Newcastle’s John Towers has emerged the fastest of the field in a mud-riddled Prologue at the opening day of the Loveday 400.
The Prolite driver beat home more advanced Pro Buggy and Trophy Truck machines for early bragging rights at round three of the BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Offroad Championship (AORC), following a 24-hour deluge which left the South Australian course covered in slippery mud and considerable puddles.
Such were the horrid conditions, the Prologue course was shortened to about 5km in a bid to streamline the course.
Click here for full Prologue results.
Towers, who finished fifth outright at the Finke Desert Race in June, credited his experience on Newcastle’s sand as a key reason for the surprise Prologue win.
“We’re having a pretty good year this year it seems. We’ve been at it for quite a long time so we’re finally getting there,” he reflected.
“The course was very slippery, we have a bit of an advantage having raced beach buggies for a long time. I guess that’s an advantage and it helped us out today.”
Towers’ time of 03:37.01 was just enough to keep Extreme 2WD pilot Toby Whateley at bay (03:37.98), the pair comfortably clear of third-placed Wes Cowie, driving a Pro Buggy.
Towers’ run of form in 2025 comes after plenty of campaigning in various capacities aboard his number 127 machine, which he believes can be more than competitive on its day – citing Mel Brandle’s AORC championship success in a Prolite in 2024.
“I built this buggy at home myself in about 2005, and we started racing it about 2010,” Towers explained. “I dropped down a class recently, from Pro Buggy to Prolite. The Prolites can definitely do well, you’ve just got to drive them hard.”
Meantime, a separate battle in Loveday ensued in the competitive SXS class, with South Australian local Lachlan Bailey edging out Glen Ackroyd by less than a second to top the class, the pair starting Saturday morning’s Section 1 from fourth and fifth respectively.
“It was very slippery and muddy in the stadium section, out the back it wasn’t too bad. We had a lot of fun out there,” Bailey reflected.
“The secret is keeping it on revs and flicking the mud off the tyres. If we were to back off we would have had issue with traction in quite a few sections of the course.”
With rain predicted to ease overnight, Bailey believes the Loveday 400 course will quickly change over the opening two section on Saturday.
“We’re going to be struggling the first lap but once there has been a few cars over it I think our speed will improve,” he said.
“We will push as much as we can tomorrow.”
Kiwi young gun Boston Morgan-Horan continued his strong run of form in 2025. He will start the opening section at Loveday from sixth aboard his Extreme 2WD Trophy Truck, ahead of Jackson Evans (SXS Pro), Daniel Challen (SXS Pro), Greg Campbell (SXS Pro) and Nick Commins (Extreme 2WD).
In his first outing in the 2025 AORC, James Cook steered his Pro Buggy to 11th fastest.
Beau Robinson, who currently sits second outright in the championship, will start from 14th. Crucially, championship leader Travis Robinson (Beau’s brother), was forced to sit out Prologue due to mechanical problems, handing Beau a 100-point gain on his circa 500-point title lead.
All the action at Loveday recommences from 8.30am South Australian time on Saturday, with the opening Section 1, which comprises two 40km laps.
