The Uncle Tobys Super Series was a professional Australian Iron Man circuit that ran from 1989 to 2001.
It was televised on Network 10.
History
The Beginning In 1984, The Coolangatta Gold became the first ever professional Iron Man race with $20,000 prize money. Guy Leech won the race in its inaugural year and also the following year before The SLSA decided to discontinue the event.
From 1986 the SLSA created a semi-professional Iron Man circuit which was called the Kelloggs Nutri-Grain Iron Man Grand Prix. Although this series did give competitors a chance to win some prizemoney, it meant that the average competitor would struggle to make a living from the sport. Several competitors had ideas for a full professional sport and expressed their ideas to the SLSA however the SLSA were not interested and the tension began to rise eventually leading to 12 competitors forming a breakaway series with rival breakfast cereal Uncle Tobys as main sponsor. The series was designed to attract more public interest and higher television ratings for what was a relatively new sport at the time.
The SLSA were totally against the Uncle Tobys Super Series and threatened the competitors with life bans. There was great tension between SLSA and the organisers especially considering that the biggest names in the series were also the biggest names in Surf Life Saving. In many ways it was similar to the World Series Cricket situation that Australia faced in the late 1970s. Both sports were facing a breakaway series which was designed for television and to attract advertising while the formal competition was to continue despite losing its main drawcards.
Initial Success The first race was held in October 1989 which was to be a new version of The Coolangatta Gold which was now renamed The Gold Coast Gold. Guy Leech comfortably won the race making him undefeated over the race from 3 attempts. The entire race was televised live and finished at sunset. Interest in the series was developing rapidly and television ratings were at an acceptable level.
1989-1994: Cereal wars and Trevor Hendy's domination As the first season progressed, Trevor Hendy and Guy Leech were the two main contenders for overall victory with Hendy coming out on top. While this was happening, the Nutri-Grain/SLSA series was also taking place but was now suffering without its best competitors. Almost every Nutri-Grain race was won by Darren Mercer and the majority of competitors were aspiring to join the more elite and more lucrative Uncle Tobys series.
The 1990/91 season was also won by Hendy with young competitors Guy Andrews and Jon Robinson finishing in second and third place respectively. The first race of the season was held in Hawaii making it the first overseas race. By now the series was beginning to make its presence felt and the competition was fierce, so much that Grant Kenny, who was a four-time Australian Iron Man champion, could only manage to finish as high as 17th in the overall series.
1991/92 was another successful year for the series and another successful year for Trevor Hendy. Despite being sick and missing the first race, Hendy recovered to win the series with Guy Andrews coming second again and Guy Leech in third. The season saw the Uncle Tobys series hold a prime-time race televised live at 6pm on a Friday night from Manly. It turned out to be a great ratings grabber with the sports two biggest names (Hendy and Leech) battling it out with Hendy narrowly winning in a sprint finish. The season also saw the emergence of talented Iron Man Jonathan Crowe who won his first Uncle Tobys race in round one in the Gold Coast Gold. The tragedy of the season was Jon Robinson being injured in a motorbike accident and missing the last 3 races. Robinson would not return for 2 years.
By now both the series and Trevor Hendy were becoming more well known. Hendy had won every series and had also won the Australian Championships in the same years. In the Australian Championships both the Uncle Tobys and Nutri-Grain competitors would compete together; the fact that Hendy had beaten all-commers left no doubt in the public's mind that he was clearly the best Iron Man in Australia.
1992/93 saw 5 races with 5 different winners before an epic final at Manly featuring 3 contenders for overall series victory. Guy Andrews had finished second to Hendy for the previous 2 years and when it came time for the final race both himself and Sean Kenny were on equal points with Hendy meaning the winner of the final race would win the series. Hendy had a disappointing race and was not in contention however Andrews and Kenny staged one of the most memorable battles in Iron Man history. Andrews initially led the race and Kenny began to close the gap eventually catching up to Andrews before a final sprint finish with Andrews then prevailing to take series victory.
Over the 7 race series in 1993/94, Hendy won 5 races and finished second twice. The season also saw the return of crowd favourite Craig Riddington who had missed the previous year with a blood clot in his arm.
1994-1996: The changing of the guard The 1994–95 season saw many new faces make their presence felt. Youngsters Phil Clayton, Scott Reeves and Simon Martin were showing their class while the likes of Scott Thomson and Guy Andrews (who were by now veterans) also remained at the top. The series was won by Michael King despite the fact that he did not win a single race in the seven race series. His consistency was enough for him to win based on overall points.
It was around this time that Trevor Hendy would begin to turn his attention to kayak paddling in hope of making Australia's Olympic Team. Despite devoting most of his training time to kayaks, Trevor still remained competitive and managed to finish second in the 1994–95 series.
The Gold Coast Gold would return for the 1995/96 season and would be won by Scott Reeves. This was to be Scott's first and only attempt at the race. Guy Andrews would go on to win the series for the second time.
The Baywatch Episode In 1996 20 of the contracted competitors were flown the United States to star in an episode of Baywatch. The episode was based around the Iron Men visiting the Baywatch characters and staging a race against them. In the fictional race Trevor Hendy narrowly beat Mitch Buchannon who was played by David Hasselhoff.
Jonathan Crowe, Guy Andrews and Trevor Hendy all had speaking roles in the episode as did series promoter Michael Porra.
The Piha Race That same season, 1996/97, saw probably the most famous ironman race to be run in the series. Piha beach, New Zealand, played host to Round Five of that year's series, and gave the series its biggest surf ever to be raced in. It is well remembered for two waves from Grant Wilkinson, who first picked a perfect wave on the ski leg, a ten-foot wave that never broke until it got to shore. On the board leg, he went better, catching a twelve-foot, and survived being swallowed by the white water, doing a few barrel rolls, before coming out the front of the wave. The race is also remembered for a fifteen-foot set that came through at the end of the final ski leg, and the four competitors who just snuck over it. Scott Reeves won that race, and then went on to win the series later that season.
1997-1998: The emergence of Ky Hurst During the 1997–98 season, the sports newest superstar emerged in 16-year-old Ky Hurst. Hurst would soon become the sports leading competitor and would later represent Australia at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
The 1997-98 also saw Darren and Dean Mercer compete in the series for the first time however surprisingly neither of them were competitive. By now the prizemoney for the entire series was at a total of $900,000. This was also to be the first season where series creator Michael Porra would not be involved with the series. Porra had also commentated every race since 1989. Guy Andrews went on to win the series for the third time.
1999-2001 Series decline and lack of sponsorship
During the late 1990s the series began to struggle to attract sponsorship. As a result, prize money became less and the amount of contracted competitors decreased from 20 to 12. Television coverage also decreased. Originally each race would normally be a 3-hour broadcast and there would also be a 1-hour highlights package shown later that night. By the late 1990s the entire broadcast was limited to 2 hours and this also included the Ironwomen races. The profile of leading competitors was not as great as the Iron Men of the early 1990s when the series was at its peak.
The Sydney Olympics had been believed to be the main reason why sponsorship had gone elsewhere as most companies wanted to be an Olympic sponsor and this meant there was not enough leftover funds to put into sports such as IronMan.
As a result, the escalating costs became too much and a decision was made to discontinue the series in June 2001.
Formats Unlike many other sports, IronMan racing, and especially the Super Series, relied on many different formats, to appeal to both viewers and different types of athletes.
The Gold Coast Gold Based on The Coolangatta Gold, the ultra-endurance test was run in 1989, 1991 and 1995. The idea of the new race was the same as the original, a race from Surfer's Paradise, down to Coolangatta, and back up again. However, the race format of The Gold Coast Gold was essentially the reverse; it started with a ski leg from Surfer's to the Greenmount end of Coolangatta, a run to the northern end of Coolangatta beach, a board paddle to Tugun, a run across to Currumbin Creek, then a swim along Palm Beach, another run, the penultimate leg, a swim around Burleigh Heads, before the final run from Burleigh, over Nobby's Headland, and then onto Surfer's Paradise. Considered the hardest race in IronMan, and also the most prestigious. It lasted around 4 and a half hours, over twice the next longest format. It was only run three times, with three different winners, Guy Leech, Jonathon Crowe and Scott Reeves. Scott Reeves would become one of the few IronMen, along with Michael King and Zane Holmes, to win this race or The Coolangatta Gold, and a Professional Series Title (Reeves The Gold 1995 and the Series in 1996/97, King in 1991 and 1994/95, and Holmes in 2006 and 2007/08) . Darren Mercer also won The Coolangatta Gold in 1992, and was a six time IronMan champion in the Kellogg's Surf League. The Gold Coast Gold would also see the largest fields in Super Series history. While the typical field for an endurance race was 36 competitors, in 1991 the event was contested by 48, and in 1995, by nearly 100.
The Marathon The two-hour endurance race was run in a more traditional IronMan style, with water legs in and out of the surf with run legs in between. While not as gruelling as The Gold Coast Gold, The Marathon events were traditionally races for similar athletes, especially Guy Leech, who proved to be very adept at racing over the longer distance. While the format for The Marathon changed slightly from race to race and year to year, the basic concept remained the same. Beginning with a run leg of about 800–1200 m, usually with some mix of soft and hard sand. The race then moved onto the first water leg. After it was completed, the run was completed again, which was followed on by the second water leg, and so on for the third water leg. The three water legs (ski, swim, board), would then be completed again, in the same order, which was then followed up with a final run to the finish. The order of the water legs was random as in typical surf carnivals. The courses also varied depending on the venue. At some, an m-shaped course was run, meaning the athletes had to negotiate the surf twice per leg, whereas others used a box-shaped course, and gave different value to different parts of the course, depending on what winds were blowing.