Held at Rainbow in Victoria, the West Australian pair took out the ARB Big Desert 480 by 48.7s, despite not being first in either the two-lap Section 1 on Saturday or the four-lap Sunday section.

Second place went to Clayton Chapman and Adam McGuire at the wheel of their Toyota 2JZ turbo Razorback buggy. Andy Brown and Danny Hardman made it an Unlimited one-two-three with their new AWD Alumi Craft third.

Twice ARB outright champions Danny (son of Andy) Brown and George Apted (Alumi Craft/Nissan V6 twin turbo) started the STEEL-IT supported event by leading Section 1 over 160kms from start to finish.

They finish the day 4:46 ahead of Robinson. Just 20s away was Andy Brown with 16s to Chapman as multiple Australian champion Mark Burrows and his son Tom (Unlimited MonkFab/Holden AlloyTech TT) were fifth.

Among those that didn’t fair as well were Brent Martin/Andre de Simone (Jimco/Nissan twin turbo), Jake and Kevin Williams (Geiser Aussie TT/GM Aps V8) and Steven Von Pein/Steve Bilby (Class 4 Micklefab Raptor/Chev).

Sunday’s long section was even more telling with further DNFs that included Danny Brown at the start, Stuart Chapman (Chenowth Millennium/Mitsubishi 4B11 turbo) and Aaron and Tanner James (Alumi Craft/Ford Ecoboost turbo).

Clayton Chapman won Section 2 by 1:04 from Robinson with Andy Brown third. Burrows came in for fourth (and fourth overall) ahead of Dale Martin/Adrian Rowe (fifth overall) and Matt Burrows who bounced back after the Day 1 dramas.

Simon and Kyle Tucker (Southern Cross/Nissan) led the way in Class 1 and finished sixth outright. Dean Meginley and Dean DeMarco (Tatum) took out Class 10 and ninth after Steven and Ella Green (Alumi Craft) led overnight.

In Class 4 Peter Sibson and Jason Munro (Bennett Trophy Truck) were the winners as Jackson and Sam Raper (Polaris) bested seven others to take Class 6 and finish 10th overall.