Race chairman Alastair Douglas with race sponsor Steve Hinton, H&R Block general manager.
ALASTAIR Douglas has been involved with the Three Peaks Race from the beginning and this year the event chairman will oversee the 25th running of the unique sailing and running event.
"We stated work on the first race about 18 months before it started (on Good Friday, 1989) so it's a bit longer than 25 years," he said.
"I was doing yacht safety then. The title was chief scrutineer, but you did all sorts of different jobs."
In 1992 he became race director.
"For the last four years Peter Sluce [from the Port Dalrymple Yacht Club] has been race director but I was chairman and race director for a while."
He said the value of the event was much wider than the sailing and running it involved around Tasmania's coastline from Beauty Point to Hobart.
"It's an event run by people from the community for the benefit of the community."
That particularly applies to Beauty Point, Lady Barron and Coles Bay where the race is an Easter tradition.
"It doesn't seem to matter to the public if you've got a big fleet or small fleet, they still follow the race".
Mr Douglas said volunteers like Gerald and Robyn Dilger on Flinders Island had also been involved since 1989.
And he's grateful to the volunteer marshalls who man the checkpoints on top of the three mountains during the race.
"They sit up there for hours in the wind and cold and sometimes rain and when they come back and say, `gee, we've had fun, make sure you've got our names down for next year', that's pretty special."
He said there had been a lot of notable people in the race over the past 24 years and working with such a wide range of competitors had been a special opportunity.
Twelve teams have so far entered for the 25th race, one of the smaller fleets in the race's history.
But despite pressure from newer endurance events and other activities, Mr Douglas thinks there will always be a place for the Three Peaks Race.
READ MORE THREE PEAKS: Pages 36-37