Melton Gold Cup 2023

Bisho reports on the Melton Gold cup that was run on the weekend of the 4th and 5th of February 2023. As always, it was full of action, drama and plenty of close hard racing.

Traditionally run on the first weekend in February each year, the meeting usually falls on the weekend prior to the famous Southern 80 water ski race held in Echuca/Moama. For this reason, the Melton gold cup attracts a huge crowd made up of boat and speed loving devotees from all sectors of the sport, including plenty of water ski racers.

With Australia’s fastest boats and drivers in attendance, coupled with the natural Amphitheatre that is the Melbourne Run About & Speed Boat Clubs Exford weir site in Melton, (about 30 minutes East of Melbourne), the scene was set for a fantastic weekend of powerboat racing.

With four major trophies on offer over the two days of racing, it attracted the cream of the crop to Melton. The six litre boats competed for the Jack Kavanagh trophy. The six litre category in Australia is hotly contested with some incredibly fast boats and drivers with a level of professionalism that is world class. After five heats and an amazing final, it was Chris Pugsley in the unbelievably fast “Shananigans” taking the win over Troy Marland in the “Sick Puppy” (Love the name! ED) and third was Ryan McIntosh in the “Lock & Load” It should also be noted that any of these three are also very at home and more than competitive in the unlimited classes and have may wins and places to prove it.

Another major trophy race, “The Keith Harrison Cup” also ran over five heats on Saturday with Chris Pugsley in “Shananigans” again prevailing over Greg Banks in his Mercury outboard powered F1 tunnel boat “Final Feature” and filling third place was a local Melton hero Brett Niddrie in his 6 litre displacement “BNR Engines”.

The “Clyde Lewis” trophy is one of Australia’s most prestigious six litre trophies and was hotly contested over the weekend. All the six litre boys were very serious about this one! Craig Lewis (Son of Clyde) was obviously extremely focused on trying to win this one and drove an amazing race which on any other day would have seen the trophy in his hands, but Pugsley had other ideas and continued the “Shananigans” whitewash of the field to take the win whilst putting Lewis into a close second place. The hard charging (and newly graduated chemist) Connor Patterson in “Turn it up” took third.

Pretty soon, the drama started to unfold. During one of his heats, Andrew Warmsley in his twin turbo displacement “Jo Jnr” (whilst leading comfortably) caught some air under the hull whilst traveling in excess of 225kph (140mph) mark took off and flew sideways through the air before landing completely sideways and barrel rolling too many times to count! Bits of boat were flying into the air and the spray was like a bomb had gone off!

Fortunately, safety improvements in power boat racing have increased significantly over the last decade, meaning all boats capable of speeds over 168kph (105mph) are required to have a reinforced safety cockpit with a harness and air supply for the driver.

This almost certainly saved Andrew’s life as he swam out of the cockpit as the boat was sinking. Unfortunately, Andrew sustained a broken shoulder, however it could have been so much worse without the safety cockpit fitted. We send our best wished to Andrew and his family & friends for a speedy recovery.

There were also some hotly contested races in the junior & 25hp & 550cc ranks, along with a little bit of drama as well, when two boats collided at the first corner, causing Riley Bride to go for a refreshing swim. Fortunately, both Riley and Tyler Scott were both fine and were super keen to get back in the driver’s seat as soon as possible.

The future of the sport looks bright with plenty of competitors in the junior classes

Only four unlimited outboards ventured to the Gold Cup to try their luck. Unfortunately for Craig Bailey, arguably Australia’s greatest outboard tunnel driver, his methanol fueled 2.5 litre Mercury S3000 race engine blew a gearbox during Friday’s practice, leaving him as a spectator and crew for the other outboard teams for the rest of the weekend. This left Greg Banks in “Final Feature” (named by his partner Brianna as it will allegedly be his last race boat!), Jarrad Smith in “Too Impulsive” (a hard charging south Australian) and Steve Gilligan in “Epic R Marine” a new boat to the R Marine Jacksons team and Steve’s first drive in anger. Greg Banks was too good and won unlimited outboard comfortably in the end after some fantastic racing.

Of course, the major race of the weekend is the Melton Gold Cup. With five heats run over Sunday and a final late Sunday afternoon. Action in the heats saw Tate Ramsey in “Reckless” have an unfortunate coming together with Jeff Stunell “In Excess” and damaged both boats enough to not see them continue. There was plenty of hard racing throughout the heats which culminated in an amazing down to the wire final which was taken out by Darryl Quinn in “Bad influence” closely followed by one of the true gentlemen of blown boat racing Blake Ramsey in “Destiny” and getting on the podium in third place was Ryan McIntosh in the “Lock & Load” doing it for the six liter fans.

The Melton Gold Cup has been run & won for 2023 and what an event. Racing was also supported by many other classes, such as the 105mph 1.6L Aus boat hydroplanes and the 95mph categories. Results will be posted to the MRSBC website and the face book pages by the time you read this. If you have never been, I highly recommend you get there in 2024.