While the support classes, especially 25hp/550cc and Junior Classes provided plenty of action with close and competitive racing, it was the Formula GP boats that captured the crowd’s attention.

Running for the first time at a new venue always presents problems with engine and propellor set up but by the time qualifying came around most of the Formula GP teams were up to speed. Sam Lucas (RM Marine Jackson) currently sitting second in the championship claimed pole position with a blistering sub 50sec lap of 49.02sec. Less than a second covered the next three with Simon Troy (888 Racing) currently third in the series with a 50.11, Ewan Bricker (Team Bricker Racing) 50.30 and current series leader Rhys Coles (Butler Vehicles) debuting a new hull with a 50.98.

Qualifying 5th was Kye Cornall (117 Motorsport) ahead of Dean Allison (Allison Racing), Paul Sain (Trim King Racing) and Riley Whellam (Whellham Racing).

The organisers were incredibly pleased to see a vast number of spectators lining the banks as the boats exploded from start located at the island in the centre of the course and powered towards the first turn buoy. Lucas on pole was a little slow getting away while Troy, who was alongside him on the start grid and is known for his fast starts headed the field into the first turn.

Lucas keen to make up for his slow start bolted back into the action and as they turned all held their breath as the boats disappeared into a mass of spray waiting for all the boats to reappear. The race settled down with Troy leading from Lucas and Coles followed by Cornall who was hotly pursued by Bricker.

With just a couple of laps remaining Bricker pulled up the inside of Cornall but, the gap between the two disappeared, the resulting collision sent Bricker’s boat rolling over the top of Cornall’s, bringing out a red flag and a premature end to the race. Fortunately, both drivers escaped unscathed, and Team Bricker are expecting to be back on the water for tomorrow’s races.

Following today’s result, the championship fight between the top three of Coles, Lucas and Troy has tightened and the two Formula GP races on Sunday will decide the Australian Series Championship winner.

Once again Michael Quinlan was on the scene capturing all the action images.

Following the dramatic and sensational third round at Rathmines, where six boats were involved in three different incidents, resulting in several craft sustaining heavy damage, the organisers are hopeful of an incident free event with close and competitive racing to captivate it the spectators.

Formula GP series leader Rhys Coles (Butler Vehicles) was one of those caught up in an incident at round three and has had to acquire a replacement D.A.C. hull from CC Grand Prix to compete this weekend hoping to keep his championship hopes alive.

Coles will be challenged hotly for the championship by Sam Lucas (RM Marine Jackson) and Simon Troy (888 Racing). Lucas also had to recover from a big incident at round three, whilst Troy is keen to add another Championship to his resume’ and has proven in past seasons he can find the performance to win when it counts.

Ewan Bricker (Team Bricker Racing) is one of just a few others capable of causing an upset this weekend. Bricker returns for the final round after disaster hit him while running with a strong chance of winning until gearboxes failed in the first two rounds.

Dean Allison (Allison Racing) is another returning after a round three incident and he along with Paul Sain (Trim King Racing), Kye Cornall (117 Motorsport) and Riley Whellam (Whellham Racing) will be all keen to challenge for podium positions.

At the other end of the power scale the Championship for the Junior J3 Class is still to be decided, however Adam Frankham (Quiver Jnr) has a commanding lead ahead of Blake Fowler (TBR Jnr), Blake Frankham (A Little Twisted), Tyler Gilliam (Epic 1), Ella Gilliam (Epic 2).

The program runs over both Saturday and Sunday with support events for Inboard Displacements, Formula V (V Hull), F3 & F4 and Vintage and Veteran boat runs.

Images supplied by Mike ‘Crash’ Cleary

Fortunately, it’s not often you hear the rescue teams saying that they had an extremely busy weekend but many of them probably came off Lake Macquarie thinking that they had witness a season’s worth of incidents in just one weekend.

Prior to the Final on Sunday afternoon, they had already been called into action during the Group Two reverse grid heat when the local racer Kaine Casson (360) collected Greg Banks (49) as the pair exited the turn. Casson, who is running the only Moore hull in the series felt that it was a racing incident and just before going out to race he had mentioned to the TV crew that the lap times were so close

Everyone is right there on top of each other!

The heat was eventually restarted, and it wasn’t long before Rhys Coles, Damon Cohen and Joel Smith were all battling to the lead. Smith was passed by Simon Troy (88) and was soon snapping at the heels of Coles for second place. The time was soon up and Cohen, who had not been able to carry out much testing whilst he was waiting for some boat parts to arrive from BaBa Racing in Italy took the chequered flag and maximum points.

The Group One reverse grid heat had already been won by Brock Cohen, who was back competing after his recent ‘time-out.’ It had taken him a while to get past Dean Allison who had changed his power supply from an SST120 to the 2.5lt Mercury version. Allison who had enlisted the help of the highly experienced Craig Bailey was beginning to get more comfortable with their setup changes. Cohen was extremely fortunate to finish the heat as making his way back to the pit his flywheel fell off.

Once safely ashore Cohen said

I felt something was not right with four laps to go, I was so glad to see the chequered flag come out.

With a brief break from the torrential rain the teams lined up for the fifteen minutes plus one lap final. As the flags dropped Brock Cohen made a clean get away with Troy in hot pursuit. Damon Cohen and Coles followed them. Meanwhile back on the start pontoon was Sam Lucas who finally managed to get his engine to fire but had left himself a lot to do. As Lucas was charging through the field, he took a tight turn around the pit turn buoy with Allison on the inside, an impact was inevitable and out came the red flags to halt the proceedings.

In the rolling restart Brock Cohen made another great start but so did Coles who moved into third place just behind Troy. With scarcely a whole lap completed Coles took a tight line around the turn furthest away from the pit. He left just enough room for Damon Cohen, but the closing speed of Cohen’s BaBa meant he was unable to turn as tight as Coles and collected him in a massive impact remarkably like that of Lucas and Allison just minutes earlier.

With all the drivers safely ashore unhurt torrential rain arrived back on the scene leaving the race officials with little choice but to abandon any further racing.

Coles said

It’s been a wild weekend of racing, I’m ok and many thanks to all the rescue crew you did a fantastic job. We will rebuild and come back..

Although picking up the maximum points haul race winner Brock Cohen said

Another bittersweet victory for the team as prior to Damon’s accident, the possibility of a one-two finish was highly likely. There is lots to be done before the final round of the championship at Moree Water-ski Park on July 23 -24.

Crash sequence images by Rooters & Co Photography

Troy & Cohen images by Michael Quinlan at Quinnos Quick Snaps

Fierce winds across the lake were causing all sorts of issues for the organisers of Round Two of the Australian Formula Powerboat Grand Prix series. Fortunately, they were able to complete a Mono race on Saturday and to their relief the Formula GP Practice and Qualifying, although that was not without drama.

Sam Lucas topped the sheets for his groups Race 1 pole position and qualifying, with a sub forty second lap, which was a remarkable achievement after the problems the team had during testing just days before the event.

Lucas spoke to PRW and said

We took both boats out testing on Thursday only to have a trim issue with one and an injector issue with the other. So, we took the powerhead off the boat with the trim problem and put it on the boat with the faulty injectors to continue testing, only to have the trim pump come lose and short out some wiring. That meant the team had to rewire that trim system on Friday afternoon.

Due to the rough conditions in his qualifying session, the battery box broke loose in Lucas’s boat and caused the battery to short out in the sponson taking with it a large bit of carbon and foam from inside the sponson. Saturday night would see the team’s mechanics spending several hours repairing inside the sponson and battery box in preparation for Sunday’s race.

Rhys Coles was another driver struggling with the conditions as he went out for his groups Race 1 pole positions and qualifying.

Saturday for me was a complete disaster. When we went out for practise it was very rough and the boat is not great in those conditions. I was thinking to myself we’ve either got a problem with the engine or perhaps it’s me but we were a good ten seconds off the pace.

To make matters worse Coles boat was also taking on water through the deck hatches and nearly sunk. Fortunately, he manged to get it back ashore without too much damage.

Topping Coles group was Damon Cohen with a sub forty second lap time, just ahead of Ewen Bricker.

Meanwhile, Cohen’s brother Brock was back home in Sydney at the Bankstown Lidcombe Hospital where his wife Britney was about to give birth to their first child. That meant the teams reserve driver, Will Parker would be racing the DAC and was putting in an impressive performance with zero notice or testing.

Simon Troy was also putting in an impressive performance. He had opted to race his DAC knowing that it would handle the rough conditions and he wasn’t far off the time set by Lucas.

Much to everyone’s relief the weather on Sunday was a huge improvement, but there was going to be a packed schedule to get through commencing with Race Two Heat One. As the flags dropped Coles sped off into the lead, quickly followed by Cohen. Several times the spectators were treated to some high-flying BaBa action as Cohen tried his hardest to close the gap to Coles. Then with the clock ticking down and just one lap remaining Cohen tried to pass Coles in the turn but crashed out in the process. Fortunately, the BaBa safety-cell did a fantastic job of protecting him in what was a heavy and violent crash. Thankfully for Cohen the AFPGP rescue team and paramedics were on the scene within seconds to the extract the extremely disappointed racer, who was unhurt in the impact.

Coles went onto take the chequered flag and later admitted that the previous day the team had found a problem with his engine which they fixed overnight.

I thought I was down on power throughout Saturday, then we found that the fuel pump on the side of the motor had come loose and was not working correctly, so the number two cylinder was running very lean.

With that now fixed thanks to Sam Lucas, who lent him a whole fuel pump assembly, Coles was now on a hard charge for maximum points. The team had made a few minor changes to the boat from Aubrey to this round, one of which was swapping to a 24 Volt trim set up because they knew the Lake Mulwala course was going to be short one with a multitude of turns. The new trim plus a smaller propeller from Gavin Bricker certainly help him in the ‘reverse grid’ race, plus securing the all-important pole position for the Final.

Lining up alongside him on the grid would be Lucas, who had Greg Banks in the Octane Racing Machine next to him. Fourth on the grid was Troy, with Matt Smith alongside him in fifth and Matt Wastle rounding out the top six fastest drivers.

As the fourteen minutes, plus one lap Final got underway Troy made a lightning quick start but went too wide allowing Coles through, quickly followed by Lucas. After Smith had taken a turn mark out the fleet were reduced to crawling round the circuit as a replacement was hastily arranged. In the subsequent rolling restart Coles hit the front and once again Troy was back up to second place but that didn’t last long due an issue with his trim which would eventually see Lucas catch and pass him.

Back down the field Parker was keeping it clean and staying out of trouble for Cohen Brothers Racing. He managed to climb as high as seventh and when battling for sixth place the engine lost power with three laps to go which pushed him back down the order. The team believe it was an electrical issue which was causing the engine to drop a cylinder. With no further stoppages Coles took the chequered flag with Lucas and Troy comfortably in second and third places.

The delighted race winner said

The last time I competed in this championship was six years ago when I won the entire series. I really have that taste back and it’s a good one, so now I’m so looking forward to hopefully winning this series again. Sure, it’s not going be easy as both Lucas and Troy are always podium contenders along with the Cohen brothers who obviously didn’t have the weekend they were expecting, especially with Damon crashing out, but I’m sure they’ll both be back at the next round pushing harder than ever.

For Lucas, a second visit to the top three presentation seemed incredible.

It was an unbelievable effort put in by the team over the last five days. The resilience from the crew not to give up was incredible and it shows everyone just what we can do. The result in the final made it all worthwhile.

Simon Troy managed to hang onto to his third place even though one of the spokes snapped on one side of his steering wheel making it extremely difficult to drive the DAC.

It’s great to be back in the top three but at this stage I’m not thinking of the championship. I’m just taking each race at a time. We had great speed in the rough water but as the weather settled over the weekend, we lost that advantage. Like everyone here we had a few small issues, but the team did an excellent job all weekend.

AUSTRALIAN FORMULA POWERBOAT GRAND PRIX – Round Two – Lake Mulwala.

Final – Results

1- Rhys Coles

2- Sam Lucas

3- Simon Troy

4- Kaine Casson

5- Dean Allison

6- David Meades

7- Matt Wastle

8- Paul Sain

9- Will Parker

10 – Matt Smith

For Round Three, the series are heading just north of Sydney to Rathmines, a suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, as part of the fast and loud festival taking place on Saturday 21 May & Sunday 22 May.

Photos: Tara B Photography.