The lights went on, the boats and jet skis turned up in reasonable numbers, the rain came again (hadn't rained for a week) and the spectators came as well (although the rain at the start of the night kept some away).
A crowd of around 3,000 turned up to watch what is believed to be the first ever water speedway event anywhere in the world. After blocking up the drainage system and channeling the surrounding waterways to direct water towards the speedway arena, approximately 13 million litres of water (thanks to the rain from our tropical wet season) inundated the Northline speedway track in Darwin. The week prior to the event had however been very dry with Northline Officials having to turn on the taps (100mm mains) to keep the water level up to a minimum level.
Classes of dingys were divided into 15 hp, up to 25 hp and open whilst the jet skis were divided into up to 700cc and open. Approximately 20 dingys and 13 jet skis entered the event. Also on hand was Graham Edwards who would attempt to be the first to bare foot ski around the arena, Pedro Rock (clown entertainment), dragon boat demonstrations and a mixture of Darwins floating fraternity.

The main parade came and went and then it was onto the racing events. The course laid out included travelling both clockwise and anticlockwise races, following a pattern similar to a 'H' pattern. A number of boats throughout the night lost outboards off the back, flipped over, barrel rolled and collided with both the bouy markers and each other.

Being a first event, the officials tried a 'suck it and see' program of 4 boats or 4 jetskis over a 5 lap distance with handicapped starts (handicaps defined from the previous Friday practice night). This proved to be a safe formula but allowed the competitors to spread out somewhat. The laps were reduced to 3 laps and the starts were less handicapped. This format allowed for quicker races that had the competitors closer and resulted in a better racing specatacle whilst still maintaining safety levels.
Throughout the night, some entertainment was placed between the events to keep the crowd entertained. Pedro Rock decided to enter the event with his first effort of launching his boat ending in a bit a of a mishap. On arriving at the track with his trust dingy sitting on top of his car, Pedro approached the launch area at around 70 km/h. Pedro's girlfriend (Daisy), who was sitting in the boat at the time hit the water just a tad quick. Whislt an effective means of launching the boat, (when the car stopped, the boat sailed off the top of car into the water), Daisy was not overly impressed. Daisy however recovered and went for a water ski a little later on.
Two dragon boats also had a one lap dash during the interval period (I'm glad I'm not on the oars - prefer the engine assistance in my sprintcar to get around the circuit).
The finals approached was an 'all in' feature for each class of dingy and jet ski. The number of competitors for each event made for some exciting racing with several more boats ending up the wrong way up.
The night was capped off with Graham Edwards attempting the first bare foot ski around the arena. Graham managed 1.5 laps on the tight circuit before the chop got the best of him.
All in all, a pretty good night's racing. The only complaint for the serious rev head would probably be the lack of a lumpy v8 exhaust system note (dingy's and jet skis just don't quite make it).
From the Executive members of the Northline speedway, a big thankyou to all the competitors who were 'mad' enough to try an event like this and to the behind the scenes efforts of the club members, officials and sponsors that put in the time and effort to put the event together.