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They came into the event second in the BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship after three rounds and came out of the Prologue fifth fastest.
In their Nissan V6 powered Alumicraft Prolite buggy, they took advantage of troubled runs among the leaders to finish Day 1 with a 58s lead.
“Race our own race and try not to get too ahead of ourselves because that’s where stuff can go wrong, and you can end up in the trees really hurting the car and ruining our chances,” Mel Brandle said.
Another to improve on their Prologue position were Roydn Bailey and Simon Herrmann in their Element Prodigy/Toyota V6 twin turbo Pro Buggy and finished second.
“Today was actually really hard mentally, I found it really hard to concentrate with so much going on and you had to be so on every corner. It’s really easy just to start daydreaming and get yourself into big trouble,” Bailey said.
Third and the quickest in the Transportable Shade Sheds SXS Championship, were James and Michael Mogford in their Can Am. They finished ahead of class rivals Glen Ackroyd/Michael Price, Lachlan Bailey/Nathan Sracek and Glenn Brinkman/Jaclyn Hughes.
Locals Daniel Dunn and Shane Dale (Can-Am) were the Prologue winners but their campaign finished early with a DNF.
Outright championship leaders, Beau Robinson and Shane Hutt finished in eighth after a stop for a tyre change on their Chev-powered Mason Trophy Truck. Ahead of them were Laurence and Janelle Svenson aboard the German Autos Chassis/Holden V6 TT Pro Buggy
Chris Sollitt led Sportslite in his Sollitt/Subaru, Michael Shipton and Paul Chorlton (Ford SBH Ranger/Chev LS1) topped Performance 2WD, as did Norman and Tyson Parker (Toyota Landcruiser 76 Series) in Production 4WD.
Racing resumed on Sunday, with a further two sections of 165 and 110kms respectively to complete the fourth round of the AORC.
