AORC Kyogle | Yamaha MXstore Ballard's Offroad Team 2019

The Yamaha MXstore Ballard’s Offroad Team travelled 764km North to the small town of Kyogle, NSW for round 5/6 of the Australian Offroad

Championship (AORC).

 

It has been a couple of months since the last round of the AORC! The duo consisting of Jessica Gardiner and Jeremy Carpentier have been training hard during the 2 months off from the AORC, mostly in the sandy terrains. Whilst still keeping busy in the racing department, as they both raced the Hattah Desert out at Mildura. Jess managed to earn a 61st outright and 3rd in the ladies class, while Jeremy claimed a very respective 9th outright!

 

For Rnd 5 and 6 of the AORC at Kyogle, the club had an exceptional property to plan out the special tests on. Consisting of 4 special tests, which all varied from a technical test, thick bushlands, hills, trials, creeks, logs and open flowing sections.

 

 

On the Saturday for the 5th round of the championship, Jess had quite a challenging day with quite a few crashes and errors out there on the demanding special test. The special test was 17 minutes long and many riders quoted that it was mentally tough to keep pushing for so long. Jess battled with Emelie Karlssson all day, whilst making sure to stay in front from the start till the end of the day. Jess claimed her win by a mere 14 seconds in the Ladies class. Jess said, “I had a lot of trouble getting back into the groove after riding sand for so long, with a few too many errors throughout the day. All in all really glad to still pull it together and be on the top stop at the end of the day.”

 

Jeremy being in the Pro E2 class, rode 2 special tests back to back. One test was a technical special test, which would be similar to what he would find in a European style race. Jeremy managed to put down some great outright times in this test and struggled to gel with the longer test of 14 minutes. Jeremy held a solid overall position to finish the day in 10th outright and 3rd in the E2 class. Jeremy stated, “ It was great to be back racing the AORC after the break. I really liked what the club created with the technical test as well.”

 

 

On Sunday the riders all changed tracks to have a fresh special test to fight for their respective podiums. Jess raced on what was the Pro’s racetrack on Saturday. She seemed to flow much better on this track. Clearing out all of her errors from the day before, Jess rode a solid ride to finish a minute and 20 seconds ahead of Karlsson. Not only did Gardiner ride hard to another win, Jess also managed to break her own records! This is the first time in her AORC career that she has had 6 round wins in a row, she came close in 2014 although just feel short for 5 wins in a row. Jess quoted, “I am really happy with my riding today, I felt smooth and liked the track much better. I’m also proud to learn of my 6 straight wins, which also means I will be working hard in the next couple of weeks up until the next AORC at Broken Hill.”

 

Jeremy was riding a lot better also on Sunday, as he rode the technical test again and the switched to the junior’s track from Saturday. Jeremy was comfortably sitting in 3rd position in the E2 class and at 8th outright. Unfortunately, Sunday was not for Jeremy as he had a fall resulting in the side of his engine being smashed open due to a large rock. Jeremy took the disappointment well considering and had a NASCAR replica pit change, with his mechanic Steve, to change over to his spare bike. Due to a DNF in one sprint, his overall for the day was destroyed although managed to finish more than 75% of the day. Therefore scoring valuable championship points to maintain is 3rd position overall in the championship standings. Jeremy said, “ I am really disappointed that I couldn’t finish the test, although this is motorcycle racing and these things happen every now and again. Glad to be healthy ready to train hard to come back at the next round.”

 

 

The team would like to give a special thanks to all the sponsors who make this possible to go racing every weekend. Also to Steve for all his Pit crew assistance over the weekend.

 

The next race for the Yamaha Mxstore Ballards Offroad Team will be at Rnd 7 of the AORC at Broken Hill on the 10th/11th of August.

 

Keep up to date in the meantime via their social media pages.

@missjessgardiner

@jeremycarpentier44