Sydney Off Road Racing Association - Sorra

OFF ROAD WAREHOUSE COLO PARK CHALLENGE,
Rnd 8 NSW OFF ROAD CHAMPIONSHIP, 17 th & 18 th November 2012
Mother Nature has come up trumps for the weekends racing. The rain on Friday afternoon &
evening damping the camp ground and tracks but not the enthusiasm and spirits of the 38
nominations for the deciding round of the new South Wales Championship. Great racing
with no dust.
After Saturdays 2 races of three laps each, Geoff Page and Jordan Roper topped the time
sheets in the 983 machine, just ahead of Jeff Thomas and Peter Calvert #51, only seconds
ahead of David Nikiforoff & Dennis Hill #290 with Peter Skazza and Shane McIntosh
fourth. Glenn Hoffman #78 rounded out Saturday’s podium after a day’s dust free racing on
the 6 kilometre short course track.
Derek Rose and Luke Gilkinson #279, have already accrued enough points by completing
one lap to take out the outright win in the New South Wales Championship. The battle for second
and third in the Championship with Gary Hyde #335 and Paul Grant #405 the combatants
carried on right till the end of the weekends racing with #335 Gary Hyde taking it .
Snake Racings, #666 Wayne Murphy, won the Prologue ( a race to sort starting position ) but
had a ball joint brake in the second race. It was repaired for Sunday’s racing but luck was not
on his side and other problems dropped him out of contention for this weekend’s racing.
Wayne in the #666 Polaris buggy still won his class in the NSW Championship.
Rikki Hedley Pro buggy #94 and Derek Rose #279 broke axles after the jump in the main
arena, both were repaired to continue on, but Matt Dunk clipped a tree taking off the front
corner of his #844 machine and dropping him out altogether. Another to have troubles with
the local flora was father and son team, Alistair & Dave Berry. After posting some impressive
times in the #199 buggy, their meeting with a tree on Sunday finished their aspirations
for points.
Only two of the 37 vehicles did not contest the Sunday part of the contest and after all the
racing twenty four entrants completed all laps of all races. It is testament to the build quality
and preparation put into these machines. Having a Radar sign just after the jump on the main
straight showing the speed the cars were doing seemed to add interest for the spectators and
drivers alike as the height and length of the jumps increased over the weekend. Peter Skazza
in the #83 car had the top speed and the longest jump both achieved on his last lap of the day.
The speed was 126klms, jump distance was not measured but was near the 27metre mark.
After the two days of hard racing for the 2012 NSW Off Road Championship at the Off
Road Warehouse Colo Park Challenge, Jeff Thomas and Peter Calvert #51 ruled the track in
their Pro class buggy taking first outright with #290 Super 1650 driver David Nikiforoff and
navigator Dennis Hill second outright. Third place went to the #83 buggy of Peter Skazza
with Shane McIntosh navigating. Showing that the track had a little of everything for the
drivers to keep them on their toes, the mixture of vehicle in the top five places also included
#305 Sportsman (under 1350ccc) Joshua Howells and #424 Extreme 2WD Kristie Hedley.
Pro class Buggy. 1 st place #51 Jeff Thomas, Pro Lite Buggy. 1 st place #160 Vern Wakefield,
, Super 1650 Buggy, 1 st place #290 David Nikiforoff, 2 nd , #247 Mark Cowie, Sportsman
Buggy, 1 st place #305 Joshua Howells, 2WD , 1 st place #424 Kristy Hedley, 2 nd ,#405 Paul
Grant, Performance 2WD, 1 st place #502 Ashley Weinert, UTV Polaris, 1 st , #688 Michael
Smith, 2 nd , #666 Wayne Murphy, Production 4WD, 1 st place, #777 Drew Corcoran, Extreme
4WD, 1 st place, #804 Ian Hedley, 2 nd , #888 David O’Grady, 3 rd , 844 Matt Dunk