2025 AORC title fight wide open in Pooncarie

The 2025 BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship officially launches this weekend, with the Wentworth Shire Pooncarie Desert Dash.

A field of 55 cars and buggies will head to the 105.5km circuit in remote south-western New South Wales for the first stop in the 2025 title chase.

However, two notable teams will be missing in action.

Defending AORC champions Mel and Liam Brandle have confirmed they will not contest the Pooncarie event, instead opting to continue their preparations ahead of an anticipated assault on the Finke Desert Race in June.

The South Australian father and son successfully won the 2024 AORC title aboard their Prolite machine. At the completion of the season, Mel Brandle parted ways with the winning machine and purchased a Pro Buggy for the 2025 season.

Brandle has confirmed the new machine wasn’t quite ready for competition, so he has decided to sit out Pooncarie entirely.

In another surprise, 2024 SXS champions James and Michael Mogford have not entered the Pooncarie event either.

In any case, Pooncarie will play host to some heavy hitters vying to stamp their mark on the 2025 championship. Chief among them are 2024 AORC runner-up Beau Robinson and, his brother, 2023 AORC champion Travis Robinson.

For 2025, Beau Robinson will once again contest the Extreme 2WD class alongside navigator Shane Hutt. Travis Robinson will pair with Andrew Pinto in their Pro Buggy machine.

The Trophy Trucks field will be hotly contested in Pooncarie, with Boston Morgan-Horan, Brett Comiskey, Nicholas Commins and Andrew Commins among the key contenders.

In the Pro Buggy field, Travis Robinson will have to fend off the likes of championship regulars Nick Hicks and Jared Percival.

In the SXS Championship, Glenn Ackroyd is hungry to continue his momentum in 2025. Ackroyd took out the final Kalgoorlie stop of the 2024 championship, only to narrowly miss out on the championship to James Mogford.

With the Mogfords not entered into the Pooncarie event, Akroyd has a golden opportunity on his hands to advance his title chase.

Elsewhere, in the Production Class battle, Geoff Pickering (Ford Raptor) and Norman Parker (Toyota LandCruiser 76 Series) will do battle once again.

All the action in Pooncarie, located about an hour north of Mildura, kicks off on Friday with scrutineering and a Show and Shine event on the main straight.

Organisers of the Pooncarie event have reversed the course for 2025, as well as revising the pit entry and exit.

The Pooncarie Desert Dash event begins on Saturday with a 9.5km Prologue to determine the starting order, followed by three laps of the full 105.5km course.

Section One will be run on Saturday, with Section Two running on Sunday, totalling a gruelling 441km.

Section Two comprises two laps of the course run continuously, followed by a 45 minute service break, and then a final lap of the course.

The first cars will hit the course on Saturday morning, with Prologue scheduled from 11am AEDT.