Auret, Barnes scrape home to win

DITCH CREEK: Hamish Auret and co-driver Paul Barnes navigated the hazards in okay fashion in the final round at Thames before scraping home by a mere point. 070415WCSUPHAMISH-AURET

Hamish Auret will be sporting NZ 1 on his 650hp Chev truck after winning the National 4x4 Championship by a mere point in the final round in the back blocks of Thames at the weekend.

Auret and co-driver Paul Barnes from the Egmont club, went into the final round with a seven-point lead and looked assured of the national title. However, just after lunch in the one-day event, Auret's worst nightmare came to life when a spectacular roll sent them spiralling end-over-end strapped into their Pirtek hydraulics-sponsored, 7-litre Chev.

That incident put an end to competition for the pair on the day and they were forced to sit and wait to see how nearest rival Scott Biggs from Auckland fared.

"Scott finished second and one point adrift of us, so we won the title by just one point," a relieved Auret said yesterday.

"If Scott had won, it would have made it really interesting, but we are really buzzed to have won. Rolls like we had in Thames are always going to happen - it's a matter of when, not if, simply because of the extremes we push our machines to.

"It was pretty hair-raising stuff, although the truck is pretty sturdy. We couldn't compete after the roll. It had even pushed the roll cage out of shape. Lucky for us it didn't happen in the middle of the series because we would have struggled to make up the points."

Auret said he and Barnes were "okay" until the mishap.

"We were doing all right in the morning session - just okay really, but to be honest we'd been waiting all season for a roll like this. Winning the national title has been an eight-year plan, upgrading vehicles and getting the driver/co-driver mix right. Barnsey is a top co-driver and I couldn't have done it without him.

"We are only the second Wanganui crew to have won the national title. Dan Cowper has won it a couple of times and, ironically, he's the man who built our truck," Auret said.

While the season is now complete, Auret and Barnes won't be resting on their laurels with a major invitational meeting coming up in six weeks here in Wanganui. The pair will be among 15 of the country's top trucks competing in the Suzuki Extreme 4x4 Challenge, an invitational event on May 31 that will be televised for an hour-long segment on TV3's CRC Motorpsort Show. Auret will be seeded No1 for the event.

Meanwhile, an Australian 4x4 television crew filmed the Thames final, although Auret was unsure where or when that would be aired.