World Finals 3 Review By Damian Hall

It was to be a night of upsets, hard fought victories and surprises, but at the end of it all, when all the dust had settled - it was Dan Patrick in Samson USA making it a three-peat in the Racing Championship and Jim Koehler with Avenger becoming 2 time Freestyle champion.

Whilst the weather was beautiful on the day of the event, all during the week it had been raining quite heavily wreaking havoc on track preparations, and with storms forecast for that evening, it perhaps played a hand in keeping crowd numbers reasonably average.

The show kicked off with the customary grand parade, and with 18,000HP circulating around the track at once, it was certainly a sight to behold. The Hon. Phil Reeves MP, Minister for Sport and Child Safety formally opened the event and it was straight into the racing program on the unique oval course.

The track itself was a design not seen anywhere else in the world before. Whilst the trucks would be racing in a standard Chicago style (oval) configuration, the corners of the track had in fact been built up, and had a banking on them to mimic the speedway circuit. This track certainly proved to be very fast and very tricky, catching out a few of the fancied competitors. All of the USA drivers were heard to comment on how unique the track was and how much they enjoyed driving on it, they really loved the track.

Avenger's racing recap

First Round: Raptors Rampage was against Avenger in it's first round pairing and was another one to be caught out by the track. Hitting the tyres on the inside of the course and spinning out mid-corner, gave Avenger a fairly easy victory.

Second Round: Kreg in Extreme was able to take down Avenger in another close race.

Avenger's Freestyle Recap: (Score: 28) As last years champion, Avenger was out last, and Jim had already pulled into the staging area to watch Thunda 4's run. With an idea of what he had to do, Jim set out in trademark Avenger style. He hit everything and anything that was in his path, getting some great air off the smaller obstacles. No-one had yet to attempt the bus, but this didn't stop Jim driving up from the steepest side getting some huge air. The truck was starting to falter and Jim was down on power, but he kept on going. Back over the bus again, and then from the other side getting a long jump off it. He attempted some donuts, but the power just wasn't there. It was non-stop, and after a full 2 minute run he pulled in front of the main grandstand with the crowd cheering. The scores came in and he had just beaten Clive for the Freestyle championship once more.