In thick dust racers likened to racing at night, Team Toyo continues to fight through a massive field, shaping up for a showdown on tomorrows return leg to Alice Springs despite a challenging first day.
Hayden Bentley leads the team with a strong 2:12.27over the 226 kilometres between Alice and Finke.
“We’re at the halfway mark and still cruising,” said Bentley. “Qualifying hurt us badly, we got stuck in some horrendous dust, but the truck is going strong.”
“For the first 140km the dust was that thick, it was like driving in the dark. It’s frustrating to hold back in the dust so there is a tendency for drivers to go too hard when they can see. There has been a lot of DNF’s. It’s nasty stuff to be racing in.”
Bentley’s run brings the #418 Racer TT into eighth position outright, slotting into second for the Extreme 2WD class. Despite a gruelling run under dust-darkened skies, the #418 truck and team are already primed for tomorrow’s last leg.
“The truck was just amazing; the shocks, engine, gearbox, tyres were all phenomenal. Over the whoops, over the stones, over everything we could throw at them, no grief at all,” he said.
Bentley will spend the return leg hunting down OBR’s Beau Robinson, for the X2WD class win.
Matthew Kittle in the PKMS #23 Jimco are 14th outright at the halfway mark with a 2:18.15, making up a massive 16 positions during their run and overcoming yesterdays prologue roll-over with a clean and aggressive run.
Kittle’s PKMS teammate Brad Gallard was threatening all day, reaching third outright, with sector times that threatened leading pro-buggies.
Encountering a mechanical failure after the Mt Squires checkpoint, the last before Finke, the #454 takes a DNF for leg one, with the team working to get the truck back on track to keep X2WD honest tomorrow.
Greg Gartner and Danny Brown and in the #410 trophy truck and #42 buggy also suffered tough luck this morning, both hitting gearbox dramas.
“The gearbox went on us, we lost third and fourth around the 20km mark” said Brown.
The #410 was powering on, when at the 100-kilometre mark the torque converter lost oil.
“We were having a good clean run, the truck was strong and we kept it clean in a lot of dust but the converter started flipping,” said Gartner.
Gartner and team are evaluating the gearbox and will take the long road to Finke tonight to compete in the return leg tomorrow.
A tough day for the team, but with a day of racing at Finke remaining, anything can happen.
