Rhodes repeats Riverland victory.
In a race dominated by pro-buggies, South Australia’s #91 Jack Rhodes and David Pullino claimed victory for the second year in a row, at the Toyo Tires Riverland Enduro.
“The team was incredible today,” said an elated Rhodes. “Every year the team gets stronger and stronger.”
Rhodes was followed in by current champion Shannon Rentsch, grabbing second place after qualifying ninth in a hairy prologue, with the current King of the Desert into the tyre stacks and up on two wheels across the finish line. #61 Chris Western placed third outright, rounding out the podium.
The Riverland’s high speed track and rough conditions took a toll on the field, with scores of DNF’s listed for the day.
Team Toyo made a strong start to the race. Brad Gallard and Greg Gartner drag raced their trophy trucks off the start line.
The pair battled for the lead in Extreme 2WD leaning on their 39” Open Country M/T-Rs, blazing fence lines and soaring from jumps. Starting from 13th, local legend Gallard led the class after lap one and clawed his way fifth outright. Pushing hard, the TRD powered #454 succumbed to a broken axle, ending Brad’s hopes of repeating a podium in 2015.
"An unlucky weekend, but we were out there tearing it up," said Gallard.
With Gallard out, Gartner took top of class, running extremely aggressive times and holding sixth outright up until his final lap, when the GGM team found a small piece of metal in the air cleaner and decided to play it safe.
Gartner praised the Toyo Open Country M/T-R’s performance.
“The Riverland Enduro is a very naily track. Lots of tight corners, lots of trees, and lots of fast straights, the race vehicle had to put up with flat strap high speeds, then coming into different tight corners, trees, stumps, rocks. Hard on the brakes, hard on the throttle and hard on the steering, I absolutely love the track, but it is hard on gear.
“I can’t believe what we put tyres through and they come out the other side. Waikerie is so rough. We were playing with tyre pressures for more traction, and low pressures don’t impact the tyres at all.”
Gartner also threw in a big effort for the longest jump of the race.
“We were coming up to the road jump getting more confident every time the, unfortunately I was planning the big one for the last lap, but the truck loved it, we were rapt with the way the tyres and suspension handled the jumps.”
Hayden Bentley in the #418 and Matthew Kittle in the #23 Pro-Buggy ran two laps on the pace, before their respective vehicles also called it quits for the weekend.
“The pace was frantic all weekend. The truck went awesome; we had a recurring problem with it jumping out of third gear, so we decided not to damage any further.” Said Bentley. “The track was great, tyres were awesome, I’m still getting used to driving the truck but with more hours we will be very fast.”
With Goondiwindi only two weeks away, Team Toyo are now scrambling to prep for a podium push, following a troubled season.
Full results from the Toyo Tires Riverland Enduro.
