As we reach the eve of the 2021 BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship (AORC) season, things are starting to take shape for the Cobb & Co Hotel St George 399.
Set in the rural south east Queensland town of St George, the AORC is looking in the best shape as it has in years with more than 94 crews to do battle over three days of action.
The crews will complete three sections of the course, with one section of two laps on both Saturday and Sunday morning, while Sunday afternoon will see a one-lap dash of the 79km course.
But it all begins on Friday afternoon with one of the most important parts of the event – prologue.
In previous years, prologue has taken place on Saturday morning, however with the organising club, South East Queensland Off Road Racing Association (SEQORRA) moving it to Friday, it means crews can put everything into getting a good time and not taking it easy.
Do well in prologue and get as close as top spot as possible, and drivers can focus on just producing solid lap after lap to avoid the dust.
However, not only is the St George course and format different to previous years, but lots of recent rainfall in Queensland will likely add another challenge to crews.
Which makes going well in prologue even more important.
Starting from 3pm AEST on Friday afternoon, SEQORRA recently released the starters’ list and it’s 14-time Production 4WD Champion Geoff Pickering who has the honour of getting the ball rolling for 2021.
The last car to tackle prologue will be AORC debutant Glenn Brinkman who will run his prologue at 5pm local time.
Following on from prologue, the top 10 fastest will then battle it out in a shootout for the ever-important top spot, with results to be released at 7:30pm local time that night.
Click here to view the starting list for Prologue.
The Cobb & Co Hotel St George 399 takes place in St George from 19-21 March.
Photo: Terry Hill Photography