The 2010 Australian Off Road Championship will kick off in style across the Easter long weekend (April 2-5), with the ARB Pinjarra Engineering Hyden 450 held in West Australia. The competitor list is bursting at the seams with over 90 cars, including many from the East Coast, making the trip to Hyden in the WA wheat belt.

Topping the entry list is the reigning Australian Champions, Shannon and Ian Rentsch, who will be picking up where they left off at the end of 2009 in their battle with the Jimco’s of David Fellows and young WA hot shot, Travis Robinson.

"I’m looking forward to the ARB Pinjarra Engineering Hyden 450,” said Rentsch “We have won there the last two years and will hopefully once again get this season off to a good start. The entry numbers are up which makes for an exciting championship.”

The number of outright contenders that will be snapping at their heels has never been greater. Chapman, Crowe, Bentley, Coleman, Hanson and Madden to name just a few all return to the west.

Dan Auricht, Brad Prout and Andrew Kittle will all be unveiling brand new Pro Class A-arm Jimcos, while Bob Strawbridge will be wheeling out the latest generation of his Australian made Southern Cross Chassis. Mark Burrows western assault sees a turbo charged V6 Nissan power plant replace the 4 cylinder Honda turbo we have been familiar with in recent year.

The strong field of local Western Australian based teams will be aiming to keep the silverware out of the hands of the invading east coast racers. Leading the local charge will be the three car Outerbounds Racing Team from Perth, Eric Phillips twin turbo charged V8 Aceco and the Chevy powered buggies of Brad Cooper and local boy Brad Mudge, are all expected to feature prominently in the hunt.

While the race to greet the chequered flag first on Sunday afternoon will be paramount, the battles within the class ranks will be equally as fierce. Most of the 2009 Australian Class champions have entered, including Justin Watt (ProLite), Werner Zettl (Super 1650), Chris Western (Extreme 2WD), Clayton Chapman (Production 4WD) and Colin Hunter (Extreme 4WD) and all are looking to get their season off to a good start.

Western Australian based teams are expected to perform well through the classes with Russell Cullen and Mark Murray primed to tackle the strong Queensland Extreme 4WD teams of Hunter and Chapman head on. The only female driver on the competitor list, Tanya French, will be aiming to show the boys how it’s done in her Toyota Landcruiser.

Saturdays racing will see the drivers lay it all on the line from 7.00am during the prologue. Due to time constraints, there will be no top ten shoot out this year, so there will be no second chance to snare the dust free run at the front of the field.

The drivers will then back up for the first section of the race, a 160km point to point race from the event head quarters at “Smithy’s Place” to the Hyden town centre and back.

Sunday morning will see the competitors face six laps of “Smithy’s Place” which embraces the exhilarating Flash’s Flyover, Yee-ha and fast flowing wheat paddocks, all just 18km from Hyden. The land owners, Ken and Cherith Smith along with son Darian have worked with the Western Desert Racers to lengthen the track to approximately 65km to help cope with the massive field of cars and reduce the amount of dust the drivers have to contend with.

The sensational “Christie’s Hill” spectator point and the start/finish line facilities will once again be a magnet for the crowd and television cameras alike, as some of the world’s fastest and most technically advanced off road race cars attack the Western Australian outback.

The next event of the five round Australian Off Road Championship will be the Tattersall’s Finke Desert Race, held in Alice Springs on the Queen’s Birthday Long Weekend, June 11th-14th.