How things can change in a couple of months.
Before the opening round of the Comiskey Mining Services Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship in April, it’s fair to say West Australian Logan Gill was a relative unknown to the off road scene.
No previous national starts, no track record, even no state finishes to his name after repeated mechanical failures last year.
What has since ensued is nothing short of incredible.
At 16 years of age, Gill and his navigator Leigh Van Der Wall romped their way to a maiden AORC round win in their first attempt at the Pooncarie Desert Dash seven weeks ago – taking out the competitive AORC SXS class victory ahead of defending SXS champions Lachie Bailey and Jordan Zollo.
In the lead-up to his first Tatts Finke Desert Race, the Year 11 student from Kalgoorlie chats about ‘that’ performance at Round 1, his aspirations in the AORC, and why he loves desert racing so much.
“I’ve watched Dad since I was about 10 years old, racing around in all Western Australian state rounds. He slowly got me into it,” Gill tells Spotlight On.
“I’ve been in the buggy since I was about 10, started racing at 14 and just slowly got more and more into it.
“This year we got into the Can-Am Maverick R and we thought ‘why not do all the national rounds? We’re already doing Finke and Kalgoorlie – so it’s only two more.”
Upgrading from an X3 machine that he had raced in state rounds last year, Gill quickly gelled with his new Maverick R machine to revel in the worsening conditions in Pooncarie.
He emerged as the fastest SXS runner on the Saturday, before taking control of the race and managing from the front on Sunday.
“I find these to be a lot more forgiving,” he said of the new machine. “If you make a mistake in this it doesn’t really matter. If you make a mistake in an X3, it’s like ‘bang, that hurt’.
“These are terrific, especially in the rough.”
Pooncarie marked a stark turnaround for the youngster, who admits his finishing record at state rounds last year was “pretty ordinary” aboard the mechanically prone X3.
“I love the challenge about it,” he said about off road racing.
”You go around a road course and it can change a smidge, but out here you go around to do a lap and you don’t know what you’re going to get. It could be completely different every single time – and it usually is.”
Gill is part of the young breed looking to make an impact at this year’s Finke Desert Race. Another 16-year-old SXS competitor, Samuel Commins, will be another to watch in the return dash from Alice Springs to Aputula, or Finke.
For Gill, the aspiration at Finke is simply to finish the event – a mindset he is carrying throughout the entire AORC season.
“I’m looking forward to finishing it hopefully,” he said.
“Before Pooncarie, I hadn’t finished a race in probably two years since I started racing, just getting technical issues. All of last year we were plagued with problems, mainly belts and stuff like that. Hopefully we don’t have them now
“A good finish would be nice. A good result would be awesome but to get that you need to finish.
“In fact, my goal is to finish every event. If we finish in a good spot, then awesome, but just to finish all four rounds – I’d be very happy.”
The 50th annual Tatts Finke Desert Race runs on the King’s Birthday long weekend, June 4-8.
