What a weekend we had at Cherrabah Resort for the Rnd 2 PJ's Off Road Stampede.
Thursday/Friday track marking saw us running around on a wet track in rain, cold and wind liking it to ULTRA4 EUROPE . Not ideal but at least there's no dust right?
Anyway the competitors had started rolling in on Thursday much to their disgust of the weather.
Friday saw our mates from Cutting Edge Plasma carry out the scrutineering for us while the rest of the team finished setting up.
Fridays track run took a little more time than expected due to some terrain needing to be changed and some track mods to split Mod/UTV and the Ultra4 lines.
Feedback from the racers was good with it being about 11km and a great mixture of rock terrain and open runs for the teams to stretch their legs. The Vegas run (along the side of the 800m airstrip) was a favourite for those with some top end speed.
Saturday morning saw the rain ease off but the wind and cold still around.
We kicked of the first of the 2hr heats at 8am with a strong field of and things were going well. Track had a few bog holes appear so they were quickly changed during racing and the flow was good.
Unfortunately for a number of teams this heat wasn't on their side.
The first victim was Midget MotorSports who busted a rear trailing arm only 500m in, Next was the Vitara of Peer Pressure Racing who's front diff centre didn't want to hold on anymore.
We then had some of the Ultra4's with issues.
The Davimac Motorsports broke a front axle and were out, Jet Racing had a front diff decide not to play anymore, Superior Engineering had an electrical gremlin jump on board stopping the blown LS in its tracks and Thorpe Motorsport's buggy decided that it didn't require the front left hub and it parted ways.
Winners of heat 1 were Kinselas Kustoms in UTV, Cole Motorsports in Mod, Utterly Purplexed Racing in Ultra4 Limited and Peters Motorsport in Ultra4.
Heat 2 saw us kick off with 17 competitors as others tried to repair and get ready for the shootouts.
First lap in we here a report of a fire, couldn't tell if they were saying grass or car fire, so we quickly went to the aid of the vehicle to find that many competitors had stopped to extinguish grass spot fires that were on the track. Following the culprit and shutting the race down we found the team from @jilg Racing had cooked their rear brakes and it has caused these random fires.
Heat 2 was then restarted unfortunately for BNMotorsports after a great battle with Kinselas he ripped out an O2 sensor on the Polaris and couldn't get it back on line.
He only added to the retired cars of Jilg Racing and Don't do it Racing with a blown motor.
Winners of heat 2 were Dirty Deeds Racing in UTV, Cole Motorsports and Utterly Purplexed Racing backing it up after their heat 1 wins in Mod and Ultra4 limited and also Peters Motorsports backing it up with another win in Ultra4 Class
First shootout saw us do something we had never done before and have a bracket racing comp down the airstrip tracks. This was a great spectator event which saw the teams do one run then dial in a time they think they would get close to on their second run. Closest to their dial in time won.
Winners were Kinselas Kustoms Racing in UTV, Triple 3 Racing in Mod, Utterly Purplexed again in Ultra4 Limited and Davimac Motorsports in Ultra4 who had removed the broken axle to race in 3wd.
The second shootout pushed into the night due to heat 2 and saw the competitors run through tough rock sections to then come back on the track and do the first set of rocks again in the opposite direction. This was also a great spectator race due to being able to watch all the action up close.
Winners for this were once again Kinselas Kustoms in UTV, Cole Motorsports in Mod, M&R Auto Care Motorsport taking their first win in Ultra4 Limited and Team Bradshaw Racing- TBR in Ultra4.
Presentation was then held in the warmth of the resort bar/dining area much to everyone's enjoyment with dinner and drinks being served. Not something we have done before which is great.
Well done to all the place getters and thanks to all of those that support this great event.
Next event is the King of the Mountain race sponsored by Radius Fabrications on 21st-22nd October at the Resort.
