The Albins Goondiwindi 400 lived up to its reputation of providing an exciting finale to the Australian Off Road Racing season this weekend. It was championship aspirants, Rentsch, Fellows and Robinson in a 400km dog fight through some of Australia’s toughest offroad racing terrain.

Competition began on Sunday morning with Goondiwindi Regional Mayor, Graeme Scheu, waving the green flag to start the race. As the day unfolded, Shannon and Ian Rentsch capitalised on their dust-free run at the front of the field to greet the chequered flag 29 seconds ahead of Fellows.

It was the Victorians’ 6th consecutive victory at the event, which allowed them to seal their 5th Australian Off Road Championship in the process.

“It’s unreal to win our 5th title,” Shannon said.

“It makes all the hard work we put in pay off. I couldn’t be happier. It came down to the last lap, which is good for the sport and makes it exciting for the spectators. I think the sport is going in a good direction and look forward to the future,” he said.

Second outright was the South Australian based team of David Fellows and Andrew Kittle who charged hard through the dust to move from their third place on the starting grid up into second place by the end of the first section.

The pair kept in touch with Rentsch over the final three laps on Sunday, but were unable to hunt down their championship rivals in the dying stages of the event.

The team were left to finish in second place in the championship for the second year in a row.

“The track is really good. The rough stuff is rough and the fast stuff is fast,” said David.

WA’s Travis Robinson and Paul Currie made the most of their first attempt at the Goondiwindi track, crossing the finish line in third place outright.

“I had never raced on this track before and had heaps of scary moments,” said 19 year-old Travis.

“We are happy to take third and it is good to get on the podium both in the championship and Goondiwindi,” he said.