Grabham out of Australasian Safari. Smiths lead after leg 3

The most notable retirement was Ben Grabham, who pulled in after the first of leg 3's two stages with mechanical failure on his KTM 450SXF. Grabham "blew something in between the stages" and did not ride the second stage. At this stage, it seems unlikely he will remount for leg 4.

Multiple Dakar Rally winner, Cyril Despres, performed well in the day's opening stage, but was beset by navigation problems on the second stage, losing much of the ground he'd slowly gained over the previous two days. He was assisted by Damien Grabham, who won the leg's first stage, but experienced problems with his roadbook on the second.
"The map reader stopped working, I looked down to see what was wrong with it and hit something and went straight over the handlebars," Grabham said.
"I saw Cyril coming the wrong way, he was lost and we rode for 20 minutes together. I'm not happy and I'm really sore."

Despite losing more than half an hour on the day's second stage, Despres was still in sixth position overall at the end of leg 3, but is almost 45 minutes down on the leaders.

The day's tough second stage proved to be the undoing of Matt Fish as well. He dropped from fifth position at the end of leg 2 to nineteenth after receiving a two-hour penalty.
"I'm alive but that's about it. About 50km before refuel it all went pear-shaped. The rear mousse (tyre) blew and I rode into refuel on the rim. I took a new tyre at refuel and have been penalised two hours," Fish said.

Young UK rider Sam Sunderland was back on the bike after sitting out leg 2 under medical orders.
"I felt alright today and my riding a lot better than the last few days. I made a few navigational errors and I've realised that I've been pushing it too hard and need to focus more on reading the road book," Sunderland said.
"I had a small crash today, nothing major, and luckily no kangaroos."

Over leg 3's 560 competitive kilometres, the motos and quad riders and drivers left in the competition faced many twists and turns, incredibly challenging navigation across rocky breakaways, overgrown fence lines, twisted tracks, stone roads, flood plains, and tricky navigation around bores, tanks, and windmills. The second section for leg 3 was described by the route coordinator as so challenging it could be a complete Safari on its own. This mixed bag of terrain was the longest section of the competition.

At the end of leg 3, Todd Smith retained his lead in the moto division, ahead of brother Jacob Smith by 10 minutes, and followed by Shane Diener who moved up one place after Ben Grabham's retirement. Rod Faggotter sits in fourth, followed by Grabham and Despres. Ben Williams (Honda), David Schwarz (Husaberg), David Geeves (Honda) and Russell Scoble (Honda) round out the top ten.

Leg 3 was just as cruel to riders in the quad division, with Paul Smith the main casualty, breaking a leg on the last stage. Adrian Hermsen lost time in both stages, but still did enough to retain second overall behind Colin Lawson. Lawson was one of few riders to enjoy the challenging leg.
"They were perfect quad tracks today," Lawson said after the leg's completion.
"I had a ball. We had a few little issues with a flat tyre and problems with the sway bar that made the bike feel like a canoe."

Lawson retains the overall lead in the quad division by almost 50 minutes from Hermsen, with John Maragozidis third and Heath Young the last remaining quad competitor in fourth.

The course stays around the Laverton area for leg 4, with a looped course that starts and finishes in the old gold mining town for a massive 660km over three competitive stages.