Top teams ready to hit the water

Pickford, who hails from Echuca, said the preparation ahead of the crew’s tilt at their third successive Leigh Johnson Memorial Trophy had progressed as well as possible, considering the high river levels.

“It’s been good, obviously the river has been pretty high so it’s been hard to practice, but we’ve had two or three practice runs in the last week,” he said.

“The boys are fit and healthy. We’ve obviously had Vic point scores in between the Beehag and Southern 80, so that gives them another couple of hours under race conditions on the water.

“So, it’s been really good, the boys are fit and ready to go.”

The dominance of the Sapphire crew on this stretch of the Murray has extended beyond the Southern 80, with the quartet claiming the crown in the first edition of the Beehag 100 in December.

Like many teams that are serious about recording a good result in the ‘80’, Pickford said the Beehag was invaluable in helping them prepare for the big dance this Sunday.

“Prep for the Beehag was good, because we did full river runs,” he said.

“As much as we only raced the Beehag course, we still did full Southern 80 race practice.

“So the Beehag was good, the new format was 100km not 60, which was a good test for the team.”

While last year’s event yielded the team its second consecutive overall title, it was far from a flawless weekend, having finished second behind fellow superclass competitor TR in the Bakers Blitz.

While TR will not be racing this year having been disqualified earlier this week, Pickford stressed the importance of beating the rest of the top contenders on Saturday to ensure Sapphire had the best chance possible of a win on Sunday.

“TR is obviously very hard to beat in a short course race, I think it was six seconds in it (at the Bakers Blitz last year),” he said.

“Within six seconds you can go to second place, and it makes Sunday a really tough day.

“Obviously they (TR) had a mishap last year (on the Sunday), so it made (it) a lot easier, and we could sort of roll out of the throttle and sort of cruise for a win.

“But with guys like that racing it makes it pretty important to win the Saturday.”

While the line-up will remain the same as it has been over the past two victories, there will be a change of sorts for the team.

“We’re going to run a different boat this year,” Pickford said.

“We’re going to run the blue Sapphire which we ran two years ago, so very similar boats, similar horsepower, just a little bit (of a) different setup.

“(It is) probably more so just to concentrate on one boat, rather than to keep swapping between the two, we just get familiar with one. We’ve done all the training with that boat, so we’ll use that boat for the race.”

No laughing matter as Clowns hunt podium

After a brilliant run last year saw them narrowly miss out on a podium in the unlimited inboard expert class, the 99 Psycho Clowns crew will return to the 2024 Southern 80 with one result on their mind.

Owner Mark Seamons, who will be driving the boat this weekend alongside observer Dylan Cuff and skiers Cameron Horne and Connor Ballingall, said the elusive podium was at the top of his team’s wish list.

“We’d like to be up there, definitely run top 10, and hopefully get a podium in unlimited, that’s our goal,” he said.

“Last year I think we ended up fourth in unlimited, so if we can just go one or two better than that, that will be a good weekend for us.”

The crew comes into the race in exceptional form, having placed second in the unlimited inboard expert class at the Beehag 100 in December, and fourth outright, a result which Seamons places a big emphasis on.

“The Beehag is important because it is almost two-thirds of this race,” he said.

“Even though we do go back in the other direction, it’s the one chance to actually practise the Southern 80 course at full speed under race conditions, so the Beehag is very important to us.”

The Beehag will carry extra significance this year, given the flood activity that occurred in early January has seen competitors forego their usual on-course preparation, with many — including Seamons — only able to get out on the Murray this week.

“We had a run down the course (on Wednesday) morning, that was our first run on the river since the Beehag,” he said.

“We’ve been out there training just with the outboards, doing some time on the double skis, drag skis and training skis, so we have been out on the water, but not at speed since the Beehag.

“We’ve done a few of the point scores across at Lake Charm and Kangaroo Lake, so we have done time at speed behind the boats, but just not in the river this year unfortunately, because of the high water.”

From one extreme to the other, the river has dropped massively in the past fortnight, so much so that teams are praying for more water in the next few days.

While the Moama Water Sports Club has assured entrants and spectators that the river will be safe to race on come the weekend, Seamons said the current height would still make things more difficult.

“It wouldn’t want to drop too much more, she’s pretty low,” he said.

“Hopefully we see it come up a little bit over the next few days, the powers that be will give us a bit more water and it will just make it safer and a little bit easier for everyone.

“(The lower river) just closes up the track, the river just gets narrower as it gets lower.

“Generally we’re racing down the middle of the river, we will cut the corners a little bit, but it’s probably more a perception than (actually being narrower), it just feels smaller, it feels lower.

“A little bit more water just makes it safer and easier for everyone.”

The 99 Psycho Clowns entry will begin its bid for an unlimited inboard expert podium at 3.30pm on Saturday, when they launch from Five Mile Boat Ramp as the 10th seeded boat in the President’s Dash.