Warren Luff might have six podium finishes in the Bathurst 1000 to his name, but he enters day one of the 2022 BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship feeling like a beginner.
Luff and Walkinshaw Performance are together making their offroad debut today at the Cobb & Co Hotel St George 399 in outback Queensland.
Behind the wheel of a Volkswagen W580X Amarok, the 45-year-old is carrying few expectations in.
“It’s all very new to me and it’s something I’m going into with eyes very wide open,” Luff told Speedcafe.com.
“For me, it’s just all about discovering what it takes to go quick offroad without breaking the car.
“It’s a completely different sphere of driving for me, so obviously the guys and girls that compete in that championship all the time, they know their cars, they know the events and everything like that, so I’m definitely going to be the little fish in the big pond this weekend.
“I’m just keen to soak up and learn as much as I can and obviously for everyone at Walkinshaw, it’s a great programme and something very exciting for us to all be involved in.
“Obviously we hope at some stage during the year to become more competitive and see where we end up, but there’s no massive expectations this weekend.
“For everyone that has worked so hard on the behind-the-scenes to make this programme happen, I’ll be so proud to pull up on the startline.”
Luff, who is again co-driving for Walkinshaw Andretti United at Bathurst this year, confirmed he will compete in the 2022 Tatts Finke Desert Race in June, with that event having inspired the entire AORC campaign.
“We will be doing Finke as well, and it was funny, that’s how the conversation [started],” he said.
“When they first spoke to me about it, they were like ‘what do you know about Finke?’ My reaction to them was, ‘whatever you’re doing, I’m in’. They were like, ‘but we haven’t said anything!’
“I suppose in the offroad community, that’s probably their Bathurst 1000, so it’s a mammoth event for both competitor and machinery and everything like that. It’s the blue-ribbon event of the Australian offroad scene.”
Prologue gets underway at 15:30 (local time/AEST) today before a Top 10 Shootout from 08:00 tomorrow.
The Seven Network will be the broadcast home of the AORC in 2022, per a newly announced deal.
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