Sheer brilliance at Burrungule

Mother Nature put on a picturesque day for the running of the Weedon Pastoral Burrungule 180 Off Road Event, held at the Burrungule forest block and run by Limestone Coast Off Road Club under the direction of Paul (Keg) Height.

Having assembled this similar event in 2023, Paul was rewarded this year with 35 teams entering for the second running of this short course, as word had got round after the 2023 event on how good this “little” event turned out to be.

Running a slightly different format for 2024, Keg put the first bracket of vehicles (classes 2, 3, 4, 66,7 and 8) out on their own for 7 laps of the 14+km circuit, that included a tight twisty layout around the “Quarry” area, then along the access roads, tracks and Pine Breaks in the forest, complete with tight corners and the odd jump or two.

Of the 15 buggies and 4Wheel drives that took to this track, the #221 buggy of Darren and Lewis Oliver stood out, being the quickest on each of the 7 laps of the tricky course, with a total time of 1:11.55 hours.

Next quickest, the 666 buggy of Aiden Campagnolo/Breanna Pell did quite well in the challenging conditions and finished 2nd fastest with 1:13.05 for a good drive.

Corey and Jai Haworth were also fairly consistent with their 7-lap dash and ended with a tidy total of 1:16.51 for 3rd spot. Driving a “normal” (looking) Nissan Patrol, Heath and Michelle Weedon have only one pace – flat out – and performed well to get home, unmarked, in 4th quickest for this heat with their total of 1:16.58 hours a pretty good effort.

The second heat – a 5-lap dash, is an “All in” affair, with the first heat runners going out again, but with the “big boys” and the fast toys included (Ultimate, Classes 1, 4, 6, 10 and 11) to add to the thrill.

Previous laps had cut up some of the surface, so dust was now an “added” factor for the fastest vehicles to watch out for “slower” traffic, especially where the track had narrow areas forming only a single lane.

Motorsport can be fickle and having gone so well in the first heat the 221 entry of Darren and Lewis Oliver, ended at the 12km corner with a broken drive line. That’s motorsport. There were a few others that succumbed to mechanical/electrical gremlins as well in Heat 2.

Quickest of the “big guns”, the Robe Earthmover’s Ultimate Class number 85 did not have it all his own way on the first lap, fighting it out with #99 entrant, Brendan Payne and David Munn, but the gap of 4/100’s of a second on the first lap was soon opened out in favour of Todd Lehmann/Aaron Heemskerk to end up being the fastest in this heat with their total of 47.16 minutes for the 5 laps, followed by the 99’s time of 48.32 minutes, with Glenn Pike/Peter Hutchins in another “Ultimate”, number 75, just behind with a total of 49.36 minutes.

Class 1 campaigner, David and Matthew Hall (134) were just behind the “big ones”, a total of 50.16 minutes for their 5 laps.

Jake England and Damian Wombwell, running a Class 10 buggy (1032) were right on the pace, a total of 50.45 minutes for 5th fastest for this heat.

Of the earlier group, Class 6 buggy of Nathan and James Satori (6116) were the best of the bunch, completing their 5 laps in 53.23 minutes, closely followed by Class 10 buggy of Travis and Alistair Conrad (1006) stopping the clock with a total of 53.34 minutes.

Heath and Michelle Weedon led the Class 7 Patrol to victory with a total time of 57.15 minutes for Heat 2.

After a 30-minute break, Heat 3 got underway for the big guns to do the last 7 lap dash to finish off the day’s competition.

Times were very close when the 1st bracket had been completed so it was anybody’s event, so keep it on track and be as quick as possible on the now very rutted race circuit, needing some very careful driving through the sandy ruts that now were quite deep in places.

The 85 car of Lehmann/Heemskerk made good use of the awesome power available from the crisp sounding V8 and took fastest times in all of the 7 laps that made up the final heat.

Glenn Price/Peter Hutchins, running a similar buggy, sounding equally crisp in full flight, could not match the 85’s lap times and drove well, but the times told the story, 85’s total 1:06.12 hours to 75’s 1:08.14 hours.

David Hall/Matthew Hall did well in the Class 1 number 134 Buggy matching the 75 for the first lap, but had to “ride out” the rough stuff and stopped the clock with a total of 1:10.29 hours to be 3rd quickest home for Heat 3.

Class 10 Buggy, Jakob Douglas/Bradley Turnbull (1041) did well to get home in 4th quickest time of 1:12.56 hours, showing that a good line will get home quickly.

Trophies were presented to the winners for a hard day at the wheel, while others were left wondering at “what could have been”, with the odd drive line failing under the torture of off-road conditions.

Thanks must go to all involved in setup and pack up of the event as well as the event sponsor and forest management group, OneFortyOne for the use of the area.