This weekend just gone was the first round in the 2014/15 series of Racetech Steel W.E. Rock Australia. After several years of hiatus on Aussie soil, the event has been launched again and the first round was a showing of the who’s who in Australia’s rock crawling fraternity.
Hosted at SE QLD’s City View 4×4 Park, the event kicked off on Friday afternoon with scrutiny and a show and shine. Being a long weekend in QLD, the spectators flooded through the gates to watch the action as it kicked off on Saturday, the first of three tracks held on a conglomerate rock formation mere meters from the main camping ground. Every course was 3-5 deep in spectators wanting to get a glimpse of the action. The courses were comprised of 4 or 5 normal ‘progression’ gates and 1 or 2 bonus gates in which the spectators especially loved.
Teams drove from as far away as Victoria to compete in the event, Sandy Bowman and Daniel Hardman borrowing an existing W.E.Rock buggy to compete in, using the weekend to announce the new TV series that they are starring in, “The Aussie Racer” (more about The Aussie Racer in an upcoming post).
Mick Garner, famed for putting a hand to the creation of many of the existing W.E.Rock buggies all those years ago dusted off the old “scrapper” and drove a solid weekend to take second place in the Unlimited class. If it wasn’t for his heavy roll in the shootout, he was positioned to take the shootout win (check out the video of the roll on the W.E.Rock Australia FB page).
Steve Johns and Matthew Bassett drove the paint off (literally) their tidy LJ80 Suzuki based Tuff Truck to prove that full bodied vehicles could drive the same courses as a single seat buggy – Their skill and determination netting them the Pro-Mod win over second place Matthew & Jason Bond.
Tim Scutt (and fresh navi Luke) turned up in their Suzuki Sierra based Unlimited Truck/buggy. Tim, known for his composure while driving didn’t break a sweat or raise his voice all weekend, every track was a breeze to watch Tim drive and his composure was not only a reward for the spectators but also for the team as they took the over all win for round One. Tim also manged to drive the Shootout bonus (a 5 meter tall sheer drop), sealing the shootout win for the team and further bolstering their prize money.
For more photos and a comprehensive write up, keep your eye on future DirtComp magazines as we’ll be covering every round of the series.
