The story of a buggy and a truck, a class win and some bad luck.
Tight, fast, twisty and slippery – the Lower Bucca state forest, 30 kilometres north of the Coffs Harbour CBD, is a track to test the mettle of off-road racers.
The Coffs Coast 400 was the fourth and penultimate round of the Australian Off Road Championship. Remaining points were few and the stakes were high.
Representing Team Toyo was the Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde of off-road racing, Greg Gartner, in the #403 Ford F150 trophy truck and Peter Kittle Motorsport gun Matthew Kittle in the hyper twin-turbo Jimco buggy.
Personable, pleasant and peaceful, climbing into the trophy truck brings out the insatiable wolf in Gartner, driven to consume unyielding, ground-pounding speed.
From inside the truck, the madman plotted and ploughed his way through a pack of buggies, blowing past the field of drivers on a slippery surface ill-suited to the lumbering trophy trucks.
“It was a very, very tight and twisty track,” explains Gartner. “There were hills with 150m drops off the side. During the track reconnaissance the hire 4WD got bogged on the first corner, and it was so slippery it took us two hours to drive the 50 kilometre track.”
“You have to be 120 per cent committed on this track. We kept saying ‘take it easy, don’t push it where you don’t need to push it’, and a lot of people crashed out.”
Starting out from seventh position for Saturday’s racing, Greg and his team knew that getting maximum grip from the Open Country M/T-R’s was going to be the difference.
“We let the tyres down a bit and the truck just hooked up perfectly. It worked so well. On the Saturday we had to go around a recovery vehicle on the track and cleaned up a large stump. We bent a suspension arm but didn’t blow the tyre, even with the low tyre pressure. Incredible.”
Gartner spent the weekend battling with friend and rival #402 Beau Robinson. The crowds assembled for the Coates Hire Rally Australia were quick converts to off-road racing after watching Greg and Beau trade blows.
Despite Beau getting ahead twice, a relentless ‘Mr Hyde’ reeled him back in as the track dried and took out a class win in Extreme 2WD – fifth place overall – and logged the second fastest individual lap time over the weekend.
“Beau’s a good mate, but it was good to beat him. It was a close battle, and those tyres on that track got us exactly where we had to go,” said Greg.
“The people that came out from the rally were amazed at the spectacle these trucks put on. It was great to take the sport to a new audience; everyone was rapt from a crowd point of view.”
Matthew Kittle’s race weekend also started with incredible promise.
Finishing fifth in prologue, Matt and PKMS logged an aggressive qualifying lap, beating out Australian number one Shannon Rentsch for start position. PKMS were ready to get out there and show the crowds exactly what the combination of a cutting-edge buggy and Matt’s steering skills were capable of.
With serious championship points on offer, the table leaders were exchanging anxious glances as PKMS prepped for a hard days racing.
Stretching the car’s legs on Saturdays first lap, the Jimco suffered a serious brake issue, the latest in a line of problems that have seen the team’s field-leading pace stifled this season.
“The problem came on about 20ks into the first lap, and we had to pull up after 25ks,” Matt said.
“We had half a brake rotor on the rear left. It would work every now and then, but sometimes it wouldn’t have anything and I wouldn’t have any pedal. We had the right hand turning brake which helped us get around a few trees, but it wasn’t safe.”
Discovering a broken rear arm when the buggy came in for inspection, PKMS pulled the plug.
“It’s not the best result, but we went out to pretty much have a scout session and check it out for next year: we achieved that,” Matt said.
“The track was definitely as tough as everyone was saying: a lot of tight trees and scrub. Running around with no brakes in those conditions was just not safe.”
With a fresh and full-on approach to the 2015 AORC, PKMS is coming out all guns blazing.
“We’ve got the pace. We will fix up these small gremlins and we’ll make some noise and cause some upsets in the top end of the field next year,” said Matt.
Next up in off-road racing – The Lockyer Valley 300 and the Pines Enduro 400, both coming mid-October.
Australasian Safari also launches tonight at Wanneroo showgrounds, with the Team Mitsubishi Ralliart Australia Outlander PHEV Safari and Isuzu Motorsport arming themselves with Toyo rubber to challenge the countries toughest endurance race.
Good luck, and stay safe in the desert gents!
PEDDERS SUSPENSION COFFS COAST 400
1. #1 Shannon Rentsch & Ian Rentsch
2. #24 Ryan Taylor & Josh Curran
3. #121 Matthew Martin and Kerri Martin
4. #138 Tony Fehlhaber & Gary Howell
5. #403 Greg Gartner & Jamie Jennings
Full results available here.
