Durable skinner wins gold in Charters Towers

Wednesday 03 July, 2019

Photos: NQMS MEDIA

David Skinner has picked up a well-deserved victory in the North Queensland Off Road Racing Association’s Markwell Demolition Gold City 162.

Considered a challenging track, only two drivers managed to finish every heat of the event with Skinner finishing nine minutes ahead of the second placed Nick Glass, who ended the event as Pro Buggy class victor.

For a majority of the CAMS Queensland Off Road Championship’s second round, the Sportslite driver was trailing Christian Rich and Nathan Mortimer after the SXS Turbo pilots won prologue, heat one and heat two before failing to finish the final heat – thus handing the victory to Skinner.

Following the victory, Skinner was rapt to take out the win – putting it down to his buggy’s impressive durability.

“It felt really good to win the round,” Skinner said.

“I have been obviously building my buggy up for the past three years and I am still learning it but it’s been reliable so far which is always nice.

“It’s actually a great event and I like the Charters Towers track because it’s fast. It has a couple of harsh gullies there which may have caused issues to the other drivers, but I just focused on my own car and I was really happy to finish first.

“I just completed Finke too and I finished 29th outright and second in class there due to the buggy’s reliability so I must say that the Sollitt Co guys have done very well and helped build it really well.”

Other big names not to finish the event were Jan Wisse and Adrian Whelen – the duo failing to finish the first heat but were able to get up and running for the remaining heats.

2018 St George 399 Sportslite winner Mark Bredden and Ron Griffith, who is known for his work with BFGoodrich CAMS Australian Off Road Production 4WD champion Geoff Pickering, both had days to forget with neither driver able to finish any of the heats.