The BFGoodrich CAMS Australian Off Road Championship caught up with 2018 outright champion Shannon Rentsch, who was also crowned Pro-Buggy champion.
BFGoodrich CAMS Australian Off Road Championship: Congratulations on winning the class Shannon, how does it feel?
Shannon Rentsch: To get the class win was definitely great. However because there was a lot of racing going on between Pro-Buggies and Trucks, it tends to be all about the outright battle and importantly I was able to win that this year. Obviously as a result of the outright championship victory, I took out the class win, which is always nice.
AORC: On that note, it was a pretty good season for you then?
SR: The season was pretty much perfect, it’s always hard but everything seemed to run smoothly for us, we didn’t have any major mechanical issues and we kept the car on track. We were really fast for pretty much the whole time and everything ran smoothly so it worked out just about ideal.
AORC: Were there any particular moments that stick out?
SR: The best moment I would have to say was winning Finke, it’s the one I want to win the most and it was great to get our sixth win this year.
It’s always hard there even just to finish, it’s a big effort and to win both sections and start first because of a solid prologue as well, it was a good achievement. We also have never led from start to finish before which was awesome. It was really important with the conditions being so dry and dusty.
AORC: Any bad moments from the year?
SR: In St George, it’s a fairly small track and fairly dry, In the first section we got slowed down by the slower cars, a car caught fire in front of us early on which made it pretty tough. It was a hard start to that event and we had to make up a lot of time at St George but it all worked out in the end.
AORC: Plans for 2019?
SR: I plan to do the Championship again. Hopefully run the same car again, maybe I can improve a couple of things but nothing too drastic. I would like to think that we’re a chance to win the title but we will see come the first round in April.
