Shepparton locals ski to a debut win at Southern 80

By Liam Nash

Feb 14, 2024

Smoke show: Shepparton’s Nathan Glynn, Beau Glynn, Lucas Davkovski and David Davkovski made up the winning under-12 social team at the Southern 80.

There was nothing artifice about the performance put out by the team skiing behind Smoke N Mirrors at the Southern 80.

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A Shepparton pre-teen duo with just a month’s experience in waterski racing took out the under-12 social class at the famed Murray River speed mecca on Saturday.

Beau Glynn and Lucas Davkovski, led by their fathers Nathan Glynn and David Davkovski, romped home in the Ashley Cox-owned Smoke N Mirrors to mark a more-than-successful race debut on the water.

Especially when you consider one didn’t even want to race in the first place.

“My daughter did her first race in the Beehag (Beehag 100 Ski Race) last December, so I decided to buy a race boat because she enjoyed it,” team manager Nathan said.

“I went up to Hervey Bay in the second week of January and picked up a boat to tow my daughter and another young kid from Echuca, so we got an entry in under-14s.

“My son Beau didn’t want to ski at the start, but then decided to have a crack with Lucas.

“We got a late entry in, trained the boys up for four weeks and then they went out and won it which was great.”

There aren’t many better to learn from than Nathan Glynn.

A racing veteran of more than 30 years, Nathan won the Southern 80 outright in 1995 behind God’s Gift, arguably the most famous boat in Australian waterskiing history.

He made sure Beau and Lucas were ready to rip in their bindings, but a mini-disaster struck the weekend before the race.

“I was supposed to drive my boat, but something went wrong with it on the weekend before during practice on Sunday,” Nathan said.

“I had to get a mate’s fill-in boat, Ashley Cox’s from Echuca; they had a practice behind that on the Wednesday night, did the race and took it out.

“They were really happy.”

The Glynn-Davkovski team breezed home with a time of 12:07.29 behind Smoke N Mirrors, close to a minute faster than the second-placed team trailing Wastindough.

And they’re not done yet.

“They’re already asking to do the next race at Robinvale, so we put an entry in for that,” Nathan said.

“And then we’ll travel to Mildura at Easter and do the same sort of thing; tow the boys in social and tow my daughter in expert.

“It’s a bit of a family affair; we’ve got the bug.”