Only got back to Brisbane from Gundy a short while ago. What a fantastic race we had, very positive comments from all the competitors. Don't really feel like giving a commentary at the moment, might have something to do with all those JB's last night. Might give you guys a bit of a run-down this evening on how everyone went, etc.

Shannon Rentsch has continued his amazing run of performances at Gundy in recent years by winning the Albins Off Road Gear Goondiwindi 400, his 4th Outright win in succession at Gundy, but there were lots of brilliant performances from many competitors all weekend.

Shannon ended up winning the event quite comfortably with a 6 minute margin over Eric Phillips who finished off very strongly and pipped Brad Prout by 20 seconds. A further 2 1/2 minutes back in 4th was Terry Rose.

There was quite a large gap then of over 5 minutes to Chris Coulthard who had suffered some early gear selector problems in Section 1 on Saturday which cost him about 5 minutes, but also put him back in the field and he had a brilliant drive on Sunday to work his way back up the order.

Laurie Svenson put in a consistent drive to work his way up to 6th outright. Buddy Crowe was quite subdued all weekend, only prologuing 17th, but put in consistent laps whilst contending with some throttle issues i believe and ended up 7th outright.

Jason Telford was very impressive in bringing the Holden Rodeo home 8th outright and 1st in Extreme 2WD.

For me one of the drives of the weekend was young Sam Barnes in 9th outright and the winner of Sportsman class.

Greg Campbell drove a conservative race to finish 2nd in Extreme 2WD and 10th outright.

11th was Travis Milburn, who was looking real good for a top 5 result but ran out of fuel about 1500 metres from the finish of Section 2. The boys lost over 20 minutes running back to the pits and grabbing some fuel and going back to the car to top it up.

Gavin Mickle was next and was 3rd in Extreme 2WD.

Danial Brown was extremely quick in the Super 1650 early on, but lost a chunk of time in Section 2 to slip back to about 25th, but recovered to ultimately finish 13th.

John Moore was one of the most impressive of the local Queensland state championship contenders and was ultimately rewarded with a superb 14th outright. Another impressive local was Stephen O'Toole in 15th and only got pipped for the Super 1650 honours by just over a minute behind Brown.

Justin Watt i felt put in a magnificant drive having to do it all the hard way after snapping a driveshaft off the line at the start of Section 1 on Saturday, having to repair the car in their own running time and then spent all day Sunday working their way back from last car to start to ultimately finish 16th and still win Pro-Lite.

Geoff Pickering was smooth and consistent to win Production 4WD and 17th overall.

18th, 19th and 20th were all locals with Brendon Hall, ahead of Scott Hopkins and Michael Topfer who was also the 2nd 4WD home.

I believe that's the top 20 finishers, i didn't get a chance to get the final finishing list and i am not sure exactly how many official finishers there was.

I might be quessing a bit, but i can add that Mark Lacey won the Extreme 4WD class after Colin Hunter had a massive accident and from all reports has totalled the Jeep. Apparantly the vehicle got a bit airborne through some rough terrain, bounced a few times and ultimately collected a reasonable size tree, quite a few feet off the ground.

Mark Burrows also collected a tree which led to his retirement whilst leading the event at the time.

Hayden Bentley of course didn't finish after breaking an axle, Joe Bulmer was another who impressed immensly and was running 2nd outright when he lost power with some sort of turbo wastegate problem and ultimately didn't start the last lap.

Joe deserves special mention as he put in a huge amount of work in  the 3 weeks before the event with all the track preperation logistics, still drove a magnificant race until his retirement and at the same time has the further worry of his wife expecting a baby any day now.

Bruce  Chapman did a motor (i think) early on Saturday. Likewise the Extreme 2WD class leading vehicle of Robert Gwynne. David Spokes didn't get very far with a turbo failure in Section 1.

Would you believe Matt Martin ran out of late time (again?) in Section 1 with a fuel pump problem and then retired in Section 2 with a driveline problem?

Matt Hanson really had the Porter going a lot better and was running 9th outright after Section 1, but did a CV in Section 2.

Paul Grant went pretty well in Section 1, but Fay jinxed them when she got in for Section 2 and they broke a gearbox after only a couple of kilometers.

That's pretty well a wrap up of the 2 days. Competitors were very positive about the new track and location and happy with how the event was run and bloody oath we all enjoyed ourselves last night at the presentation and afterwards.

l hadn't been to a National in a couple of years so was surprised to see how much quicker the pace had got from the pro class boys. While out on my travels l got to see Justin Watt going about his business and was taken aback buy how much genuine speed he has got and when his class pads out a bit we will all be able to see that in his results. Rumour has it that Matt Ryan has his Pro-lite Saber on the dyno at the moment and Andy Mackay has a new mid engine Zarco Pro-lite being built as well (his current Zarco is for sale) and a South Aus BMW powered Jimco has moved to pro-lite so with the many other Lites being built around Aus this class will be huge in 2 years.
Sam Barnes is an example to all the young guys out there that you don't have to spend a huge amount of dollars to hone your race craft and his 9th outright proves that let alone all his 301 years.
All in all the weekend was great only thing for next year can someone get rid of the flies.
Well done to all who competed and congratulations to all the organisers and volunteers who helped out.

Tassie Devil wrote:

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... Didn't worry me too much as i just kept hiding in the event HQ with the air conditioning on and my reclining chair.

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sounds tough!

maybe you need to change to ford power Azteck lol

errr... would like to point out that they didnt just win bathurst... they whitewashed it!!!!!

I wasnt going rub it in by saying that 8 out of the top 10 were Fords but its been a while so might as well make the most of it.

 az

   don't turbos rule in offroad