Locky Weir dominates Offroad Race Club fixture
By PADDY WEIR
Rains had settled dust for the Arid Offroad NT Titles Round 1 at Mt Ooramina where 10 locals vied for good placings.
The Alice Springs Offroad Race Club fixture on April 12 had Locky Weir in his new JIMCO Prolite, 165, (pictured) in first place.
He held the fastest lap time for the weekend with his son, Tim Weir, making good lap times in his smaller Class 2 buggy.
Tim was second in prologue in his Holeshot, 255. David Bird was 3rd in 433, followed by Darren Wright racing with Cody Hodgins, instead of daughter Chloe.
Shane Greening raced with Bradley Fenton (the flying mullet) and came in 5th, struggling with an imperfect setup after losing his suspension in the unfortunate Hosetech fire.
Brett Taylor and Gerry Coop in buggy 199 were 6th, Wayne Driver and daughter Leah, 242, were 7th. Wayne pulled off an epic feat to get his car ready for the titles after recently racing at the Pooncarie Desert Dash, NSW, and suffering a steering failure.
With a long trip home from NSW he had only a few days to prepare for the weekend.
Shannon “The Wildman” Landers was back in his truck, 485, but this time in the “silly seat” with co-owner Dylan McDonald driving.
The pair came 8th in prologue. Dylan is entered in the Finke Desert Race this year and used this race to accrue some seat time. Peter Baulch was 9th in his single seater followed by Dennis DeBrenni.
The first section after Prologue consisted of two 31 km laps. Dylan and Shannon suffered two flat tyres while Tim and Kate Addison also had a rear tyre chuck its tread at the start of lap two and limped in with it going flat.
This saw Tim, 255, fall to 5th position with David Bird assuming 2nd place and Shane Greening move into 3rd.
The next section was a twilight race at 6:15pm which featured a spectacular sunrise over the hills.
Peter Baulch in the single seater had a rollover, coming over a rise too quickly. Pete was not injured, but the car broke a front hub.
The next lap in the dark had Darren Wright’s electrical gremlin giving him grief, shutting off his lights briefly a couple of times, which cost him time.
Dennis DeBrenni was forced to retire after the night lap after his brakes failed. Tim Weir and Mark Nietschke put in the fastest time of the night section propelling him into 3rd outright on corrected time.
Locky Weir finished Day 1 in 1st outright, winning prologue, Section 1 and Section 2.
On Sunday morning competitors had three times 31km laps on “the trot”. Tim Weir, 255, broke down early into the first lap with a failed rear wheel bearing. Shane Greening suffered a flat tyre. Wayne Driver suffered another steering failure but was able to fix his vehicle on track to complete the section and be classified as a finisher of the event.
The end of this fourth and final section saw Locky Weir winning the first round of the NT Titles, with David Bird coming in a close second and Brett Taylor rounding out the top three.
The weekend was concluded with a Dash for Cash event. This was a popular event for spectators with cars lining up either side of the 3km loop and racing each other.
It’s a round robin format in reverse grid order. The winner of each shoot out progressed to the next 3x3 round for the chance to win $500 donated by motorsport stalwart, Bob Baldock.
Wayne Driver, the underdog last place finisher beat Dylan McDonald in the first round before falling to Darren Wright in round two.
Shane Greening then went on to win the next four rounds in a row, beating Darren Wright, Brett Taylor and David Bird, and finally overcoming race winner Locky Weir by 7 seconds to claim the $500 prize.
The next event for the ASORRC is at the Finke Desert Race Prologue track on Sunday, May 11.
This is a popular event with car teams from interstate attending to get a good look at the track that will decide their starting order in Australia’s greatest Desert Race.