Yamaha Motor Australia press release:

With rain falling sideways and the racing surface looking more like a Chinese rice field, the CDR Yamaha Off Road duo of Chris Hollis and Tom McCormack battled their way through rounds seven and eight of the Australian Off Road Championship (AORC), held at Hedley in Victoria over the weekend.

Saturday’s event was a three hour cross country that had competitors dealing with conditions that were almost unrideable as axle deep mud made moving hard work, while there was no rest on Sunday as it was more of the same in a shortened four lap sprint race format that made riders and teams work for their hard for their results all weekend.

Tom McCormack enjoys the wet and a boggy conditions and rode well on Saturday to finish sixth outright and second in the E2 class on board his WR450F. It was a good effort as McCormack continued to push forward throughout the event.

Unfortunately Tom wasn’t able to repeat the performance on Sunday and found the almost bottomless mud extremely difficult to ride. He finished 18th for the round Outright but held onto fifth in the E2 division.

“I felt great on Saturday and was riding well all day so I was really confident of a good day on Sunday,” McCormack said. “But it didn’t happen and I just couldn’t get a flow going in the mud and really struggled. The other riders picked up a bit of speed and I lost a bit with the way I was riding and it showed in my result.

“It was a tough weekend for everyone and the CDR Yamaha team did a great job of keeping us going in such harsh conditions so a huge thank you to everyone on the team,” he ends.

Chris Hollis also found the conditions challenging and he too struggled in the deep mud. Hollis took 13th Outright on Saturday but improved a little on Sunday to finish 11th.

Despite the tough weekend, Hollis maintains fourth place in the outright standings on his WR450F and a very respectable second place in the E2 category.

“It really was a weekend to forget,” Hollis explains. “I’m not the greatest sand rider but then when you add a heap of rain into the mix, I really find it hard but I managed to get through and score a few points.

“I’m still going ok in the standings but I need a good finish at the final four rounds to really challenge for the outright podium,” he ends.

Rounds nine and ten of the championship hot Monkerai in NSW on August 13-14.

To follow the CDR Yamaha team on social media; www.facebook.com/cdryamaha or @cdr_yamaha