PORTLAND’S Jake and Peter Stevenson will be in action at the 2023 ARB Australian Off Road Racing Championship this weekend, with round one of the series set to take place in Rainbow.
The Stevensons are no strangers to this particular event, having competed in it on a number of occasions in years gone by, but Peter said the challenge remains significant no matter how many times you’ve done it.
“It’s a gruelling series, in 2018 we finished the event and we spent over seven hours in the race car across event,” he said.
“Between the recon, time trials and multi-lap races over an 80-kilometre circuit, it takes a lot out of you.”
In saying that, Stevenson said it’s a great event that they thoroughly enjoy participating in.
“The whole town gets behind it, we park all the cars in town so people can come have a look, it’s a really great weekend,” he said.
“There’s a lot of preparation that goes into these events… we’ve spent months getting the car ready, there’s always setbacks along the way.
“Just recently we thought the car was all ready to go only for the starter motor to fall out… it won’t keep us out of the race but it just goes to show the obstacles that can be thrown in your way.”
In such a challenging event, Stevenson said that simply crossing the finish line on the final day is an achievement in itself.
“Finishing the event is our main goal… we’ve been put out of contention by one mistake leading to a crash… it’s tough to go through multiple days without any of those mistakes, especially in a small car like ours,” he said.
This particular event makes up round one of ARB’s series, with the pair hoping to compete in three out of the four events total.
“We should get to the second event (in Hillston, New South Wales) which is happening in July, we probably won’t make it to the third event in Queensland unfortunately,” he said.
“The final event is just over in Millicent, so we’ll definitely make it to that one… other than that we’ll probably compete in a few other club events over the year, but this series is our main priority.”
