Elphinstone, Upton and Gaisford Conquer the GasDash


The overnight leaders in the auto and moto divisions at the Coral Coast Helicopter Services Gascoyne Dash were unchallenged on the homeward run from Gascoyne Junction back to Carnarvon today. The cars were the first to hit the track and the Elphinstone brothers, Shane and Curt left a trail of Gascoyne gold dust in their wake as they charged back towards Carnarvon.

Cutting over three minutes off their time on the return leg, Elphinstone stopped the clocks in an overall event time of 4hr 15min 13.2seconds to take back to back wins in the auto category in his #44 Elphinstone Racing Jimco.

John Purshouse and Murray Hynes maintained their overnight position on the road to hold on to second outright amongst the autos in their #807 Ford Extreme 4wd in an overall time of 4hr 33min 53sec.

Mal Yeardley with navigator Alex Cowan jumped up into podium contention on the return leg, finishing in a time of 4hr 50min 42sec in their #171 Prolite to take third outright and the Prolite Class win.

After finishing second to Cody Upton in 2018 in the combined car and bike leaderboard, the tables were turned in 2019 with Elphinstone taking the ‘King of the River’ title by the slender margin of 11 seconds after 400 competitive kilometres. Having done the hard yards on Saturday, Honda pilot, #1 Cody Upton kept #19 James McCarthy at bay to also secure back to back wins in the moto category. McCarthy finished in a time of 4hr 17min 43sec, 6min 32sec ahead of #69 Alec Moore in third outright.

Amongst the hotly contested quad category, ATV MX specialist #14 Luke Gaisford powered home from the Junction to win his first desert enduro. Finishing 15th outright ahead of #27 Blake Croonen and #30 Colin Balshaw.

Stay tuned for a full report soon – photos thanks to Sean McTigue


AUTO CLASS WINNERS
Proclass: #44 Shane Elphinstone / Curt Elphinstone
Prolite: #171 Mal Yeardley / Alex Cowan
Sportslite: #1032 Peter Barrett / Craig Carson
Super 1650: #234 Michael Davis / Andrew Kingscott
Extreme 2wd: #455 Russ Cullen
Performance 2wd: #583 Matt Beck
SXS Turbo: #682 Mathew Birnie / Rochelle Funneman
Production 4wd: #748 Gary Kirkwood / Christopher Kirkwood
Extreme 4wd: #807 John Purshouse / Murray Hynes

MOTO CLASS WINNERS
Bike E2: #1 Cody Upton
Bike E3: #19 James McCarthy
Bike Masters: #122 Rob Pollard
Quad: #14 Luke Gaisford
Bike Veteran: #23 Michael Lough


*All results provisional