ORANZ REGIONAL FINALS
In a matter of two weekends in September, off-road racing crowned its regional champions and found two new outright champions. Mark Baker has the story.
In the south, Taranaki’s Brendon Old hammered home his challenge at the start of September with a strong showing at the final round, held on Slim Slee’s Can-Am backed stadium short course near Kurow.
There, he took his US-built single-seater to three wins out of four heats up against arch rival Brendon Midgley – also a northern competitor. Three second placings and a win in his Alumicraft single seater race car were enough to give Old the win after strong performances at the first two rounds, and his ultimate pace at Kurow compromised through Saturday’s heats with a recurrent misfire eventually traced to a fuel pump malfunction.
The Otago Offroad Racing Club’s two-day event featured a full day of ‘short course’ heats on a terraformed stadium-style track on Slim and Janina Slee’s massive farm just outside Kurow. The following day racers contested a stand-alone 260 km endurance race.
Throughout all four heats Brendon Midgley, pushed Old hard and took race wins with Fergus Crabb and Joel Green also in class contention. None, though, had amassed enough points going into the round to hand them the title.
Big boys’ class brings biggest crash
Nelson’s Greg Winn was the first casualty in the big-banger unlimited class, hit from behind by northern racer Mike Fraser and pitched into a deep ditch which smashed his Scorpion Chev’s front suspension.
The unlimited class also provided the most spectacular crash of the day. Christchurch driver Mark Brown cartwheeled his new American single-seater over the course’s daunting ‘ table-top’ jump, where cars flew two metres or more in the air. Brown launched off the upward ramp and landed awkwardly on one front wheel, rebounding into the air and cartwheeling down the track for more than 20 metres. The race was stopped and he emerged from his battered car shaken but able to walk unaided – directly into the course ambulance for a comprehensive check-over.
Aucklander John Morgan also narrowly escaped a rollover in a later unlimited class heat when his car’s tyres dug into a rut and pitched it into a long two-wheeling ‘bicycle’ moment before dropping back on its wheels, but went on to win class one for the weekend.
Cooler heads prevail in other classes
There was less chaos in the smaller classes, with northern racers winning several class titles. Todd Graham ( Napier) won class five for cars with engines up to 1.3 litres while consistency was the keyword from Christchurch teen Brooke Storer, who won the VW Challenger heats ahead of Andrew Knight.
Tauranga’s Dyson Delahunty has been on the pace all year in the south, running a single- seater Polaris in the JG Civil U class, and Kurow was no exception, the youngster taking four wins from four starts in an untroubled run.
Likewise in a 10- strong grid of S class modified UTVs, northerner Joel Giddy took three wins from four starts, with event host Slim Slee following him home in second place in his Can- Am.
4WD Bits class 2, meanwhile, was owned lock, stock and barrel by Christchurch’s Rob Crosbie in his Mitsubishi Pajero.
There was a ding- dong battle, meanwhile, in 4WD Bits class 8, where the experienced Bryan Chang, came under sustained fire from the V8- engined trucks of Cam Stratford and Paul Preston and the six cylinder Ford Prolite of Bruce McKenzie. Stratford broke his front driveshaft, while Preston’s Toyota Hilux V8 managed three wins before i t went out with a mechanical issue, leaving
Chang in a well- deserved second place in the Giti Tyres Chev turbo.
In other notable results, Otago driver Barry Phillips managed second in the VW Baja- based class nine behind Donald McMillan.
The smallest cars in the event were four in the Kiwitruck youth categories for Arron Crabb, Asher Morgan,
Harry Hodgson and Jack Brownlees with Morgan and Hodgson winning their classes.
The event maxed out Kurow’s accommodation, with an estimated 405 bed- nights required just to handle the racing crews, which average three people.