Hindmarsh Shire Rainbow Desert Enduro organisers are confident this year’s upcoming BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship (AORC) round will be one of the best yet.
As usual, the event will see scrutineering take place on Friday night, Prologue on the Saturday morning, before two laps of the 87km course in the afternoon and the remaining five laps held on Sunday.
The event will see competitors tackle more than 600 kilometres across the weekend, making it the longest on the five round BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship calendar.
However, while there are no changes to the event itself, Rainbow will have a different narrative to previous years, exciting the organising club, the Victorian Off Road Racing Association (VORRA).
As a result of the inclusion of the Can-Am Loveday 400 and the Kalgoorlie Desert Race into the AORC, the event is no longer the final round of the season.
The date of the enduro will also be different to its first three years, which were impacted by heavy rainfall.
While the change of date to three weeks later was announced ahead of the 2020 season, the sunny and perfect weather conditions during the new proposed dates have given the organisers plenty of hope.
With the new changes certain to make this year’s race exciting for competitors and spectators alike, VORRA president Tony Carabott was itching to run the event again.
“We have started planning already and our processes have already commenced. The track is going to be the same. We think we have it down pat so there will be no changes there,” Carabott said.
“Last year, the weekend that we normally have it on had lots of rain, but our new weekend time slot was perfect, so it seems that the decision to change was a promising one.
“Usually, we are the last round of the season, but now we have moved to the penultimate round which is beneficial for us because lots of crews will want to come as there will be still plenty of fight left in title races.
“All in all, it’s pretty much the same as it was two years ago, except the weather will be nicer and people will still have a chance for some silverware.
“We’re really excited to run the event if we can. There is a lot of interest surrounding it and having an event next month will be the perfect set up for the event.”
As it did last year, the club’s smaller outing, the Rainbow 240, will act as the precursor to the AORC event and give local crews a chance to prepare themselves for the big race.
Taking place at the start of March, the event has already reached a full capacity of 50 crews and will run in a similar fashion to August’s race, only with less kilometres and laps to be run.
The shorter race will also give event organisers a chance to get everything right ahead of the AORC’s fourth round.
The Rainbow 240 gets underway in Rainbow on 6-7 March, while the Hindmarsh Shire Rainbow Desert Race takes place at the same course on 27-29 August.
Photo: Show N Go Photography
