Kiwi sensation Boston Morgan-Horan has stormed to the outright lead of the Comiskey Mining Services Australian Off Road Championship with one round remaining, after a dominant weekend at the Loveday 400 event in South Australia.
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Morgan-Horan and navigator Will Haddock were near-faultless from the opening exchanges in the Method Race Wheels Prologue on Friday right through to the final lap of Section 4 on Sunday, finishing 8:18 minutes ahead of second-placed Beau Robinson and Shane Hutt, with Todd Lehmann and Tanner James a further six minutes back in third outright.
Morgan-Horan debuted a new Mason V8-powered 4WD Extreme Trophy Truck at Loveday – a move which he quickly embraced despite having to adapt to left-hand drive, more weight and more power.
Not surprisingly, he said the new car was money well spent.
“I’m pretty ecstatic. I can’t thank everyone enough: all the boys and to Lloyd for getting me here,” he said.
“First run in the new trophy truck and a picture-perfect weekend. I can’t complain.”
Morgan-Horan now sets his sights to the final stop of the AORC, the iconic Kalgoorlie Desert Race in Western Australia, where he has the opportunity to be crowned one of the youngest outright champions in history.
The enormity of the feat is not lost on the Kiwi driver.
“The plan is to go to Kalgoorlie and get to the end. It would mean a lot to win the championship. I’ve actually been trying to win races but now I’m in a position where I can win it outright, it will mean a lot when it comes around – if it comes around,” he said.
The gruelling Loveday event was something of a breakthrough for second-placed Robinson, who has been cruelled by small teething issues on his Trophy Truck, as well as plain bad luck for much of the 2026 AORC season.
Robinson was ultra-consistent across the Loveday weekend, and said he was satisfied in taking out second and banking some valuable points ahead of the season-finale Kalgoorlie event in October.
“The pace was pretty good here, Boston was setting it pretty hard,” said Robinson. “Even though we had a bit of a longer game in mind the pace was still pretty on. We had a bit of a bad run at Pooncarie earlier in the season, so we’re trying to make sure we’re sorted for next year and we can put together a proper championship effort.”
Loveday was also a happy hunting ground for South Australian Todd Lehmann, who kept the trophy trucks honest despite an obvious power deficit in his Pro Buggy entry.
Further down the order, Nick Commins and Lachlan Bennie came through for a season-best fourth outright at Loveday, while Nick Hicks and Benjamin Stakelum were fifth.
Glen Ackroyd and Michael Price were the first of the SXS entries home, finishing a credible sixth outright.
Ackroyd went into the Loveday round leading the competitive SXS championship, and was understandably happy to consolidate his position with one round of the championship remaining.
“It was very rough, the last laps were very rough. I’m not sure what it is but it seems to work for us, we just keep it smart and keep it smooth,” Ackroyd said.
“It’s good that we’re leading, but we’re not there yet. We will see how we go in Kalgoorlie.
“It’s awesome, what more could you want?”
Coming home second in SXS was another South Australian pairing in Lachlan Bailey and Jordan Zollo. Bailey had to fight hard for the podium finish after mechanical issues slowed his run considerably throughout the day.
“We had a few issues this morning and kept going into limp mode. We lost a lot of time and spent most of the break between sections trying to fix it: basically broken bolts and sensors and fault codes and all sorts, so we weren’t quite sure going out there but we managed to finish which was good,” Bailey said.
“To finish just makes it all worth it. We’ll see how we go with work and everything else around Kalgoorlie, but if it all lines up we hope to be there.”
Rounding out the top three in SXS was the Queensland pairing of Tyson Gava and Lachlan Gava, in a breakthrough result that was also good enough for 10th outright.
All the action in the AORC resumes October 23-25 with the Black Diamond Drilling Kalgoorlie Desert Race.
