Jack Rhodes and David Pullino have continued their Griffith sweet spot, backing up their 2014 victory with a second successive ARB Griffith 400 title on the weekend at the opening round of the 2015 ARB Off Road Racing Series. After taking the lead on Saturday afternoon from Glenn Owen who was sidelined with engine problems, Rhodes opened the taps on Sunday morning and stamped his authority on the event, posting the quickest lap of the race in the process to finish the 400km in an overall time of 4hr 6min 51.555sec.
Second outright was John Towers and Bruce Young in the #27 JT Lustrum, who finished 5min 37 behind the #91 Rhodes Jimco. Towers was on the pace all weekend and capitised on Andy Ryan’s alternator troubles on Sunday morning to step into second, ahead of #410 Greg Gartner and Jamie Jennings who had been battling with Burrows, Haby and Gerald Reid for the final podium spot. However after 400km it was Gartner who came out on top to secure third outright and the Extreme 2WD Class win, just 1.3 seconds ahead of #21 Mark Burrows and Colin Hodge in fourth. Aar0n and Liz Haby rounded out the top five in their #57 Element Prodigy.
Cameron McClelland took line honours amongst the ultra competitive Prolite field in his #154 Rimco. Earlier in the weekend #133 Dale Martin had been one of the pacer setters until a rear arm failure in the Tatum, as was Andrew Mowles who battled with engine gremlins in the #135 Razorback. David and Brian Middlemiss put in a top drive to take second in class in the #117 Cougar, ahead of #164 Daryl Nissen and Andrew Harness who were third in class. Daniel Wells and Luc Price punished the opposition to win the Super 1650 class by almost 15 minutes in their #218 Bunderson.While #305 Ally Howells and Brad Banningan took the Sportsman Buggy honours.
#514 Peter Godwin and Alan Dixon had a comfortable win in the Performance 2wd category, while Owen Ward and Sandy Bowman were never headed in the Extreme 2wd class in their #832 Navara.
Click here for full results
Photos by Offroad Images
Keep an eye on Dirtcomp Magazine for full coverage in the print edition shortly.
