Todd Haig and Kim Lumley reigned supreme in Belgium on the weekend, taken out men's and women's respectively. Early reports had Wayne Mawer leading before engine troubles ended his race. More information can be found at www.skirace.net.

Wayne Mawer and Kim Lumley took out the first round of the European Cup on the weekend in Vienna. Wayne beat out Chris Stout and Darren Kirkland in the mens, after some very exciting racing. Mawer and Stouty ran side by side for the first half hour, before Wayne pulled away, while Kirkland battled through all the way from the back to challenge Stouty across the line.

The 2008 Queensland Titles run over the June long weekend were a resounding success. Although the weather wasn't perfect, high entries and some close racing saw one of the most successful qld titles in recent years.

The weekend started off with the marathons. In Mens it was Pidgeon leading the way to take victory comfortably, despite a missed start on the plank (rookie). Benny Hackett took the junior title, with Robbie Weaver sewing up the Vets. Womens saw Kylee Jones do everything possible to lose yet still win behind the big Arrow, with the Ranga piloting his big purple tub around. Second went to young Brooke Hackett, who led for most of the race, and third went to Special Sauce behind crisis, not far behind in her first marathon ever.

Into the age classes, and some of these little ones looked unbelievably quick circulating out there, Amy Boylan and Jack Harrison taking care of the under tens, and Brodie White and Tayla Williams looking after the 16’s.

Social Men was next on the water, and Pidge picked up his second title of the event, blasting away and then controlling the race behind Blazen to win ahead of BJ behind Twisted, and Mitchell Williams behind Bulletproof. In 60mph social it was Peter Monger behind Nice and Easy taking the win.

Social Women saw Kylee take her second as well, winning over Susie Cartwright and Mel Smidt. 60mph Social saw Special behind Crisis take the win over Chops and Danielle. Great to see Chops and Special Sauce racing closely again over the whole distance.

30-40 men was next up, and Wayne Mawer and the Juggernaut crew all the way from Cairns blasted around to win very impressively over Bruey behind Strike, and Ski World behind Blazen. In 40-50’s it was Japs behind Speedmaster taking the win, Gerry Gulley behind Bulletproof taking second, and Lex taking third behind Kryptonite.

Under 16’s was next, and it was Mitch Williams taking the win behind Bulletproof, over Benny Hackett and Alex Capitanio. 19’s was next, and Mel Smidt looked after the girls, while Cunningham showed the way behind Merc Force over Brycey behind Blazen and Splice behind Strike.

25-30 men saw Brad Weaver take the win behind Reckless’s Running Riot, over Jared Coey and Category 5, Schneider taking third behind Disturbed. Special mention must go to the Pidgeon, who picking up the run at the last minute, blasted around behind Merc Force, got smashed at the top corner, then got up again to lap consistently fastest for the rest of the race and still come nowhere!

19-25 men saw Lukey take the win over Kris Knights and the Ranga. While in the women, Kylee Jones and Merc Force showed the way over Chops Gane with Fritz.

30-40 women was won by Serena Murtagh, another competitor down from Cairns, and over 50’s was taken out by the evergreen Nessie Hicks.

Open Mens was next, and Pidgeon picked up his third behind Blazen, winning convincingly over Luke Gulley and Jared Coey. Wayne Mawer behind Juggernaut put in a solid effort and circulated in second before engine problems forced their retirement. In Open womens, Kylee picked up her 4th title, Griffo guiding Blazen to some big numbers while Mick looked on. Second went to Susie behind Kryptonite and third went to Nessie Hicks.

Engine classes were next, 60mph expert saw Running Riot with Rebecca Stone take the win, Hav’n’fun in second and Still Sparken take third with Toni Peebles. SMOC saw Lynchie get up behind Get Buzzed, while in 8 litre it was the Ranga behind Kryptonite taking the win off Wayward with Brycey Jones.

Moc was one of the biggest races of the weekend, Running Riot taking the win with Brad Weaver skiing, second went to Category 5 with Jared Coey, and third to the Disturbed team, with Sco. Rumours from the bank indicated that Hav’n’fun was primed for the win, but was let down by the driving!

The Unlimited Races finished off the weekend, with Blazen taking the win towin Marko Weaver, Merc Force in second and Speedmaster in third. In the Outboards it was Disturbed towing Joel Massey over Category 5 with Schniedling and Big Note down from Cairns towing Matt Ducie.

In all a great weekend, thanks to all the helpers, judges, course marshalls and organizers for making it happen. Hopefully next year the numbers will continue to grow.


Click more for full results.

In a new feature to letstalkskiracing, Player profiles are here to fill you in a bit on the people that make up the sport. In a bid to keep the site interesting and up to date, a new player profile will feature every fortnight. If you feel you deserve a bit of the spotlight, or know someone who does (juniors, up and comers), feel free to either submit your own player profile, or drop an email to the site with the details, and it will be chased up. Starting off this week is a man that many know, he's been around for longer than he'd care to remember, skied nearly every class at some point in time, represented his country at the worlds. He is....... The Pidgeon



Name : Pidgeon
Nick name : Grant Turner
Height : Not much
Weight : Much
Team : NGR (noel griffin racing)
Position : A team Skier, part time moc driver
Years racing : too many (16?)
Favourite Boat : Blazen
Admired Skiers : Anyone at the top of their game
Favourite Young Skier : Jed Turner
Ski type : Old school Custom Social Class, Maha Longboard
Skiing Highlights : 4th in World F1 mens, 5th Outright Catalina 2007, 2nd Outright Mildura 2008, 3rd Outright Robinvale
Training : As much on water as possible (bay, river, dam), gym, lifting pies to mouth
Diet : Whatever Ange cooks, hotbox, iced coffee
Ambitions : Ski with Chris Stout...
Post race drink : Black tins
When not racing : Collect Stamps, Knitting
Super Series Winner next year : Burnen

Just a reminder to everyone that entries for the 2008 Qld Titles close on Wednesday 28 May.

Please see the article below for more information about the event. It is being held at Corcoran Park, Grafton on 7 & 8 June.

Congratulations to Hellbent, taking the win and the record in a blistering time of 36.11. Amazing effort to Mark, Damien and Jason.

Unfortunately Jason’s team mate Chris Gelle had a nasty fall early in the race and had to be taken to hospital. Reports from Sharon and the Gelle family indicate that Stop is recovering steadily in Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital. Special mention must go to the Hellrazor and Superman crew for their efforts in helping Chris after the accident. Our thoughts go out to Stoppy, Shaz, the Gelle’s and team for a speedy recovery

The 2008 Queensland State Titles will be held at Corcoran Park, Grafton NSW on 7 & 8 June 2008.

Corcoron Park is the same venue that this year's nationals were held at and is a fantastic venue for both racing and spectating.

To all you southerners, the challenge is on to come and show us what your made of!!!

For a copy of the race format and an entry form please go to www.skiracingqueensland.com.au

Entries close on 28 May 2008

This is the first full calendar month since we started LetsTalkSkiRacing.com so I thought I would take the time to tell all the users how the month has gone, what has happened to the site and what we are looking at going forward.

Firstly I would like to thank all those people who have joined LetsTalkSkiRacing.com we now have 115 members! An amazing number after just one month! We have people from all over Australia and we also have a few people from England and a smaller number from the US. Thanks in large part to SkiRace.net and waterskiracing.com (Ski Racing Victoria).

Another thing that is interesting is we have now had about 1500 people go though our site! at an average of around 99 people per day!
Have a look at the stats at http://LetsTalkSkiRacing.com/stats.html

I see people are starting to use the Forums but we still haven't really got into using them yet.

I had been asked for Classifieds but no one seems to have tried it out yet... don't know why but I'm sure it will happen soon.

Our International News Section was added a few weeks back thanks to SkiRace.net (This is simply their News feed)

We have had updates on all the resent ski race. Thanks to Roger for his on going support to this Website.

I heard that LetsTalkSkiRacing.com was also mentioned on stage at one of the races.... Would be good if someone had a video of it (I'll put up a hall of fame for shameless plugs if someone has it)

I have heard that there is some problems with emails activation codes but have tried a few times to get those people in question to send a reply back to me so I can activate them to no avail. If you are one of those people could you please get in contact with me via webmaster@letstalkskiracing.com and I will endeavour to get your login working. I will start deleting members who haven't been active for two months...

Another innovation is the teams section where teams are able to register their team get an email and also write articles and a like to show off their team and what they have been up to.
So far only three teams have taken up this offer. I hope some other people give it a go...

I would like to add other things to the site but I'm starting to run out of ideas. The only thing I have left to add is an FAQ section which I'll be looking at in the coming weeks. It just takes sometime to compile so it maybe a few months to get it all going. If you have any ideas on what I should be adding please post it in the forums.

Also if your a budding reporter please feel free to click the contribute link and write your own article to give some more flavour to the site.

If you know of sites which are valuable to the ski racing community please add them to the links it's very easy to do!

If you know of events that are happening please add them to the Calendar so everyone else knows about it!

The Mildura 100 again proved to be one of the most popular races in the calendar, with big crowds turning out over the long weekend. Victorian team Hellbent again showed the way, taking out the Dash for Cash and the Race, making it a clean sweep of everything on the Murray (and nearly everything else). Blazen and Wildfire out of the NGR stable took second and third outright respectively.

Social class again showed some fantastic racing, with records continuing to tumble – when will these crazy people realize it’s just not right to ski so fast on those little sticks? In Unlimited social, Illusion got the win and the hat trick for the rivers, resetting the record at the same time – these boys look near unstoppable unless someone steps up and puts out a challenge. Spuddy did well to guide Merc Force into second ahead of the Sonic Crew. In Moc social, Twisted took the win, the record and second outright in social, with BJ and Robbie, closely followed by PCR and Running Riot. 6litre saw a change on the podium, with Bandit taking the win, with the two Craigs, Followed by Vegemite and Full Noise. Dave? Where are you? Smoc showed just how competitive this class is with No Rules, Stalker and 4 Play N Racing taking 1,2 and 3 all within 20 seconds of each other. Zigs showed that there isn’t much he can’t do, by piloting the little force into first. Stock 6 litre saw the Clog win over Wasted Nights, while in 2.5/5.2 Kane It, lead in The Inspector and Streaker Boats. B L Marine took the win in Womens, with Lesley and Steph out the back, over Smokin Injun with Elise and Shaz, and Toe Cutter Caron and Fiona. Juniors saw All Fired Up lead in Ballistic and then Heat with the boys, and Aftershock take out the girls.

Saturday afternoon and the big boys come out to play. Hellbent took the win, with Stoppy and Zigs missing the record by 3 seconds, only 1 second infront of Stinga – how close is that! Blazen took third with Pidgeon and the Liability. These three boats all broke the five minute barrier, unbelievably fast racing! The Invitational again saw the top two boats separated by only a second, with Mickey G and CT taking the win behind Fastcash over Kane and Chris with Elm Street. Brady and Rory taking third behind Sudden Force. All these young guys are flying, makes you feel old and slow!

In Vets it was Hazy taking the win and the record with Robbie and Peter, beating Out of Control and Kamikaze. Interesting to note that the top 4 Vets all broke the 6 minute mark in the dash – just goes to show you don’t always get smarter with age…Senior Social saw Toey As take the win in front of Temper and 4 Play.Taddies had the team of Stock Broker with the Hammond’s taking the win over Raicey with the Gordon’s and Phoenix with more Hammonds out the back. Disable showed some cracking pace, with Heat and Jus Walk’n both breaking the record to beat out Toe Cutter and Gangster.

Sunday Morning saw glorious conditions, and Hellbent and Stinga set out to take full advantage of them, with both boats tearing down the river in search of the record. Hellbent arrived at half way 15 minutes and 44 seconds later, an unbelievable leg, and setting themselves up for a shot at the record on the way home. The next boat to halfway was Blazen, after Stinga encountered trouble just before halfway, with Wildfire in third, just twelve seconds up on Mirror Image. The return leg saw another perfect leg for Team Hell, to take the win and the record, a phenomenal effort. If I’m right (and I may not be), I think that gives them the win, and the record in every race they’ve finished this year – unbelievable! Blazen did well to pick the pace up coming home and cement 2nd, Griffo showing that this will be a Force to reckoned with. Wildfire came in for a solid third with Jimmy and Lock Down doing well out the boat. While Team Hell continue their dominance and continually show their professionalism, NGR must be congratulated as well – two of the top three boats is a massive achievement. Unlimited was again blisteringly quick. With the top 5 boats beating the existing record. Fastcash winning over Hazy and Top Gun. 8 Litre was another record breaking win to Sportspage, towing Steve Rowe and Jamie Oliver, over Super Slak and Wayward. Moc was another win for Twisted, giving Chris both social and expert for the weekend, beating in BL Marine and Running Riot – the Merc’s given the Rude’s a bit of a touch up here at Mildura to turn the tables on the last couple of races. 6litre saw Kryptonite battling engine problems to still take the win with Brad and Marko, over Mojo and Kamikaze. Smoc was all Lab action – Little Man winning over Test Lab and 4 Play N Racing. F2 saw Lethal take the win over Thundernuts with Smoken Mirrors in third. In the ladies and it was ORSM taking the win again, backing up their Robinvale victory, Emma and Lee beating out Kylee and Tania behind Prime Time after the cyclone suffered some waste gate issues and the Noizworks team taking third not far behind. Under 19’s saw the Elm Street boys take a tumble on the way up and open the door for Bulletproof to take the win, Brycey and Cunningham hanging on out the back. Elm Street recovered for 2nd, with Frantic in third with Ringo and Jesse. In the under 19 girls, it Was Tayla and Melissa taking the win behind Tons of Fire, with Ring of Fire and Tickled pink taking the minor places. Junior boys saw the Hoggins/Brown combination come through for the win and I think the record with an outright placing of fifteenth! Spontaneous and All Fired Up taking second and third. The Subbies saw Lloyd and Clinton take the win behind The Sting for the lads, and Crystal and Brooke win with Hit and Miss for the ladies.

Full results (accurate) can be found on the mildura website (http://www.milduraskiclub.org/) and photos will be coming to RMI images (http://www.rmiimages.com.au/).