (the better half of Nathan Mills) was running in contention for the class lead, battling with fellow maiden racer Rod Hodgskin in Indy 800. Most of you will probably recognise the little rear seater as Li’l Shocker, a boat that has recently headed back to NSW after a few years in QLD under the ownership of Paul Jackson (and previously as Bumblefoot with NSWHC Life Member and previous President, Col Parry).
As Miss September dove into the first tight left-handers in the river, the boat hooked its turn fin right in, sending the boat and driver into a flat spin. After the race, Rod Hodgskin said that when he looked over, Miss September was backwards with the prop and rudder out of the water. Once the water had settled, Lisa realised that she was all good, and the engine was still running. So it was a simple case turning the boat back around and get back into it. The third class driver, Peter Randall in Red Dwarf was a little off the pace due to a suspected dodgy ignition system. When the boat was revved up over 4000, it begun spitting and popping, with the odd puff of flame out of the triple Stromberg style set up on the Chevy V8.
Back up the front of the pack, and it was still Wayne Smith out in front. Loose in the Dark’s support and dive crew in a chase helicopter came into view of the spectators and officials at the Windsor Marine Stadium. For those that haven’t experienced the end of a Bridge to Bridge race, you can get a glimpse of the chase helicopters for about the last five kilometres, as they hover above the horizon, following their driver. The problem is that you can’t see the boats themselves until they emerge from the last corner, since the river is cut below the surrounding landscape. The reason for explaining this is that, as noted above, the fans and officials at the finish line saw the chopper streaking up the second last straight away, chasing a very hot Loose in the Dark. The official’ full attention was aimed at the last corner of the course, as the helicopter swung around, headed back down river and then hovered over a spot on the river - out of direct view. Minds were eased in the tower, when chopper stayed hovering at a decent height, and didn’t have to drop to the water level to deploy the diver. It was later discovered that the boat sheared off its prop shaft, leaving the KT stranded just one corner from the chequered flag.
Wayne’s bad luck left Ron Beasley to take full advantage and streak through to greet the crowd and the race win.
As indicated by the attrition rate of competitors in the lead up to the race start, there are always more hard luck stories in these long distance one-way river races. Top End Sprint regular Bloodshot fell foul to a failed fuel pump ending its race. And we may have to get some testing done on the water, as the premature finish of Red Rocket, was also due to a snapped propellor shaft. And it wasn’t just mechanical dramas that caused a non-finish. Bullseye was found to be cutting the race course, which caused an official disqualification from the final placings.
But it wasn’t all bad news, the successful race finishers began to come through to register a race finish. The final outright placings and race times were as follows.
Congratulations to Ron Beasley for taking the ‘top end’ for 2011. A fitting result for a long time racer that actually used to be involved in the running of the race, back when it was known as the McCoy Cup. And hard luck to Wayne for his ‘could almost taste it’ moment.
And you wouldn’t read about it, but thanks to Wayne’s quick thinking of hitting the button on the GPS when the prop sheared off, an informal dive expedition a few days after the race successfully recovered the race prop.
A big thanks to all of the officials, safety crews and volunteers that helped out with the operations of the event.
While our overall entry numbers were down a little on expectations, partly due to another race meeting being held at Penrith Regatta Centre on the same day. Even so, the event was a success for the NSWHC, and running the event next year is certainly something to aim for.
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