Buggies, four-wheelers max out as Adam Trewhella wins WA Off-road Racing Championship’s Perenjori 360

A Mad Max variety of buggies, four-wheel-drives and four-wheelers threw up clouds of dust in the back of beyond last Saturday and Sunday as they raced to the finish line of the Perenjori 360 at speeds of up to 190 km/h.

Organiser Jason Galea said the 2022 edition of the Perenjori 360 had the biggest field of racers ever and some high speeds were achieved as the track allowed drivers to max out their speedos, with the quicker buggies reaching some scorching speeds.

“The fastest cars probably do 200km/h,” Galea said.

“There are a couple of sections where they’d be getting close to that. One of the cars was reported to be going across the finish line on a run down the bitumen somewhere over 190km/h, and that wasn’t even the longest straight.”

Pro buggy driver Adam Trewhella was the outright winner of the 52 entries, while 2021 winner and State champion Jayden Grewar in the was fifth overall and won the side-by-side four-wheeler (SXS) pro class.

“It’s the biggest Perenjori race we’ve ever had,” Galea said.

“We thought we were going to get a smaller entry but we ended up having the most entrants ever.”

“For the competitor who won, it was his first ever win and it would be well over 20-30 years his family have been involved in off-road racing.”

One vehicle rolled over and could not go any further but both crew were unharmed.

The WA Off-road Racing Championship organisation said Perenjori had a particularly fun track.

“The ‘PJ 360’ has been the season opener for many years now and it is starting to develop a reputation as one of the most enjoyable tracks on the calendar,” WAORC said.

While not being brutally tough on the cars, the track still had a lot of challenging sections which did not favour one type of vehicle over another, leading to good racing action and a mix of trophy truck, buggy and SXS featuring on the podium, it said.

Next on the WAORC calendar is the Gascoyne Dash, running from April 28-May 1.