It was the Queenslanders who rose to the occasion in their home state in today’s Markwell Group Gold City 450 opening battle, with locals Daniel Dunn and Shane Dale finishing top of the time sheet in this morning’s Transportable Shade Sheds Prologue.
The pair completed the 10km course without trouble, recording a time of 7m 15s to cement the top spot – 11 seconds faster than the next crew.
Beating current BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship (AORC) contenders for first position, Dunn and Dale called on local knowledge to secure what will be an advantageous first run on track.
View this post on Instagram
“Good run, circuit was slippery and dusty, but couldn’t be happier,” Dunn said following the conclusion of Prologue.
“A bit of local knowledge, but a lot of other people here have raced that track, so everyone knows a bit about it – so it’s even contention.
“For the first bit of the race, I think it will be a major advantage. But once the big trucks get on the straights, we’ll be moving over and letting them pass and then we’ll all have equal amount of dust.”
Rolling through in second was James Mogford and Michael Mogford, the current SXS Pro second-place duo completing the course in seven minutes 7m 26s – beating championship leaders Beau Robinson and Shane Hutt by just two seconds.
Robinson was the fastest in the Extreme 2WD class to cross the line this morning, with the top two an SXS Pro lockout.
Following in fourth and the fastest of the Pro Buggy contenders for the morning was Roydn Bailey and Simon Herrmann, the South Australian pair finishing in seven minutes and 34 seconds.
Coming in only a tenth of a second behind Bailey was Mel Brandle and Liam Brandle in fifth, a strong finish for what will be a key point-scoring opportunity for the current outright championship second-placed team and ProLite class leaders.
View this post on Instagram
It was also a razor thin margin between fifth and sixth, with Lachlan Bailey and Nathan Sracek finishing less than a second behind the Brandles.
Glen Ackroyd and Michael Price secured seventh position as we moved through the seven-minute 50s, with Benjamin Nixon and Thomas Margitich sandwiched between the two more top-performing Queenslanders in Glenn Brinkman and Jaclyn Hughes in eights and Laurence Svenson and Janelle Svenson in 10th.
Looking to the other classes, Christopher Sollitt topped the SportsLite entrants, while Michael Shipton and Paul Chorlton finished top of their class in the Performance 2WD category.
Of the Production 4WD competitors, Norman Parker and Tyson Parker proved the stronger pair on the 10km course – while Ross Newman and Jessica Jackson locked away the SXS Sport category.
View the full Transportable Shade Sheds Prologue results here.
The Gold City 450 continues this afternoon with three laps of the 165km course for Section 1.
Fans can keep up to date with the live results on our Live Wall and across our social media channels.
Photos: Terry Hill
