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That is my first blog post

Andrew Schering — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:26:18 +0000

Hi to all on this site

Another Aussie Champ Crowned

Paul Mitchener — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:02:19 +0000

Race 3 of the 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships has seen three Aussies crowned 2011 World Water Ski Racing champions. Jack Houston and Kelsey Feros took out the Junior Boys and Junior Girls titles earlier in the day, with Jack being the first skier to win back to back Junior World Championships.

The final race for the day say Chris Stout take out the 2011 Open Men’s World Championships after completing an Epic 1 hour race, battling to the end with Peter Procter. It was an intense battle from start to finish, with Stout leading Procter for the majority of the race. In the last 15 minutes of the race Peter Procter made his move and overtook Stout taking an inside line on the course, finishing the race with about a rope lengths lead.

Although Procter crossed the line first, Stout was still in front with championship points, therefore being awarded the 2011 Open Men’s World Championship Title. With a post race protest, Procter’s team was penalised and the final results showed Stout with a win over Procter and Troy Hooker from the USA, coming in third. This in turn gave Chris Stout a clean sweep of the first 3 races totalling 3000 points.

The final race for the day also saw the F2 Men’s race heat up, with Grant Turner stealing the win and three race clean sweep away from Mark Weaver. This in turn bumped Turner and his team marginally into the lead of the F2 Men’s Championship Title, forcing Mark Weaver and the TWR team to fight it out to the end in Race 4 to be held on Saturday.

Congratulations to the 3 new World Water Ski Racing Champions - Jack Houston, Kelsey Feros and Chris Stout and good luck to the Open Women and F2 Men and Women who will take to the water for the final race of the 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships.

Houston and Feros – Aussie Juniors Clean Sweep

Paul Mitchener — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:37:44 +0000

The 14th of September 2011 has seen both Jack Houston and Kelsey Feros take out the 2011 World Water Ski Racing World Championships for Junior Boys and Junior Girls. Jack is the first to ever take out, back to back junior world championship titles.

Junior Boys and Junior Girls Race 3, of the 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships was an awesome spectacle seeing a minor delay prior to the race due to dolphins on the course. Both Jack and Kelsey led their respective races for the duration of the 30minute, plus one lap race, with very close racing for the second and third place getters.

Not only have two Aussies taken the clean sweep of the Junior World Championship races, but Force Boats have now provided boats to 2 of this year’s world championship teams. By the end of today’s racing we could see another two Aussie world champions crowned, in Mark Weaver and Chris Stout, once again, both racing behind Force Boats.

Congratulations to both Jack Houston and Kelsey Feros and their respective teams, Team Stinga Racing and Prima Donna Racing. 2011 Junior World Water Ski Racing Champions.

Lauryn Eagle’s World Champs Go From Bad to Worse

Paul Mitchener — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 01:47:29 +0000

Entering the 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships as one of the favourites to take the Open Women’s world title, Lauryn Eagle has had a nightmarish campaign. Racing behind the black F1 Force, Superman, Lauryn has had no shortage of dramas throughout the first three of four world title races.

Race 1 saw Lauryn and her team controversially penalised for missing a turn buoy while placed quite well in that race. Lauryn entered race 2 with her sights on a podium, to make up for the disappointment of the previous days racing. The race format of the 2011 Worlds consists of 4 rounds, with teams dropping the worst of their four races. This still left Lauryn in the hunt for her second world championship.

Race 2 dealt Lauryn another awful blow, with the mighty Superman suffering massive mechanical failure with a broken rocker resulting in further engine damage and the retirement of the team from the second round. With two races down and no points for the Superman / Lauryn Eagle Open Women’s Team, their world title hunt was not over, but well and truly hampered.

After a busy day and night between races the Superman team shipped engine parts from across the country and rebuilt the twin turbo charged big block chev just in time for race 3. The team entered race 3 with fire in the belly and were out to make up for the previous two rounds, resulting in no points.

Race 3 saw Lauryn Eagle fire off the start line with awesome pace, showing the Open Women’s field she was out to win the days racing. After building a nice buffer on the rest of the field through the first 13 minutes of the race, the red flag was shown and the race was cancelled. The cancellation was due to a pod of dolphins crossing the race circuit, resulting in all teams having to pull their boats out to refuel, rehydrate and prepare to race again.

The restart of race 3, once again saw Lauryn fly off the start line behind Superman. This time the rest of the field had quite considerable pace and were staying in touch with their lead. Only minutes into the restart, after rounding the front turn buoy, Lauryn had a massive fall. Laying in the water with her ski off in the distance the crew turned and returned to Lauryn in the water. The observer joined her in the water and assisted her back into the boat. Lauryn was obviously shaken up and in some pain.

Several laps down and much to everyone’s surprise, Lauryn got up onto the deck and strapped on her ski. She wasn’t finishing the 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships without a fight. Lauryn completed the race and collected some much needed points. Although it was a disappointing result for the team, it was a mighty effort. What can they put together for Race 4 on Saturday. Hopefully Lauryn’s luck takes a turn for the better and sees here grab a swag of points in the final race of the 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships.

2012 Southern 80 on as normal

Paul Mitchener — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:33:36 +0000

There have been quite a few news stories in the newspapers and on the news websites raising doubt about the 2012 Southern 80. I found an article not so long ago covering the recommendations and concerns from SRA about the Southern 80.

Here is a great little article from ABC Local confirming that this years Southern 80 will be held in it's usual February calendar slot. That is great news.

Future of annual water ski race guaranteed

2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships - Race 2

Paul Mitchener — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:05:25 +0000

The 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships is shaping up to be an awesome display of water ski racing and athleticism. Today’s events displayed some awesome and close racing, with the final race of the day seeing Stout and Procter fighting it out for the duration of their hour plus race, with only seconds between them.

The provisional results for Race 2 of the 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships were as follows:

Open Mens
1st Chris Stout
2nd Peter Procter
3rd Russell Cox

F2 Mens
1st Mark Weaver
2nd Grant Turner
3rd Andy Anderson

Open Womens
1st Erin Saunders
2nd Katelin Wendt
3rd Maddison Boyer

F2 Womens
1st Tania Teelow
2nd Lena Feringa
3rd Katarina Hebenestreit

Junior Boys
1st Jack Houston
2nd Trevor Wendt
3rd Lloyd Woolman

Junior Girls
1st Kelsey Feros
2nd Yolian Bormans
3rd Tayla Wright

From here the teams have a couple of days of much need rest and recovery before race 3 on Wednesday. Race 3 will see teams facing a changed course for another days racing. If race 3 and 4 are anything like the first two races, we are in for some awesome racing to conclude the 2011 Worlds.

2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships - Race 1

Paul Mitchener — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:20:41 +0000

The 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships is finally underway. The initial day of racing was scheduled to be the 10th of September, 2011. Although, with extreme weather conditions on Moreton Bay, Queensland Australia, resulting in 1.5 plus metre waves, the highly anticipated opening days racing was postponed till the following day.

With weather conditions moving from one extreme to the other, Sunday saw perfect conditions for some great water ski racing action. Racing kicked off with women’s F1 and F2 races in the morning, followed by Junior Boys and Girls and lastly Men’s F1 and F2.

The day’s provisional race results were as follows.

Women – Open / Formula 1
1st Katelin Wendt (USA) behind 7
2nd Erin Saunders (USA) behind Prime Time
3rd Adelaide Cox (NZ) behind White Noiz

Women – Formula 2
1st Leanne Campbell (AUS) behind Atomic Boats
2nd Lena Feringa (BEL) behind Revolution Racing
3rd Trudi Stout (AUS) behind Still Kidn

Junior Boys
1st Jack Houston (AUS) behind Stinga F1
2nd Trevor Wendt (USA) behind 7
3rd Jake Frame (GB) behind 99 Psycho Clowns

Junior Girls
1st Kelsey Feros (AUS) behind Prima Donna
2nd Yolien Bormans (BEL) behind Burnin
3rd Tayla Wright(AUS) behind ORSM

Men’s – Open / Formula 1
1st Chris Stout (AUS) behind Burnin
2nd Peter Procter (AUS) behind Tru Blue
3rd Ben Gulley (AUS) behind Merc Force

Men’s – Formula 2
1st Mark Weaver (AUS) behind Team Weaver Racing
2nd Grant Turner (AUS) behind Target
3rd Andy Anderson (USA) behind Team 373

The postponement of race 1 has now resulted in two days of back to back racing, with the second day of racing kicking off at 8:30am tomorrow morning, being 12th of September, 2011.

Team Weaver Racing

Paul Mitchener — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:00:32 +0000

Team Weaver Racing have just released their new website. Designed and hosted by RaceHost this site should generate some interest about the team and their upcoming bid for the 2011 F2 World Water Ski Racing Championship.

Check it out. Team Weaver Racing

Elm Street - Presidents Dash - 2011 Southern 80

Paul Mitchener — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:21:21 +0000

2011 Southern 80 - Blazen fire news story

Paul Mitchener — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 08:22:16 +0000

Here is one of the many news stories and the footage of the Blazen fireball near Turners bend on the Murray at yesterdays Southern 80. Our thoughts go out to the team. Get well soon Noel!

http://www.skynews.com.au/sport/article.aspx?id=602448&vId=2337356&cId=Sport&play=true

2011 Southern 80 - Results Posted

Paul Mitchener — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:17:20 +0000

What a great weekends racing. Better late than never and fresher than expected, but all in all, a well run event as usual.

Check out the results on the Southern 80 website, or download them from here:

http://www.southern80.com.au/Downloads/2011/Results/s802011.pdf

Some new Video Footage

Paul Mitchener — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:15:16 +0000

Here is some footage while testing, pre 2011 Southern 80 at Lake Eppalock. Short and sweet little bit of footage while we were testing our new Liquid Image HiDef Goggle Camera.

Australian Ski Racing Steps into Overdrive

Paul Mitchener — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:35:33 +0000

The Australian water ski racing season has been a little slow to date. With many events cancelled or postponed due to the extremely wet weather experienced over the past 6 months. Yet over the coming months we will see a very busy racing schedule.

Now that 2011 moves into April we are going to see three major races just this month. The Australian Titles, Followed by the Southern 80 and closely followed by the Mildura 100 over the Easter weekend. Not only do we see 3 major national events in one month, they are all on consecutive weekends.

Not to mention these three major events followed by the extremely popular Bridge 1 up and the Barry Carne Memorial water ski races. Once again these events are also on consecutive weekends. That is 5 consecutive weeks of major and very popular water ski races.

This very busy period will test teams and equipment to the limit, requiring hundreds of kilometres of racing and thousands of kilometres of commuting between events. It will be an interesting period to see how many teams actually get to participate in all their entered events.

Good luck and safe racing to all the teams involved. In actual fact is more than likely the entire Australian Water Ski Racing community.

The long road to the worlds begins very soon

Paul Mitchener — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:04:10 +0000

The long road to the 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships for Aussie water ski racers begins this weekend. Its 36 hours away from the first Australian World Selection Race to be hosted by Ski Racing Victoria. The event is to be staged over two days on Corio Bay in Geelong, which will definitely show off some of Australia’s amazing ski racing talent.

The event is one of four Australian World Selection Races which will result in the selection of the team that will represent Australia in this year’s World Championships. The World Championship event is to be held on Moreton Bay in Brisbane, Australia this September. Teams from around the world will travel to Brisbane to compete with their only goal to become the World Water Ski Racing Champion of their relevant class. Plenty of entries for the event have been received by Ski Racing Victoria, with over 40 boats competing in the F2 Men’s class not to mention the rest of the classes competing over the weekend. In excess of 40 boats on the water at any one time will see some close action packed racing.

A 5km course will be setup across Geelong’s waterfront in Corio Bay. It will be an awesome venue for this World Selection Event and will surely test both team’s stamina and skills with races of up to 1hr plus one lap. Boats and teams from all over Australia will travel to Geelong for the two day event to get some points on the scoreboard, with the ultimate goal of being selected to compete in the World Championships after all four events.

With the race course stretching out 1.5km into the open waters of Corio Bay, the weather will surely test the boats, teams and skiers over the weekends racing. Winds on Saturday are predicted between 10 to 20 km/h, blowing from the northwest. This is an onshore breeze straight across the northern waters of Corio Bay which will surely create testing conditions on the 5km course. The ultra fit, well trained skiers will definitely shine in these conditions. Skiers behind the purpose built ballasted F1 and F2 boats will also do well in these conditions. By Sunday the winds are predicted to drop considerably producing much more favourable conditions for water ski racing. This will definitely see some very fast and close racing in the race to the World Championships.

Good luck to all the teams competing at Geelong, one of the four World Selection Races on the long, hard and competitive road to the 2011 World Water Ski Racing Championships. Keep an eye out on Ski Racer’s World for photos and updates from this race and other water ski racing events.

Another ski race cancellation for 2011

Paul Mitchener — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 01:57:41 +0000

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