IN what organisers have hailed the closest outright finish in Yamaha Australian Off-Road Championship history, Yamaha’s Chris Hollis beat teammate Jarrod Bewley by less than a tyre length for the AORC round nine win on Saturday.

Hollis and Bewley, of the Ballard’s Yamaha Off-Road Team, finished just 0.10-seconds apart after a huge 12 laps (or about 80-minutes) of competition.

“It was so, so close, and so intense, me and Jarrod were just fighting it out all day,” Hollis said.

“It was awesome racing, me and him, we just pushed the boundaries each lap and tried to better each other and it made for really good racing.

“And I came out at the end of it by point-one, which is nothing, it could have been anyone’s race, I honestly thought he had it in the bag.”

Hollis (from Port Macquarie, NSW) said he felt great on the bike and was fully recovered from the pinched nerve in his neck, sustained at round seven.

“I can’t wait for round 10’s cross-country tomorrow,” he said.

The 24-year-old today extended his championship lead to 17-points.

On Sunday, however, third placed Victorian racer Peter Boyle was the man of the hour claiming his third AORC outright win.

Boyle, 21, from Gippsland, won a heated battle with current championship leader Chris Hollis by about 17-seconds in the mass-start, two-and-a-half-hour cross-country event.

Boyle, who had “a bit of an off day” on Satuday where he finished 8th outright, is sitting 2nd Outright in the championship after Sunday’s round (on 200-points).

“I will definitely go [to the final round] and try to win, cause the championship’s up for grabs,” Boyle said.

Hollis, of the Ballard’s Yamaha Off-Road Team, will go into the final two rounds of the AORC at Nowra on August 16 and 17 leading the championship by 15-points.

The top-four in the championship are separated by only 31-points.