As promised, the Women’s class in the Australian Off-Road Championship is
going to be a hotly contested affair as Jess Gardiner and Danielle McDonald
go head-to-head in 2024.
It was the first National outing of the season for the Yamaha JGR Ballard’s Offroad Team.
Gardiner came out swinging early on day one and took it to the field. The reigning champ was in
no mood for messing around and quickly established herself as the one to beat this season and
she was able to maintain the pace all day long to take a clear win on the opening round.
But day two presented some challenges. Some on-trail issues with a downed rider, then a fall
herself all took some wind of out Gardiner’s sails, as well as McDonald starting to find her feet on
the longer and rougher tracks, but Gardiner on the back foot early in the day.
Ever the fighter, Gardiner charged her way back, but come up 3.3 seconds short, with McDonald
snaring the win with her team manager, right there in her roost at the finish.
“ I love this,” Gardiner said at the end of the weekend. “It was a tough weekend to start the
championship with the heat, but it was nice to get the win on day one after such a busy off
season.
“I am also just as excited for Danielle to get her first win as well. She is going to be a great
competitor and even on the weekend, she adjusted quickly to the tougher conditions in the senior
racing and improved a lot.
“Also, I would like to acknowledge all the women and junior girls who showed up to race this
weekend. It was so good to see over thirty female riders at this round and I hope they all enjoyed
and want to do more offroad racing.
“Special thank you to all our JGR team sponsors for pulling everything together and making this
happen. Now with the first weekend out of the way, we can settle into the season and keep the
momentum going our way,” Gardiner ends.
For McDonald, this was her first senior AORC after turning sixteen early last year and as
expected, there were some pre-race nerves. But once through the first test and getting an
understand of things, McDonald began to find her feet and make adjusts to the conditions.
Day one saw her finish in third and although disappointed, she knew she had more to give and
was determined to make amends on Sunday. And she did exactly that, McDonald kept things
clean, capitalised on the mistakes of Gardiner and bought home her first AORC Women’s round
victory.
“I’m pretty pumped to get the win as it was part of a big learning curve for me this weekend.
Saturday I just made too many mistakes and lost a lot of time, but I was able to clean it up a bit
for Sunday and while not perfect, it was better and I was able to get the win, so that’s nice.
“Things should be easier from here on as I know what to expect. A thanks to the team and our
sponsors for getting everything sorted as well as my family for their support. I can’t wait for the
next round and see if I can continue to improve,” McDonald ends.
Jeremy Carpentier logged a solid weekend on his WR450F in the extremely competitive E2 class,
taking sixth in the E2 class on Saturday, while making a few mistakes early on in the day. Jeremy
moved up one position for fifth on Sunday on the rockier track of the weekend. Both days saw
him just outside the top ten Outright but he is confident he can move up the ranks and improve
as the championship progresses.
Jeremy said,” It is great to be back at the races and around the moto family again. It wasn’t my
best weekend of racing on paper, although I know what to work on to be back stronger for the
next rounds. Massive thank you to all our partners for being involved in our busy program. Shout
to Josh our mechanic for making our job easy at the races and Jess’ parents for all the extra
help!”.
The next round of the Australian Offroad Championship for the JGR Offroad Team will be on the
20th/21st April at Mount Misery, Victoria.
Keep up to date via the team socials until then
@jgroffroad
@missjessgardiner
@jeremycarpentier44
@danielle_261_
Photo Credit: Foremost Media
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