Paul Weel will have a new Geiser Brothers trophy truck at his disposal for his second BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship campaign.
Weel debuted in the AORC this year and was fourth in the standings after the only two rounds which would be completed in 2021.
Now, he is upgrading from a former Toby Price trophy truck to a brand-new vehicle, ahead of an all-out assault on the title.
That will include testing, and possibly even racing, once he takes delivery in the United States.
“After Finke, we decided to commit to running a brand-new car as a way to help us progress a little bit more and to get a little bit quicker,” explained Weel.
“There have been some delays for obvious reasons, but hopefully the truck will be ready by mid-January, and we will fly to the States to test the truck.
“We will end up doing a fair bit more testing before we bring it out to Australia because the beauty about the US is that there are so many places to test and everything is so big.
“It’s quite difficult to test in Australia because there aren’t that many places to do so and the more time I can spend in the car, the more I will learn, which will make me a better driver.
“Having this new truck should be a step ahead in technology, so it’s going to help us have a bit more of a charge towards the title next year.
“We know what we need to do to perform better and if we can put everything together right, we could be in a good position for the championship.”
Weel finished fifth on his AORC debut in this year’s Cobb & Co Hotel St George 399, then 12th in the Tatts Finke Desert Race with navigator Andrew Reid.
“I think my first season in the AORC was okay,” said the former Supercars driver.
“I am probably a bit disappointed with Finke, but it was our first time there and we learned a lot – especially how long and important qualifying is there.
“We did some good racing and we had decent qualifying runs in both rounds, so there is something I can build on for the future.
“Driving a trophy truck is vastly different to what I have driven before, even other offroad vehicles. They are different beasts and you have to utilise different skills.
“With that said, I really loved racing in the AORC this year. It’s just totally different to any other category I have raced in before and even though we’re all racing hard against each other, there is such great camaraderie amongst the competitors – more than any other discipline.”
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