GHR Honda Riders Dominate Round 5 of the Australian Offroad Championship

The off road fraternity descended Monza Park near historic Ballarat this weekend for rounds five and six of the Australian Off Road Championships with GHR Honda’s AJ Roberts retaining his lead.

AJ showing the way

Riders and crews were greeted with drought conditions and extreme dust, however by the completion of lap one the rain kicked in providing perfect conditions for the majority of the seven special tests.

Roberts continued his winning ways in the 450cc class and beat team mate Ben Grabham (250cc) class for the outright win by a mere seven seconds, giving the team a first and second outright for the round.

AJ also finished in a strong second position on Sunday in what has otherwise been a perfect run so far - five wins from five rounds.

"The CRF450 was great,” said Roberts. “Me and Benny were swapping spots all day on Saturday. I think we had four special tests and we were within one second of each other, and some of those tests were almost ten minutes long."

“It was great for the team to have both riders win their class and push each other for the outright win. I had one drop early on but so did Benny." enthused Roberts.

Grabham had a similar sentiment. "Yeah it was good to win some tests outright and win the class on my CRF250 on Saturday. It was a perfect day for the team and I needed to be only a few seconds faster for the whole day for it to almost perfect for me.”

Round six on Sunday threw up a few more challenges, with Grabbo coming off badly and losing a radiator. He was still able to finish strongly in third place, and is now positioned a close third overall on the ladder at the half way point of the season.

Team Manager Glenn Hoffmann said the team are still aiming for victory in the 250 and 450cc championship classes. “It has not been done before, but I believe AJ and Ben can still get their Honda’s to the top two positions in their respective championship titles overall. The whole championship is so close and both riders had a few moments on Sunday and the opposition were there, we have to stay focused and Grabbo needs to win more in the second half of the season to claw back the gap to Chris Hollis.”