10 – Day 3 Friday Highlights - Sunraysia Safari 2025

Toby Hedrix was first rider on the road. A 200 kilometer transport leading to the 130 km Wilcara special stage. A stage full of wilderness and wildlife. >> It is a lot lot of fun out there when you're opening the tracks. It is enjoyable to be out in front. Uh, obviously tricky to try to pull away when you're out in front. >> Enjoyable it may have been, but when it came to fastest time, it was newcomer to safari Will Ashb who grabbed top spot. Next quickest, Archie Connor on bike three, who'd been in a tussle with Cory Banks. The defending champ had road position, but the younger rider found his dust. I caught up to Cory Banks. I think I might I think he might have had issues, but yeah, I had a lot of fun in the tight stuff and in the in the sand. >> With engine dramas of yesterday behind him, another Safari newcomer, Scott Steedman, was also grateful to be showing his skills. >> Lucky to get it home actually and uh spent most of the night getting it up and running and yeah, today was actually a good one. We we put it all together and yeah, I think that shows. Excess engine oil had threatened Steedman's ride, but with no internal damage, he raced on to record a third and later fifth in stage for the day. Tom Foster found himself chasing down the faster adventure rider Andrew Hulahan. His second year in safari, providing better skills for his navigation. Although he wished he'd preloaded the first stage scroll, >> I had to change it to that last one. I everyone else seemed to have done it last night. Changed it all over so I didn't have to change it before the special, but I didn't get the memo. So, I was there hands cold trying to change it all and everything, but no, it's good. Seemed to be finding me way in that pretty easily and good. Trying not to follow as much as I was last year. Been my first year, I found myself following a bit, but now I'm starting to Yeah, this is the Bible. Don't follow tracks, follow this. So, yeah, starting to find a flow with it. South Australia's Stuart Martin was also finding the flow in his second event. Third fastest in the over 45 category and chasing the younger, older riders, >> especially when uh the guy that sort of won it last year is about 47 and I'm getting closer to the other end 60. So, it's I don't mind it. I'm enjoying it and I think that's the best thing. It's if I can match the younger guy, it' be great. [Music] The elder statesman of the under 45s is Don L. Just been cruising along the trail riding with young blood race. >> Do you remember doing that once? Uh once or twice or three times. Yeah. How was this morning? >> Uh pretty good actually. >> Um they didn't have any issues through there. They had a bit of a duel with skinny and that so which was good. >> If you're wondering who Skinny is, it's Alex Kelly from Queensland. Don and I were toe to toe. We were chasing each other down which was good fun. Look, if if I could be his age and ride it as fast as he is, I'll be I'll be a happy man. He um he knows how to pedal a bike through some uh through some scrubs and it was it was really good fun chasing him down. So, I'm not uh I'm not from here. This isn't my kind of territory. So, it was good to actually follow the local and, you know, really really see what it's all about. So, it was good. It was a good battle. >> Liam McConnell's battle was with his bike, lamenting the need for more horsepower. >> It's way too many straight lines for this old girl. So, we'll go to the drawing board and figure out how to get a few more ponies out of it. >> Now, you got a bit of an oil leak, too. What's happening there? >> Uh, the oil's not staying inside. Don't know why. >> The world loves a comedian. To his credit, Liam McConnell was one of only three riders who got the navigation right yesterday. Another was Travis G, who was taking the time to get the allimportant scroll reloaded correctly for the afternoon leg. >> So, you got to trust yourself, you know, you think, am I doing the right thing here? You know, am I am I heading the right direction? So, you a bit of trust in yourself and believe in machinery, you know, you got to get I mean, having your speedo set and all your your um your maps in the right place and doing everything. Yeah, you just got to trust it. So, and believe it. The big news in auto was leader Andrew Travis. Sidelined within 5ks of the start with a broken idler pulley that allowed the hard charging surprise of this event. Glenn Brinkman in the Can-Am Maverick R up into second in stage enjoying the terrain. It was pretty dry. Lots of sand, heaps of really soft sand. So I think we um we had a really good run except for you know you watch yourself. We're doing 160 and you know they're doing 190 in the straight stuff. So, and there was, you know, 10k straights there. So, so yeah, we suffered a bit there, but other than that, I think we held our own way. It was pretty good. [Music] >> With the Commodore out, Dean Herage was 40 seconds quicker than Brinkman in the process, taking over the rally lead. >> It's now trying to temper the speed when you can attack, when you can't, you know, minimizing risks. It's a um that's where the experience comes in. I think when I first came in, I felt like everything, even the instructions, you drive like you could see it and things. Now, that's where I think Sam and I work good as a combination. I got to give him time to breathe, get the instructions right. Doesn't mean we overshot a couple. We didn't get them all perfect, but it's about trying to minimize the mistakes on the navigation. [Music] Well done was Nick's quickest. [Music] Yeah. No, that was a good stage. We had a good clean run and it was really enjoyable. We really like that stage. Fast stuff. Bit of mud still about bit mud went in the car and then twisty and stuff through the trees. Bit of sandy, but the sand's all wet so got plenty of traction. >> Daniel Jones was next through in the Triton, but at lunch things weren't sounding all good. Team mechanic Ian Wilson doing what he could to get the boys through the day. Uh, it's just got a few little gremlins. I just make it check a few things and yeah, we might have to do more tonight and just limp at home tonight. Mhm. >> And see where we're at. Just have a bit of a check, a proper check over tonight. >> But they wouldn't make tonight down a lung halfway through the final stage, the LS1 engine cried enough in need of a trailer. Warren Denim was more steady than slow, enjoying the run today. >> Yeah, we had a good run. It was um some interesting tracks out there. Um not far from the start, we went past Andrew and pulled up on the side of the road and then Quinny was pulled up a little bit further. So, we had a clean dustfree run. Just cruised along. Um we did gearbox did get a little bit hot for a little while there. We had to back off for a little bit in the high speed stuff. Other than that, [Music] Tony Quinn was sidelined with a broken gear selector, but was only stopped long enough for co-driver John Doel to attach vice grips to the selector to pull gears. The final stage saw Moto's Will Ashby consolidate his day. A win for stage seven followed by a second through stage eight delivered him the day three win. And with that, first bike on the road tomorrow. >> Happy in my piece. I'm happy. No, as long as it's good. >> Thumbs up from stage winner Toby Hedrix, declaring it the best special stage he'd ever raced. Little surprise, he takes over the outright rally lead. Lean McConnell's bike problems of the morning became more personal in the afternoon. That hurt. Oh, that hurt. And Archie Connor was hurting too. All his good work undone with a flat tire 70 kilometers from the finish. [Music] Hit some wire at the 50k mark and yeah, just lost all the air. So, it's all right. Got hit. This was also the stage that caused mayhem last year with navigation. It wasn't as bad in 2025, but still the stage didn't disappoint >> around those crops. It was so confusing all three. It was me, you and Steman lost lost in that section through where all the apples and all the sorry the oranges were. >> Oh yeah, >> we couldn't find that hard to see on the left. >> Yeah, >> my was like 800 m out at that. So >> yeah, >> you found it all right though, eh? that hard. Look left when I caught up to you there. >> Yeah, I stayed on the road book. I slowed right down to go right. But >> yeah, >> you see me on that corner. >> In outright terms, at the end of day three in auto, it's Dean Herage by a healthy margin. [Music] Despite winning the day and clawing back more than two minutes of Herage's lead, Glenn Brinkman will be hardressed to unseat the Subaru Pilot tomorrow. [Music] And in a classic case of consistency reaping reward, James Moffett moves into fourth outright in his holding Rodeo behind Rob Herage who remarkably retakes his third outright in the WRX.