Yamaha Racing's Roaring Start to AORC

The sandy plains of Mendooran, near Dubbo played host to the opening round of the AORC and the weather played its part with some lead up rain making conditions pristine for the first event of the year. With a record numbers entered for the round, the AORC is off to a flying start for 2023.

Danielle Macdonald, Wil Dennett, Davey Gear, Ollie Gear and Taylor Thompson all won their respective classes over the weekend while Jess Gardiner, Cooper Sheidow and Seth Burchell all stood on the podium.

To view the JGR Yamaha bLU cRU round review: https://youtu.be/BX4UAKo7wBY

JGR Yamaha
With Jeremy Carpentier sidelined with a wrist injury, the JGR Yamaha team were down to two in an all women team with Jess Gardiner and junior gun, Danielle Macdonald. Danielle MacDonald continued her dominance of the Junior Girls winning both days comfortably and adapting well to the four-stroke after stepping off her YZ125 and the end of 2022.

Jess Gardiner finished the weekend in second place in the Women’s division with a couple of second place finishes behind fellow Yamaha mounted Taylor Thompson (Excite Motorcycles). Gardiner isn’t a fan of the sandy conditions Mendooran provides but did her best to battle through the weekend.

Yamaha bLU cRU Support
The newly formed bLU cRU Yamaha support team debuted in impressive fashion with Wil Dennett (Lismore Motorcycles) not only taking both round wins in the Under 19 class (EJ), he was also deep inside the top 10 Outright and showing he has made plenty of progress over the off season. Moving to the 450cc machine, the increase in power suits the larger frames Dennett and he simply excelled in the sandy conditions on both days.

Cooper Sheidow (WSB Distributors) also made a good start to his year with a third place finish on both days in the super competitive E1 (250cc) class. Facing off against last years winner, Kyron Bacon, Sheidow raced well all weekend and to land on the podium shows he and the Yamaha are gelling well and the sign of better things to come.

Last years runner up in the J4 class (15 years) Jett Yarnold (Super Moto) has made the leap into senior racing and straight into the Under 19 class. He made a good fist of things with a solid seventh place finish on day one and improved one place for sixth on Sunday.

GYTR Yamaha Junior Racing
Harley Hutton, Marcus Nowland and Seth Burchell flew the YJR flag for the first weekend of AORC. Hutton and Nowland are off road regulars and both have moved up a division for 2023 while Burchell is a motocross rider on weekend bush excursion.

Hutton got his year off to a solid start with a couple of top 5 results in the J2 (12-15 years 85cc0 class. Being one of the youngest on the division after winning J1 last year, Hutton is adapting to the biker wheeled bike and coming to terms with the increased level of competition so a top five result is more than respectable for his first attempt.

Marcus Nowland made the last minute call to race the YZ125 in the J3 class and was confident coming into the opening weekend. Unfortunately, a heavy fall on day one rattled him and finished up with 10^th on Saturday and a slight improvement to eighth on Sunday.