The 2025 BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship (AORC) has reached the finale of the season, with outright and class titles up for grabs at the Black Diamond Drilling Kalgoorlie Desert Race on 24-26 October.
With points totals now worth 1.5 times more than compared to previous rounds, the maximum amount of points up for grabs in class performances now increases to as much as 1,050 (including Prologue points).
Travis Robinson (2374 points) and Paul Currie’s lead in the Outright Championship standings has closed to just to 330 points, following brother Beau Robinson’s (2044 points) win at St George alongside navigator Shane Hutt, setting up for a winner takes all finale later this month in the pair’s home state.
Rounding out the all-Western Australian post-Round 4 outright podium is Jared Percival (1596 points) who received a nice bump in the standings after claiming outright third at the KMC Wheels St George 399. Percival has yet to register for the event.
Chasing the top three are South Australians Lachlan Bailey (1,030 points) and navigator Jordan Zollo, and Hayden Bentley (988 points) alongside Viv Coe, who could both find movement up and down the final standings based on their upcoming performances.
Moving through the classes, Boston Morgan-Horan (1,635 points) is putting the pressure on Beau Robinson’s (2,070) grip on the Extreme 2WD category. Nicholas Burt (1,525) is also a chance to leapfrog up the standings if results fall his way.
To the Extreme 4WD, Outright Championship leader Travis Robinson sits atop the class on 1,800 points, but by no means is his lead safe. Hayden Bentley currently stands on the second step with 1,404 points and Brent Smoothy (not currently entered for Kalgoorlie) follows closely in third with 1,320 points.
The aforementioned Jared Percival sits behind the Robinson brothers in the Outright Championship chase, but sits in first in the PRO Buggy standings with 1,979 points. While the lead is sizeable heading into Kalgoorlie, Paul Tuck-Lee (1,334 points) and Cooper Western (1,144 points) remain in the running for potential upsets, the latter of which has still yet to register.
The Production 4WDs is led by Queenslander Norman Parker with three class wins already under the belt, with a potential hat-trick on the cards to build on his 1,800 points. Although, Parker has yet to register for the Kalgoorlie Desert Race. Geoffrey Pickering, also yet to enter the event, sits in second with 1,043 points and is still searching for his first class win of the year.
New South Wales’ John Towers, who has yet to register, holds a strong advantage in the class standings with 921 points, almost double the points total ahead of Alan Dixon (585 points) and Alexandra Howells (582 points), who has also not entered the event at this stage.
The Sports Lite field is arguably the tightest category heading into Kalgoorlie, with the top seven vehicles separated by less than 200 points.
At the top of the logjam is Sam Bentley (636 points), closely followed by Paul Tinga (600 points) and David Adams (579 points). David Mendham (528 points) and Christopher Sollitt (474 points) round out the top five. Bentley, Tinga, Adams and Mendham have yet to register for the event.
The Super 1650 category will return to the schedule this round, with Northern Territory representative Gerry Coop (1,006 points) on the verge of the class Championship win, followed by Tyler Owen (600 points) on the back of the Pooncarie win at the start of the year, and Finke Desert Race class runner-up Wayne Foley trailing in third (474 points). Owen and Foley have yet to enter for Kalgoorlie.
The Motorsport Australia SXS Championship outright standings place Lachlan Bailey (2,048 points) ahead of Gregory Campbell (1,724). Following the top two is Glen Ackroyd with 1,462 points made up from his two wins at Pooncarie and Loveday.
In the Motorsport Australia Australian Off Road Championship SXS class standings, just 22 points between leader Campbell (1,687 points) and Bailey (1,665) in the SXS Pro class. Waiting in the wings is Ackroyd on 1,438 points in third, where there remains a chance the New South Wales driver can still steal a class win in 2025. Campbell is yet to officially enter the final round.
While mathematically possible, John White (336 points) and Dave Settle (142 points) could still win the SXS Sport category, but with Ross Newman (1,142 points) ahead by more than 800 points and with three rounds, it’ll be difficult for White and Settle to dislodge Newman from the top spot. All three have yet to officially enter the race.
Registrations close for the Black Diamond Drilling Kalgoorlie Desert Race on Friday, 3 October at 7pm AEST.
