SEVEN boats totally dominated their classes at Taree's Easter Powerboat Classic.
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As expected, Troy Marland in Madness repeated his effort of 2012 by winning every championship race for the unlimited class.
No less than five titles were won by the team including the Eastway Shield (the NSW Unlimited Inboard Championship) and the Liberty Cup followed by the Geoff Stephenson Memorial, the Bradley Pratt Memorial and the King of the River.
Marland's dominance was never more clearly demonstrated than in the King of the River where he raced on the outside of Airborne (another BAD boat) and proceeded to outrace his competition around the outside on the first turn to set up a race winning lead.
In BAD boat racing it's next to impossible to negotiate the manoeuvre but such is the speed and power of Marland's boat that he did it comfortably and with safety.
Another boat which was expected to dominate, and did, was Mac'N'Speed driven by young Queenslander Lindsay McMillan, who was unbeaten in the 5 litre displacement class.
In fact the only time he failed to greet the chequered flag first was when he raced up in class against the 6 litres and even then he was not far behind.
John Devoll, the president of the Upper Hawkesbury Powerboat Club, had a massive program with his boat Desparate winning all his pro-stock races while Adam Woods, from the Raymond Terrace Aquatic Club, was dominant in Trouble, the boat his father raced for many years at Taree and other venues.
Super stock, a class for inboard boats restricted to 105 mph, was a triumph for Justin Frankham in Quiver who was also unbeaten over the entire weekend.
Grant Trask, another Queenslander, was the leading and unbeaten unlimited outboard competitor in TDC (Trask Development Corporation).
But the boat that really caught attention was world speed record holder for 6 litre boats, Chris Whalan's Extreme Sacrifice which was only relegated to placegetter status once in his class when Chris Pugsley in Oxygen Thief made his only appearance early in the program.
But it was Whalan's performances against the BAD boats which had everyone sitting up and taking notice.
On more than one occasion he chased the flying Madness for the entire three laps and was only beaten by a relatively small margin.
Of the local boats, Hoodlum, guest driven by Adam Pederson and Matilda (Ryan McIntosh) successfully finished all races with Hoodlum taking out three events, albeit against reduced fields.
Scott Godfrey, a Taree race committee member, stated that the meeting was successful and safe with close racing in most classes although boat numbers were down on previous years. But he added this is a problem across all race meeting in all States.
Crowd figures were exceptional all weekend while water conditions were good to very good apart from very late in the day when it cut up a little bit rough but never enough to postpone racing.