BY RUSSELL COLVIN
THREE Bridges’ Daniel ‘Chucky’ Sanders finally broke through for his first ever overall outright victory in the two opening rounds of the Australian Off-Road Championship (AORC) last weekend at Kilkivan, 224 kilometres north of Brisbane.
Round one on Saturday marked Sanders’s 35th AORC race start in his career, which saw the KTM Off-Road Team young gun claim the outright win beating Lachlan Stanford by 4.197sec in a six-lap sprint style format race.
In testing conditions – a rough and rocky track and having to battle against the 35-plus degree heat – Sanders, who finished fourth in last year’s outright championship said it was definitely a tough day.
“I knew that it was going to be the same sorts of tracks as last year, so I knew what to expect,” said Sanders who finished with a total time of 46min00.731sec.
“To get my first outright win done and dusted has been a goal of mine which I wanted to do this season. This a real big confidence booster leading into tomorrow.”
The 21-year-old kept his winning performance going into the second round on Sunday, also another sprint style race. However he started off a bit slow in the first few sprints after trying to find the correct lines and get into a rhythm.
It wasn’t until the fifth run that Sanders finally took command of the pack, taking the lead away from New South Wales’ Josh Green, the early pace setter.
Green threw everything he had at Sanders in the last sprint, but it wasn’t quite enough, and Sanders got the nod by .999sec.
Not only was Sanders victorious in the outright class, but he took the spoils the E3 category (300cc-500cc) as well.
“It’s a great feeling to be able to come here this weekend and walk away with two outright round wins,” Sanders told the Upper Yarra Mail straight after the race.
“All the hard work and training during the off-season is paying off. I can’t thank my team enough for supplying me with the best KTM 300EXC to go out there and race with. It’s a team effort, so this is their victory as much as it is mine.”
Sanders explained that the first two rounds last weekend had given him a big “confidence booster” heading into round three and four, which will take place at Portland in NSW on 9-10 April.
While Sanders may have snared the opening two rounds, he knows he has a long 2016 season ahead of him with another 10 rounds to go, and he says he still has to keep training to be at the peak of his game.
“It’s a nice feeling to win, but we still have to keep pushing as hard as possible and readjust our goals during the course of the year,” he said.
“I’ll keep training as hard as I can when I get back home and look towards the next two rounds at the beginning of April and we’ll see what we can do there.
“This championship looks like it could be one of the hardest yet I dare say.”
The top 5 Outright Championship line up after two rounds is Daniel Sanders (50); Josh Green (42); Lachlan Standford (42); Tye Simmonds (34) and Beau Ralston (33).
