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IT was labelled a David and Goliath battle.
Self-described “old fat bloke” Bob Waldner dared to pit his Datsun 1200 against a hoard of men aged in their twenties in hotted up late-model commodore utes.
And he won.
The Albury builder was the unlikely winner of the Australian National Circle Work Championships at the Deniliquin Ute Muster on Saturday — what his Datsun lacked in power it made up in precision.
Raising his hands above his head in victory after his performance, he was a clear crowd favourite.
“The competitors themselves were a bit cool ... but the crowd loved it because it was something a little bit different,” Mr Waldner said.
Interestingly, the 51-year-old will not tolerate hoon behaviour from his two kids, aged 17 and 20.
Mr Waldner insisted he did not fall into that category because he does all his tyre-spinning in a “controlled environment”.
“Hooning is when you do stupid stuff on the road,” he said.
The circle work championships was one of a number of muster highlights on Saturday, including a performance by headline act and former American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson and crowd favourites The Living End.
“The boys haven’t lost it that’s for sure,” marketing manager Karla Notley said.
“They got a huge crowd.”
However, crowds overall weren’t as large as organisers had hoped.
This year’s attendance of 15,000 was significantly down from 2010’s total of more than 20,000.
Not surprisingly, attempts to gather record number of utes and blue singlets also fell short.
Just over 5000 utes were counted and 1667 blue singlets, which was about half the record-winning attempts of two years before.
Instead the highlight this year was the popularity of the family camping area, which was full.
Ms Notley said she thought cold and windy weather on Friday was responsible for keeping some people at home.