The Melbourne driver, who has stepped out of the shadow of best mate Brett Sheppard, powered to victory in the J&R Roofing Dargle Gold Cup and the Dennis Clarke King Of The River in his beefy monster Rythum.

Ironically he beat Sheppard into second in Unleashed Again in the Gold Cup, while Hawkesbury September Spectacular winner John Cross (in Rival) was third in his other boat Miscreant.

Rythum beat Shane Vella's SV61 in the King Of The River, with Cross again in third spot.

Hodgson, who was a crew member on Sheppard's team, stepped into Rythum early last year after an offer from owner Rod Cooney to drive, and he has taken all before him, already winning the feature events this year at Berri in South Australia and Lake Mulwala on the Murray River.

Last year he won the Cross Memorial at the September Spectacular and showed remarkable improvement throughout the year, but the weekend's events prove he has arrived as a major player.

A lower-than-normal, but still healthy crowd of up to 4500 turned out at Lower Portland during the two-day event, with numbers affected by the wild weather on Friday night that dumped 25mm of rain on Dargle and had organisers considering cancelling the event until conditions cleared up on Saturday morning.

Former Hawkesbury competitor Cross and Miscreant didn't go home empty handed after winning the Casenails 6 litre Injected Displacement category from Andrew Walmsley (Joe Jnr) and John Gray (Dusty).

Local star Darren Greentree took out the 6 litre Restricted Prostock displacement event in Handfull, beating Upper Hawkesbury Powerboat Club executive member John Davoll (Desperate) as well as Leo Jennen (Headache).

Vella also had a winner in one of the feature undercard races when he took SV61 to victory in the Uunlimited Outboard class from Chris Kuznetsoff (Sports Film) and David Minton (Bulls Eye), while Allen Micallef (Hostage) beat Michael Newton (Quick Trip) and Adam Woods (Trouble) in the 5.2 litre Injected Displacement category.