By PADDY WEIR
The heat didn’t beat the Alice Springs Off Road Race Club (ASORRC) on the weekend: They ran the prologue of the NT Titles Round 1 at 5pm on Saturday, a lot later than usual, and this was followed by two separate 31km laps.
Shane Greening set the pace coming first in prologue, followed by Locky Weir in his new Prolite JIMCO number 165. This is Locky and Paddy’s first-time back racing since 2020 as their son, Jack, has been racing their older JIMCO Prolite number 155 since 2021.
Tim Weir finished prologue in third position in his Holeshot, Class 2 number 255. David Bird, Indiana Station, came fourth in his trophy truck. Jack Weir came next followed by Dennis Debrenni, 547, in sixth place.
On International Women’s Day it was great to see women out competing in a historically male dominated sport. On social media, 70% of the ASORRC followers are male, so it is brilliant to have women of all age groups coming out and participating.
Chloe Wright drove with her dad, Darren, by her side on Saturday, coming in 8th in Prologue. She continued to race on day one but during the night lap had some problems with the car.
Darren jumped into the driver’s seat for day two, again having issues with the car. Jessica Foley and her Mum, Kylie, in 234 (pictured) were 10th in Prologue. Gerry and Tanya Coop spent the week trying to get their car ready for the race and despite not being entirely confident the car was ready, came out as they wanted to have some “drive time”.
The Section One lap started at 5.30pm with Jack Weir coming in with a flat tyre.
Locky and Paddy Weir took outright first place in Section 1, starting the night lap in first place ahead of Shane Greening, Tim Weir and David Bird.
In Section 2, the night lap, David Bird blitzed the field with the fastest time. Shane Greening was in second place but had a big off with suspension failure and surfed over a berm, tipping his car.
Luckily there were no injuries, and he was able to recover the car for racing Sunday morning.
Sunday morning racing started right at 7am with Locky Weir, 165, starting out first.
This section was 4x31km laps. The attrition in the cars was heavy: Locky Weir was out 20kms in with overheating issues when a hose came off the radiator.
Shane Greening again had suspension issues, breaking down in the first lap too.
David Bird had the biggest disappointment; his newly built 7L motor suffered serious issues, seeing him out of the race early in Section 3.
New competitor, Wayne Driver in 242, missed a corner in heavy dust and hit a tree with his front left tyre. This broke the steering box mount. He was able to limp back into the pits but was unable to repair the car to finish.
Dennis Debrenni was thrilled with his car performance until lap three, when he lost all power due to wiring meltdown.
By the end of the racing day two only four cars finished of the eleven that started, but everyone agreed they had a great weekend of racing.
The results were as follows: Tim Weir & Mark Nietschke in 255, Jack Weir & Liv Antonelli 155, all-female team, Jessica and Kylie Foley in car 284 and Darren and Chloe Wright in 1059.