The Runamuk team have pulled off back to back wins at the Hunter Rivmasta Warialda 200; the father and son team shaving 3minutes off their 2012 outright time. Sharing the driving duties of the Runamuk Jimco #58, Bruce and Bryce Chapman, with Peter Vial in the navigators seat, eclipsed the 60 plus strong field to finish the 15 lap event with over a minute and a half lead to Warialda legend Terry Rose and grandson Justin Taylor.

Rounding out the 2013 Hunter Rivmasta Warialda 200 podium was Dale and Mal Chadburn #32, three minutes off the pace of Chapman.

The first ProLite home and a very credible fourth outright was Les Marshall and Glennys Rose #105, crossing the line with a minute lead over fifth outright and the first Super 1650 of Werner and Sue Zettl #232.

Jamie and Symon Knight are finding their feet in their new #439 Richard Bennet Truck, clocking in 16th outright and first in Extreme 2WD class. UTV class honours went to Phil and Adam Swindale, securing 22nd outright in the #619 machine.

There was a battle in the Hedweld Engineering team with daughter Rikky Hedley taking class honours for Extreme 4WD and pippin Mum Jan Hedley by hundredths of a second to finish 26 and 27 outright respectively; Jan and Daniel Gardner walked away with the silverware for Performance 2WD class.

38 teams completed the full race distance, leaving a long and interesting failure list. Glen Towers and Jamie Adams put the #80 on the front row of the grid heading into the long course section of the event; Towers unable to capitalise on the position with gearbox failure.

Damien Penfold and Mark Eveleigh #929 were pushing hard, chasing the Chapman Jimco #58 when they rolled the #929 machine, ending their Warialda weekend.

Andy Ryan and Dave Smith were making their presence felt, running at the front of the field, until a flat tyre on lap 13 added 11 minutes to their time, relegating the #50 Alumi Craft to 11th outright.

Lady Luck wasn’t on the side of the second Runamuk team cars with Buddy and Kerry Crowe #4 unable to take to the track on Sunday with engine dramas. Buddy Crowe Jnr and Oliver Holmes clocked in a few more laps, their weekend on lap 10 in the #144 ProLite. The fourth Runamuk Pro buggy with Alisha Crowe behind the wheel and Lachlan Andrews navigating recorded a 14th outright, putting down consistent laps times for the weekend and taking out the prized Dash for Cash.

Ashley Mowbray was having a triumphant weekend, sitting in third outright going into the last lap when axle failure left the #20 Pro buggy one laps shy of full race distance. Glenn Spizzo and Anthony Lia were also running in the top ten when their power plant let go on lap 12.

The three teams currently sitting atop of the New South Wales Off Road Championship point score all finished the Hunter Rivmasta Warialda 200 and banking valuable points. It will be a hectic time as we head into the business end of the season for Glen Hoffman, Craig Anderson and Derek Rose.

The volunteers and members of the Warialda Off Road Club have once again staged a successful Hunter Rivmasta Warialda 200; will Runamuk be back in 2014 to take out the hat trick.

Written by Ian Paltridge

The ‘On Track 4WD Centre 200’ proved to be by far the most eventful race we had yet attended. Arriving Saturday morning we were quick to unload and hit the track for reconnaissance, the course made it obvious very early on that it was going to be a hard, tough and rough 14.5 km’s to drive fast and consistently.

The first heat commenced early that afternoon, despite the less then desirable track conditions we finished in good time putting us among the top three. Pumped after such a good drive we quickly checked over the car and lined up third from the start line for round two.

No more than 1 km into the course things quickly went downhill with suspected rock smashing a wheel, hub and brake calliper. This then lead to the collapse of the rear navigator’s side wheel bearing (should have stopped when the brakes went). Due to limited braking the car coped nothing but more damage until finally coming to a rest track side.

Come Sunday morning we were again… lined up and ready to race. Having driven home and spent the majority of Saturday night rebuilding the back end of the Polaris we considered the weekend far from over. Our next two laps proved that, with our times being equal to those holding outright places.

Second last heat of the event and disaster struck again, an almost identical repeat of yesterday’s incident. With no remaining spares that was unfortunately us out.

The weekend was however anything but a waste of time with so many new things learnt about the performance and capabilities of the Polaris. With repairs and upgrades almost complete we will be ready for the ARB Goondiwindi 400 in August!

After the 11 hour drive we made it to Retreat Station on Friday afternoon just in time for reconnaissance. Up to that point we had absolutely no idea what we were in for, considering it took no less than an hour to complete the track in the Landcruiser we knew that to repeat this 35km course 6 times over was going to be no small task.

A short walk through the pits Saturday morning revealed the main competition, 6 other Polaris XP900’s.  To race against vehicles of the same class on such a track was going to be unreal!

Completing prologue in good time we started the first round in 5^th place. The main track consisted of everything from huge tabletops to massive hill climbs, tight heavily timbered sections to high speed flats with no structure at all.  We slid over the finish line with a good time and most importantly no damage.

The next five laps proved to be just as hard and physically draining as the first. Consistently improving our times we managed to complete the entire 210km’s.

Although we took out the fastest single lap in class, come presentations we honestly didn’t know what to expect as by Sunday our main goal was to simply finish.

When we were presented with second in class it came as quite a surprise. Being narrowly beaten by the land owner Chris Moohin in his Polaris and only one place off third outright the weekend was considered a major success!

Final inspection of the car after the final lap revealed a broken sway bar and a broken top control arm bolt. How this stayed in we have no idea as I pulled it out with my fingers.

We went to this event to get more drive time and to compete against a large field of Polarises and we came away a with a great result and a lot more experience.

Being known for its rough track conditions the 2^nd round of the Cooper Rally Series proved to be no different. Racing started from midday on the Saturday with roughly 25 vehicles lined up ready to get going. Getting off to a great start we managed some great times putting us on the board immediately. We were able to maintain this performance throughout the entirety of day one.

Come Sunday morning we received news that the several previously closed tracks had been reopened extending the course by approximately 6 km’s to a total of 12 km. With sections more closely suited to low range crawling it slowed the cars down significantly making for some very difficult racing.  Our luck however continued finishing each lap damage free and in impressive times.

The extreme track conditions claimed several vehicles that afternoon with DNF’s against some of the more competitive cars which proved to be an advantage our way. With only one more lap to complete we finished only two seconds off the current fastest single lap time, putting another great time on the board to match our previous heats.

We were stoked with our efforts after receiving a first outright trophy and first in class trophy and cannot wait for round three in October.

What a great result for Ian Paltridge with a win in class and outright win at the 2nd round of the Coopers Rally at Landcruiser Mountain Park Qld last weekend. Having finished 2nd outright in the 1st round he has certainly brushed off the cobwebs from his 4 year break from racing and got straight back into the hot seat from where he left off 4 years ago.

Again, with close to 30 vehicles competing in the event Ian is proving he has what it takes behind the wheel of his Snake Racing Polaris XP900 to bring home the goods.

Congratulations Ian and bring on round 3.

What an event for the Downunder Team. The Lucas Oil Chevy driven by Daniel Attard at this year’s Tatts Finke Desert Race had a huge roll in the prologue. The boys repaired the vehicle overnight only to roll again on the way to Finke on day 1.

You have to say they had a good go of it and put their heart and soul into it but better luck next year.

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It just wasn’t meant to be. After making it to Finke last night and madly carrying out repairs, the boys from Snake Racing Wayne Murphy and Chris Taylor were ready to tackle the day ahead. The return from Finke to Alice Springs was looking promising until a control arm bolt broke on the Polaris XP 900 in the second stage for the day. That was the end for Snake as the boys retired the vehicle and limped back to Deep Well on the service track with temp repairs using zip ties. The service team went in to pick up a very disappointed Wayne and Chris.

All issues aside the boys had a blast attending the event and the whole team really enjoyed the long days and nights and the entire atmosphere that this type of event rallies. We are all looking forward to the party tonight and can finally relax after a few hectic weeks of preparation.

Congratulations must go to Adrian Jackson and Darren Kim from Team Barry Moule for placing 1st and 2nd in the UTV class and Shaun Blowers for placing 3rd.

In overall  outright a huge congrats goes to Hayden Bentley from SA for holding onto 1st place, Shannon Rentsch from Vic in 2nd and Mark Burrows from Vic in 3rd. All 3 formed part of the PRO class and held back the rest of the field.

A big thanks to the whole team from Snake Racing for making this event possible.

Look out for more photos and video from the event on our website soon.

Day 1 saw Snake Racing on track to finish 1st in UTV class, until the last stage when they suffered rear shock failure and therefor adding precious time to the clock. Up until this stage the boys had a 7 minute lead on the next car. Wayne and Chris kept it together and drove the last 40kms with only 3 shocks. Their Polaris 666 made it to Finke but finished 6th out of 9 starters in class.

“What a day, to get so far and so close without any problems, but that is what racing is all about.” A frustrated Wayne said. “At least the team got there in the end”

Of 99 vehicles starting only 66 made it to Finke at the end of the day.

South Australian Hayden Bentley from Pro Class in his Race Buggy is currently sitting in 1st outright with a time of 1:49:48.

Check out the Snake photos below with more of the event to come.

Round 3 (Wittitrin 300) of the NSW Off Road Championship was run over the weekend on a very muddy track after a week of heavy rain. The rain subsided on Friday and the biggest show of vehicles this event has seen went ahead with 40 rolling up to take on the wet and muddy conditions.

The boys from Snake (Wayne Murphy and Chris Taylor) experienced some minor issues ranging from a failed spark plug to a rear wheel problem, unfortunately costing them precious time and positions. They did manage to claw their way back on Sunday morning and still managed to finish in the top 10 with an 8th outright and 3rd in class behind the visitors from Queensland.

Overall the general feeling was the event was fantastic and very well run with great facilities and people throughout the weekend.

With a Polaris XP900 that started out Blue, it came back to Sydney a nice shade of Brown and was unrecognisable upon unloading from the truck. The boys are up to their 3rd attempt at washing the vehicle and all the gear that goes with it.

Congratulations to Chris and Len Levi 1st outright

Jeff Thomas, Peter Calvert and Louise Dorrian2nd 2nd outright

Dale and Mal Chadburn 3rd outright

Round 4 of the NSW Off Road Championship will be run at Griffith 13th and 14th July.  See you there.

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WRITTEN BY IAN PALTRIDGE

This was to be our first ever cams event and it turned out to be a ripper 7km short course track. There were 33 cars in total across all classes so we were in for some great racing. Each car started at 2 minute intervals with only a one lap sprint. This continued for the entire event with no room for error with only one lap to get it right. There was only to be 2 laps on Saturday but after some sweet talking we convinced them to add 2 more laps with great results. We were chasing a class one buggy and another Polaris for the top spot by days end with a night stage still to go.

We stalled in the night stage much to my disgust and managed to lose precious time trying to start the car with no internal light. (Very funny later on but not at the time).

Sunday continued with the same format but the stalling issue continued so we had to behave ourselves just to finish and keep our spot. This didn’t stop a red mist moment and a near roll over up on one wheel nearly take out a tree moment.

The event was a great start to Cams racing for us as we finished 2^nd in class and 3^rd outright coming in behind a class 1 buggy and a seasoned Polaris racer against 33 cars.

We found this event to be heaps of fun and very well run. The track was near perfect with motocross jumps, big gullies and well over 100 turns in 7km’s.