MOTORSPORT: Australasian Safari -- Prologue

A lack of competitors and sponsorship, dwindling media coverage and prohibitive overheads mean this year's Australasian Safari will be its last. The inaugural event, then known as the Wynn's Safari, was held back in 1985 and over the past three decades has grown to include cars, motorbikes, side-by-side vehicles and quad bikes through a wide portion of the challenging Australian Outback.

As Australia's own version of the Dakar Rally, the Australasian Safari supports all categories bar trucks, and will this year incorporate the Safari Challenge class in which motoring.com.au will compete in partnership with Jeep Australia. The class sees competitors limited to stock four-wheel drive vehicles who'll vie against a series of navigational challenges across the expedition's 11 days and more than 3500 competitive kilometres.

Following the ceremonial start in the Perth suburb of Wanneroo last night, day one took the Safari north for the seaport city of Geraldton. The 400km transport stage saw competitors reconvene at the Utakarra Sportsgrounds for a 10km prologue section, held on private land to the city's north east. Unfortunately for the motoring.com.au Jeep Australia team of Matt Brogan and navigator Julia Barkley the prologue section was over before it began. A fire in vehicle #212 saw the stage closed to subsequent competitors with an equal start arrangement set in place for the following day's stage.

Team #212 of Dwayne Voogt and Sidriaan de Villiers, who had travelled from South Africa for the Australasia Safari, not only had one of the two vehicles intended for the rally fail to make it on time, but also blew the engine in their motor-home en route from Wanneroo. The fire in their UTV Taruka Racing Buggy on prologue fortunately resulted in only superficial burns to both competitors, but completely destroyed their vehicle (see pics), sadly exiting the team from the competition.

The interim start order for leg one sees Quinn Cody from the USA head the Moto/Quad division, completing prologue in a time of 5:48. The fastest of the Quad competitors was WA local Heath Young with a 5:56 pass. The Auto/SxS category was topped by Aussie lads Steve Riley (VIC) and John Doble (NSW) in their modified Holden VF Commodore (7:21), with the first of the side-by-side field led by Garry Connell (WA) on his Artic Cat Wildcat X (7:27).

Tomorrow, the motoring.com.au Jeep Australia Wrangler Rubicon X, prepared by Les Walkden Rallying, will join teams from countries including Botswana, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand, and United States as the first competitive stage heads for the mid-west town of Murchison.

To keep abreast of the latest from the Australasian Safari visit motoring.com.au again soon, go to our Facebook page at facebook.com/motoring.com.au or search Twitter using the @motoringcomau, @AustSafari or @jeepaustralia handles. More information on the Australasian Safari can be found at www.australasiansafari.com.au