2026 Asian Buggy Championships Round 3 Report

Press Release From Asian Buggy Championships:
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We’ll get to the headline results in a moment, but first, a huge shoutout to the whole Asian Buggy Champs and Pine Hills Dirt Racing teams. Our first relatively fine day, and everybody worked together to get a 12+ hour day in, wrapping up Q2 and then running through the complete Mains program. Drops of rain fell during the presentation, with more expected overnight, the plan to wrap things up a day early successfully achieved. Well done to all!

NITRO BUGGY: WOLHUTER STEPS UP
When top qualifier Alex Bernadzik flamed out on lap one, the expected pattern for this race was upended completely. What emerged was an absorbing duel between the smooth skills of Christian Wolhuter and the at-times-faster raw pace of first Logan Toia and later Jayden Edmunds. Over and over, Wolhuter would build a small lead, only for one of his opponents to go on a run and close down the gap. Toia’s challenge was made more difficult with short fuel stints costing him an extra stop, while Edmunds himself got to within 1.5 seconds of the lead before later running dry. That released Wolhuter to a comfortable cruise to the line, and promoted an ever-present Jackson Beale to P2, a spot he held despite pressure from Zac Ryan, Logan Toia, and a recovering Jayden Edmunds (who eventually broke through to P3 to wrap up the podium from Ryan, Toia and Jayden Jamieson. Impressive too from Matthew Couper to go P7 on his first ABC race start and the ever-consistent Ben Panic in P8. Earlier, Zac Ryan, Ben Panic, Ari Bakla and Darren Perry had bumped from a hectic 20-minute B final. Best performance in the lower mains went the way of Nathan Graham, bumping twice from the D to the B and threatening at times to make it all the way.

EP BUGGY: BERNADZIK IN THREE
If you just looked at A1, you’d think we had a finals series that went to the script, Alex Bernadzik stretching slowly away from Christian Wolhuter out front, and Caleb Noble a brilliant drive through the field to P3. And then, A2 and A3 flipped the script. On both occasions, Christian Wolhuter and Alex Berndzik clipped wheels on lap one, upending everything. Jayden Edmunds snuck through in A2 and drove to a huge win as Wolhuter recovered to second, and Zac Foster put in his best drive of the weekend for third. In A3, that same first-lap tangle dropped Bernadzik back a couple of spots, and set up a thrilling fight-back, Alex eventually retaking the lead courtesy of a sublime pass, Christian second and Edmunds third. That left Alex with the overall win over Jayden and Christian, Zac Foster a good fourth (from 11th on the grid) and Zac Ryan. Phoenix Eggleton won bragging rights in the battle of the remaining junior drivers in the Main, getting home in front of Dylan Toia, TJ Craperi and Jarrod Cooke.

NITRO TRUGGY: BEALE DEFENDS
Jackson Beale, 2025 Nitro Truggy Champion, has been untouchable in the class this week, and this afternoon’s 20-minute final was no exception. Beale eased away throughout to head home a consistently impressive Antony Gaunt (who had earlier qualified 2nd) and Liam Keown-Smith (that pair, just 2 seconds apart at the chequered flag.

EP TRUGGY: EDMUNDS TOO STRONG
Having just missed the opportunity for a win in either of the Buggy classes, Jayden Edmunds made sure of it in EP Truggy. In A1, he fended off the early attentions of Phoenix Eggleton, while Simon Healy got the better of an entertaining battle with NZ’s Jackson Coombes and Mark Turner. A2 went much the same way, before Eggleton secured the second step on the podium with an A3 win, TJ Craperi grabbing third overall with a strong A3 run.

MASTERS EP: BAKLA THE BEST
Ari Bakle made his first appearance in Masters racing at the Asian Buggy Championships count, demolishing the field in A1, while Darren Perry and Ben Panic resumed their regular battles, this time Perry coming out on top. A2 was more Bakla, this time Panic getting the better of Perry, before Darren returned the favour in A3, the win there enough to get him home second behind Bakla, Panic completing the podium.

MASTERS NITRO: EPIC RACE - PANIC vs PERRY!
So many times, we’ve written the Masters story at the Asian Buggy Championships, and it has featured Ben Panic and Darren Perry. Coming into the weekend, we had this 20-minute encounter circled as a potentially good race, with Mike Stratford and Masters debutant Ari Bakla in the field as well. And boy, did it live up to the expectations. Bakla led away early before a couple of small mistakes promoted first Perry, then Panic. That set the scene for the showdown we knew would come, Panic riding 10-minute fuel mileage to save a stop, the pair trading perfect, clean passes along the way. Panic it was, defending his ’25 win to get to the line ahead of Perry, Gopal Pavlich joining the pair on the podium after a late-race issue stopped Bakla from buying into the battle up front.

JUNIOR: FOSTER IN A FUN ONE
The Junior race is always a highlight, this year no exception – Zac Foster outlasting Dylann Toia and Phoenix Eggleton. Big shout out to some of the Junior drivers we’ve seen improve immensely year-on-year – the likes of Riley Lander, Zac Panic, Bill Oatley and Tanner White coming to mind. And a brace of super-young racers that are the future – Jonah Patrick, Oliver Highton, and Sylar McCombe.