Mother Nature put on a picturesque day for the running of the Weedon Pastoral Burrungule 180 Off Road Event recently.


Racing was 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, Height 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, Height put the first bracket of vehicles (classes 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8) out on their own for seven laps of the 14+ kilometre 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 four wheel drives that took to this track, the #221 buggy of Darren and Lewis Oliver stood out, being the quickest on each of the seven 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 second fastest with 1:13.05 for a good drive.


Corey and Jai Haworth were also fairly consistent with their seven lap dash and ended with a tidy total of 1:16.51 for third 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 fourth quickest for this heat with their total of 1:16.58 hours, deemed a pretty good effort.


The second heat – a five lap dash, was held as 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 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 entry of Darren and Lewis Oliver ended at the 12km corner with a broken drive line – but that’s racing.


There were a few others that succumbed to mechanical/electrical gremlins as well in Heat 2.


Quickest of the big guns was the Robe Earthmover’s Ultimate Class number 85, but they 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 4/100s of a second on the first lap was soon opened out in favour of Todd Lehmann/Aaron Heemskerk to end up as the fastest in this heat with their total of 47.16 minutes for the five 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 with a total of 50.16 minutes for their five laps.


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


Of the earlier group, the Class 6 buggy of Nathan and James Satori (6116) were the best of the bunch, completing their five laps in 53.23 minutes, closely followed by the 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 under way for the big guns to do the last seven lap dash to finish off the day’s competition.


Times were very close when the first bracket had been completed so it was anybody’s event.


Competitors had a challenge of keeping it on track and being as quick as possible on the rutted race circuit, requiring 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 seven laps that made up the final heat.


Glenn Price/Peter Hutchins, running a similar buggy, sounded equally crisp in full flight, but 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 third quickest home for Heat 3.


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


When all the dust had settled and scores checked it was Todd Lehman and Aaron Heemskerk atop the outright field, with Glenn Pike and co-driver Peter Hutchins in second and David and Matthew Hall rounding out the podium in third.


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.