After taking out the weekend’s Alice Hosetech Industrial Supplies 250, Greg Hicks has won the 2020 Alice Hosetech Industrial Supplies Jaws Contracting NT Titles.
Heading into the event having won the series’ opening round earlier this year, Hicks proved why he was the favourite to claim back-to-back NT titles after posting the fastest time on all but one of the event’s five laps.
With 25 crews taking part in the series’ second and final round, all the main drama happened early as one of Hicks’ main title rivals in Brett Taylor struggled with fuel issues and was unable finish the first lap.
Despite running in Saturday’s night lap, the former BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Class Champion (AORC) was then forced to retire from the event after discovering major engine issues overnight.
The only silver lining for Taylor’s weekend was finishing the outright series in third place after his second lap saw him replace fellow title contender Alex Heinzel in the outright standings after the youngster was unable to attend the event.
Taylor’s premature exit, as well as Heiznel’s absence completely took the pressure off Hicks, who then went on to win all of Sunday’s three laps and comfortably take out the title.
With Taylor out of the picture early, the winner’s biggest challenge over the course of the weekend came through Lachlan Weir who started the event off strongest with victory in the opening stage.
Remarkably, Weir’s first stage honours of the Alice Off Road Racing Club’s 55km course was the only time Hicks did not win a stage all year.
However that was the only downside to what had been a perfect year for Hicks and it didn’t take long for him to quash any late fightback from Weir, with two and half minutes eventually separating the two at the conclusion of the event.
As a result of his event second place, Weir leapfrogged both Taylor and Heinzel on the standings to finish the solid year behind only Hicks.
Rounding out the event’s podium a further six minutes behind the runner-up was Jacob Booth.
Taylor wasn’t the only AORC regular to endure a tough weekend out with both SXS Turbo entries of Brad Geraghty and Rick Chambers unable to complete the whole event after missing laps on Sunday.
Although another AORC driver in Patrick Geraghty also had issues on Sunday after he was on track to claim a podium finish, the Sportslite driver overcame all complications and managed to pull off a top 10 finish.
NT Titles Top 10
Greg Hicks - 396 points
Lachlan Weir - 280
Brett Taylor - 184
Alex Heinzel - 180
Jack Weir - 176
David Bird - 148
Jacob Booth - 140
Jason Adami - 128
Patrick Geraghty - 116