With nearly a month between rounds of the Australian Off-Road Championship (AORC), riders waste no time waiting and track down any available races to keep their speed conditioned.

Just this weekend passed was a round of the NSW state championships, where Chris Hollis and Stefan Merriman were among some of the Australia’s best doing battle.

A rocky, dusty track was the stage for a 2.5-hour cross country, where Hollis showed he’s back in form and took the win ahead of Josh Green and Stefan Merriman.

Hollis is a master of pacing himself in these events, knowing when to drop the hammer and charge on the available energy he has. Maintaining speed for over two hours can be hard to gauge if you’re not physically fit for this style of racing.

Toby Price raced GNCC over the weekend, but it was a crack in this oversize tank that cost him a result.

It was also good to see Josh Green post a solid result in the company of Hollis and Merriman. Green is proving to be the standout rider for AJ Roberts new team, the Active8 Yamaha Yamalube Racing Team.

Meanwhile in America, Toby Price was again plagued with bad luck at the Big Buck GNCC, where after sitting in fourth place, failed to finish the first due to running out of fuel.

Price fitted an aftermarket oversize tank to his bike, which split and was slowly leaking fuel during race time. He ran out of fuel twice before an eventual DNF after removing the tank to find it had split.

Price will stay in America for another week to race a National Enduro, before heading home to resume his championship title lead in the 2012 AORC series.

For something completely different, a number of the leading AORC riders decided to head to Coonabarabran for the second round of the MX Nationals, Australian Motocross Championship.

Glenn Kearney raced the Coonabarabran MX Nationals round for the second season in a row. Image: Simon Makker/Makkreative.com.

Ballard’s Yamaha teammates Matt Phillips and Daniel Milner were pitted off the side of the GYTR Yamaha team, riding a pair of YZ250 two-strokes in the MX2 class against the country’s best motocross riders.

Phillips finished 18th overall with eight points, while Milner wasn’t far behind but didn’t score any points. The two of them had plenty of attention leaping the huge step-up with ease compared to the four-strokes from what I hear though!

Husqvarna’s Glenn Kearney and Luka Bussa also raced the round in MX2 on the TC 250, with Kearney taking 23rd overall after scoring a single point in the final moto.

All four of them will be back in Coonabarabran next weekend for the fifth and sixth rounds of the AORC series, as will the likes of Hollis, Merriman, Price and the rest of the championship regulars.