Ballards Yamaha riders again dominate the podium positions at the Queensland rounds 7 & 8 of the Australian Offroad Championships at Connondale.

The Connondale circuit is a favorite location among many of the riders and this weekend was no different. After some early week rains and a MX circuit that had been roughed up 2 weeks earlier from the OZ MX championships, Added to this were 10 kms of tough trails that weaved in and out of rocky creek beds and some awesome grass track paddocks just to keep the riders grinning a little!

Unfortunately Jason Cater was sidelined from this round with a broken leg after a pre event training accident, putting his hopes of another championship out of the question for 2007. We all wish him well on his recovery.

This left 6 Ballards Yamaha riders to fly the flag over the Saturday and Sunday rounds. Round 7 (Sat) went well with the team getting 3 firsts, a second a third and a fourth, but round 8 (Sun) was exceptional with 5 firsts and a second!

Pro E1 WR250F rider Chris Hollis rode hard to end the weekend with a second to Ben Grabham on Saturday, but upped the anti to take the win on Sunday and take 4^th overall as well against the more powerful machines.

Pro E2 WR450F hard charger Shannon Lewry certainly knows were the throttle is, but sometimes this works against him when he hangs it out a little too much. This was the case on Saturday with a few mistakes that cost him time and dropped him to 4^th in class, but Shannon also fought back for a strong result at round 8 giving him 2^nd in class behind AJ and ahead of Williscroft. Shannon as well took 3^rd outright on the day.

Pro E3 YZ250 speedster Jarrod Bewley was again on form, but on Saturday took a heavy fall in the extreme rocky creek section that dropped his overall result to 4^th. He incredibly still managed to take the class win, which he continued as well for the Sunday round 8, but strengthened that days overall result to 2^nd outright.

Josh Ballard in the Expert E2 class had a good Saturday and a great Sunday on his WR450F with results of 3^rd and 1^st over the 2 days, beating on both days his biggest rival Myles Bowen

Alison Parker managed her usual domination of the women’s class with a massive lead at the end of each day’s competition on her favorite machine, the WR250F. Alison again left half the field of guys in her dust, showing just how strong a rider she really is.

Team boss Geoff Ballard again had a great weekend completely dominating and loving the ride. He still raves about his WR450F, and certainly had it pinned to gain more than a 2 minute lead each day in the ever popular Masters class.

The next ride for the team is a state round this weekend at Mogo.