It is now official.

Following the running of the Goondiwindi 400 - the fifth and final round of the 2006 Australian Off Road Championship - Mitsubishi has indisputably won its sixth National Class Seven title in a row. Responsible for these impressive six victories are the legendary NP Pajero and Geoff Pickering. Indeed, the Townsville based motor dealer has harvested all six wins in succession at the wheel of the same NP which he has been racing since the model was officially launched in Australia back in 2001!

"That very Pajero has not missed a beat since we first drove it", observed Geoff once the gruelling Goondiwindi race was over, "and it says a lot about the proven reliability of the Mitsubishi product."

For the record, 48 crews entered the final round of the Championship, which was won outright by the purpose-built Class One desert buggy of current - as well as newly crowned 2006 - Australian Off Road Champion Shannon Rentsch. Geoff Pickering's Pajero was the first 4WD to greet the chequered flag ahead of all other Class Seven (Stock Standard) and Class Eight (prototypes) 4x4 machines.

"The racing conditions were rather tough", observed Pickering's long time navigator Glenn Watson afterwards, "but the track itself was one of the best we had been on for quite a long time." "Fortunately", he added, "our Pajero was designed for it. We drove it real hard all weekend long and it finished the event in absolutely perfect shape, which is simply amazing." He was "over the moon" after having won so many races in the last six years. "Our NP Pajero was as good in this last event in Goondiwindi as it was after winning the first one back in 2001".

Geoff Pickering was equally ecstatic. "We had not planned to achieve that feat, it was not intended and definitely not expected", he confessed. "If the car had not been that good", he revealed, "we might have given the game up earlier which, as it turns out, was never contemplated. And, for the Pajero to be able to perform at top level for such a long period of time clearly demonstrates how strongly built it is and how reliable it has been over all those years."