The first day of finals began with a slightly damp track from the previous afternoon’s rain, but the track soon dried out and grooved back up, providing excellent traction for the rest of the weekend. The final two rounds of qualifying plus the lower finals were scheduled to be ran. Matt Griffin held the TQ position for both classes at the start of the day, with Kyle McBride only a few points behind and Jarred King sitting third, less than ten points behind Kyle. However, both Kyle and Matt dropped out of the fifth round of buggy for the day early, allowing Ari Bakla to take the round from Jarred King and Josh Pain. Kyle came back to take round six from Matt and Jarred, which gave Matt Griffin the overall TQ for buggy. Round five of truggy proved to be much more straight-forward, with Griffin taking the round from McBride, with Jarred King proving his consistency around the super high grip Canberra surface to take third once again. Kyle went on to take round six, with Jarred running second and Griffin third. This put Kyle and Matt on equal points, with Kyle taking TQ from Matt on a countback, with Jarred King rounding out the top three.

With qualifying finishing early on in the day, with only the 1/8th buggy A & B finals scheduled to be run in the afternoon, most of the top drivers took the time to rebuild their cars for tomorrow’s semi finals. Meanwhile, the lower ranked drivers began their battle to bump through to the next day’s races. The first final up was the 1/8th Buggy B final, which Michael Savic won from Jake Brett and Matt Samra, with Michael Cook taking the final bump up spot. Unfortunately the weekend finished early for Dale Smulders, who only arrived in the morning and attempted to bump his way through the lower finals, only to be stopped during his first final by a destroyed clutchbell. The 1/8th Buggy A final was fairly straightforward, with Paul Peterson taking the win from Jayson Brenton, Robert Rutledge and Karl Schmidt.

Day 4:
Day 4 began with the semi final practice sessions, which gave the top 16 qualified drivers time to fine tune their cars for the extremely important 20 minute semi finals. Directly afterwards were the buggy 1/4th finals, starting with the 1/4th B. This proved to be the most controversial race of the weekend, with “Home Track Hero” Nick Chatz taking the win from Nick Morris, Steve Snedden and Sasha Gajic. However, after the race it was determined that Snedden had ignored a call for a stop and go, and received a one-lap penalty, which promoted Gajic to third and Mick Campion into the last bump spot. The 1/4th A final ran much smoother, with Kevin Lewis taking a commanding win from Simon Page, with Mathew Iverach third and Stuart Smith in fourth.

The start of the semi finals finally saw the return of the truggies to the track. With these races deciding the grid for the main finals, the pressure was on all the drivers to do their best. Matt Griffin dominated the first truggy semi, winning by two laps over Dallas Gardiner, with Tristan Donaldson, Dave Watts and Dragan Bjelic taking the remaining direct bump up spots. The following truggy semi turned out to be one of the most excited I’ve ever witnessed, with Kyle McBride taking the win from Jarred King, Ari Bakla, Russell Freeman and Scott Elkins. Jarred and Ari battled wheel to wheel for the entire twenty minutes, with each of them passing the other multiple times. In the end it came down to a 1.3 second gap between the two of them. After both finals had run, the next two fastest cars outside the top five from either race took positions eleven and twelve on the A Main grid, in this case it was Brendhan Wade and Jasmin Snedden from Semi A who took the final grid slots.

The buggy semi finals ran much the same as their truggy counterparts, with Griffin and McBride taking their respective semi’s, with Kyle’s time being slightly faster, which allowed him to take pole position on the buggy A Main starting grid. The remaining automatic bumps from Semi B were Ari Bakla, KC Shore, Steven Drygalla and Michael Zlotkowski; with Jarred King, Josh Pain, Jomari Cura and Kevin Lewis taking the remaining automatic bump spots from Semi A. Once again, positions eleven and twelve on the grid were taken by drivers from the A side, with Mathew Iverach and Scott Jones running faster than the remaining driver’s in the opposite semi.

Now the time had come for the Main Events! After a very short break, the driver’s in the Truggy A Main final took their spot on the stand and began their warmup for the upcoming 45 minute final. During the final, two very close battles were fought, one between Kyle McBride and Matt Griffin for first and second position, and the other between Ari Bakla and Jarred King, who resumed their battle from the semi final. Unfortunately Jarred was hit with engine troubles with only ten minutes to go, which left him in tenth position at the end of the race. McBride held of a fast charging Griffin to lead every lap of the final, with the two finishing three laps up on third spot Bakla, who managed to hold on to his position despite losing a wheel during the race, with his pit crew doing an amazing job to get him back onto the track without losing much time. Ever consistent Dallas Gardiner finished in fourth with local talent Russell Freeman rounding out the top five.

After such an exciting Truggy race, the Buggy final had a lot to live up to. However, it did not disappoint. Kyle lead the field away through the first few corners, however, Griffin made a move on Kyle midway through the first lap, and never looked back. Griffin would continue to lead every lap of the final, as Kyle had in truggy. As we got closer to the end of the race, it looked as though Griffin’s tires had begun to go off, with Kyle closing a 15 second gap in a matter of laps. Once directly behind Griffin, McBride’s impatience got the best of him, as he tried to make a move to the inside while coming onto the front straight, he came unstuck and lost around 5 seconds due to his mistake. This gave Griffin the gap he needed to bring home the win. Once again the battle was on for third between Bakla and King, with Ari holding Jarred off to take third. The other super close battle was for fifth, between KC Shore and Josh Pain. Shore’s superior fuel strategy allowed him to get the advantage of Pain, with close battling between stops providing plenty of action for those spectating to watch. In the end, Shore took the fifth position with Pain sixth.

Directly after the race finished the storm clouds to the side of the track seemed to get ever closer, so the club started to rush through the preparations for the trophy presentation. Just as the presentation began however, the skies opened up and it began to pour down! The club quickly relocated the presentation to underneath the pit shelter, and got it out of the way as quickly as possible to allow the interstaters to get to their flights and out of the cold weather. All in all it was a successful weekend, with the CORMCC club presenting one of the best tracks and facilities in Australia. I would personally like to thank everybody involved in the running and organization of the event, and all the event sponsors, without whom this event wouldn’t be able to be run each year.