Left to right Kim Watkins, Shawn Giles and Alastair Lynch the top three placegetters in the 2006 BMW Celebrity Challenge. Giles won the event from Lynch and Watkins

Triple Australian Superbike champion Shawn Giles added his first four-wheel title to his career today with a runaway win in the BMW Celebrity Challenge at the 2006 FORMULA 1 Foster’s Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

The superbike star lead from Pole position to take the highly popular event from AFL legend Alastair Lynch and TV personality Kim Watkins.

The trio had duelled all week in practice and Qualifying sessions for today’s big event, which lived up to its expectations as being one of the highlights of the Grand Prix weekend.

The celebrities kept the crowd on their feet throughout the five-lap race with spins, bumps and near misses among the 26 stars; the most spectacular being Queensland Rugby League champion Gorden Tallis who made himself the “people’s champ” when he eventually spun out and “beached” his BMW 1 Series in the kitty litter in the last lap of the race.

Giles said after the event he was more at home with a brake and clutch on a handle bar than with the gears and a steering wheel of the BMW 1 Series, but he showed he had lost none of his touch for speed in moving to the dynamic BMW.

A brilliant start enabled him to go into the first corner unchallenged and from there on he kept clear air from the rest of the field, along with going on to record the fastest lap of the day of 2min 43.4400 seconds in his third lap.

Lynch said an AFL Grand Final was a “walk in the park” compared with driving in the BMW Celebrity Challenge.

“It was an absolutely fantastic event,” he said. “They have been asking me all week ‘how it compared with an AFL Grand Final?’ and I can say that a Grand Final is a ‘walk in the park’ compared to starting in this race.”

Lynch got off to a flying start to beat Watkins, who started on the front row of the grid, into the first corner and proceeded to keep out of harms way for most of the race.

Watkins put her poor start down to missing a gear, but was very pleased with her result.

“I am absolutely ecstatic with third,” she said in the post-event media conference when raising her trophy in the air. “This is one for all the Mummies out there,” said the proud mother.

Watkins had been tipped to be a strong contender for the flag, having participated in a previous Celebrity Challenge and raced in supercars, and been on the heels of Giles throughout her Qualifying sessions.

World surfing star Ross Clarke-Jones and Tallis provided some of the most spectacular racing of the event with pushes, shoves and exchanging places in their battle for fourth position.

However, the big Queensland Rugby League star, who is known as the ‘raging bull’ for his spectacular on-field runs, went one “biff” too many and ended his race by “beaching” his car in the kitty litter.

Human Nature singer and Dancing with the Stars contestant, Toby Allen took out 5th position in the event, having started in 9th position on the grid and champion jockey Damien Oliver was only 0.8 seconds behind him in 6th.

Oliver drove an incident packed, but extremely competitive race and was accused by a number of his fellow Celebrities of forgetting he was on a ‘metal horse’ rather than his usual equine variety.

US motocross champion Carey Hart, who is partner of the pop star Pink, and had promised much in the race, had a disappointing outing by being one of the early casualties, spinning out on the second turn.

From there on it was a battle to make up ground, but he admitted that it enabled him to put his motor bike skills to the fore – “I got to drive aggressively from there on” – and came home in 17th position.

The final positions for the race are as follows:

1. Shawn Giles 14. Giaan Rooney
2. Alastair Lynch 15. Nikki Hudson
3. Kim Watkins 16. Tara Moss
4. Ross Clarke-Jones 17. Carey Hart
5. Toby Allen 18. Jeff Fatt
6. Damien Oliver 19. Ryan Phelan
7. Phil Keoghan 20. Kate Waterhouse
8. David Reyne 21. Ross Stevenson
9. Tiffany Cherry 22. Murray Cook
10. Luke Ricketson 23. Kate Ceberano
11. Ed Phillips 24. Trisha Broadbridge
12. Captain Feathersword 25. Gorden Tallis
13. Steve Jacobs 26. Anthony Field

© Copyright 2006 Driveguide.com.au

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