Travis Robinson and co-driver Trent Anthony have dominated this weekend’s St George 399, claiming round one of the BFGoodrich CAMS Australian Off Road Championship (AORC) in convincing style.
Robinson led the event from start to finish in the BFGoodrich Jimco Nissan 3.5T, posting the fastest time in yesterday’s prologue and going on to take the honours in all three sections of the event.
Robinson, who finished the event six minutes ahead of his closest rival, was thrilled with the performance of his team this weekend.
“My boys did an awesome job; Murray, Brett, Luke and Trent my navigator did an awesome job, we couldn’t have asked for a better weekend,” Robinson said.
“Our BFGoodrich Tires performed perfectly and a big thanks to everyone in the town of St George, they were great.”
Robinson also sung the praises of his co-driver, Trent Anthony.
“Trent is really good, he is an ex-motorbike racer and he is pretty crazy like me so hopefully at Finke we will be able to step it up a notch and put on a show for everyone.”
It was a tough day for Bryce Chapman and co-driver Mitch Warren in their TPE Jimco 6L; the pair experienced mechanical issues late in today’s race and were lucky to hold on to second outright.
“It’s great to come back with a finish and a second place but it wasn’t easy,” said Chapman.
“That first heat today we ended up running on six cylinders; I think it is probably running on five or four now. That last lap was shocking, I don’t think I could get over 50 kilometres an hour.
“Our intercoms weren’t working, nothing was working, we didn’t know what was going on with our temperatures, oil pressures—we just kept going and we got it here.”
Chapman said the mechanical issues will be fixed in plenty of time for the next AORC round.
“We’ll be ready for Finke, no doubt. We will be back in the shed tomorrow, stripped down, washed and we will start ordering some new parts.”
Matthew Martin charged through the field today in his prolite buggy, recovering from a poor prologue to claim third outright.
“I qualified bad, I shouldn’t have qualified where I did, it was my fault,” explained Martin.
“We had a bit of a fuel pump issue in reconnaissance so we had to get towed back in and play around with it and that’s why we were so far back and had to come through the field.
“The conditions made that quite difficult, it was really dusty. You just had to wait for the right spot and overtake them.”
Martin will welcome back his co-driver for the Finke Desert Race in June.
“My daughter will be back as co-driver for Finke, she just had a baby four weeks ago so I thought I would give her the weekend off but she’ll be back for the next one,” Martin joked.
Tait Svenson, driving the German Autos Prolite Stealth 3.5L, was unable to hold onto his third position from yesterday, pipped by Martin by just 25 seconds.
Rounding out the top five was Phil Lovett and Paul Guenthen in the Lovetts Cessnock Earthmoving Can-am X3, also claiming the UTV class win.
The 2017 BFGoodrich CAMS AORC will head to the famous Finke Desert Race for round two on 9-12 June.
