Ultimate Tradesman search begins

Naming rights sponsor of the #4 Ford of Alex Davison in the V8 Supercar Championship Series, IRWIN Tools, has started the global search for the world’s ultimate tradesman.

The IRWIN Tools Ultimate Tradesman Challenge (UTC) was launched in Melbourne on the Sunrise program with a steady flow of tradesman queuing to test their skills against the clock.

Melbourne based joiner Sam Garretto completed the challenge in 48.72 seconds to win $2000 worth of IRWIN Tools. He is now in the running to represent Victoria in the Australia / New Zealand finals to be held at the Sydney Telstra 500 in December.

“I’m ecstatic to have won this morning’s challenge, really rapt,” said Sam Garretto.

“I was pretty pumped; the hardest thing was maintaining the adrenaline levels. I was just trying to minimise the errors, that’s the secret really, because a mistake adds to the time.

“I really enjoyed it though; and will keep practicing.”

Regional competitions are staged in Australia / New Zealand, USA, Canada, Brazil, the UK, Ireland, Poland and Denmark.

The crowned Australian / New Zealand Ultimate Tradesman will then advance to the World Finals in March of 2011, at Bristol Motor Speedway, North America. There six tradesmen from around the world will compete to become the Worldwide IRWIN Tools Ultimate Tradesman.

The winner of the IRWIN Ultimate Tradesman Challenge competes for a chance to win US$1 million.

“The Ultimate Tradesman Challenge is all about IRWIN’s respect for the professional tradesman. If it weren’t for the trade guy we wouldn’t have housing, schools, roads, transport and infrastructure – this is just IRWIN’s small wall of giving something back,” said IRWIN Australia/NZ President Nick Pritchard.

“IRWIN Tools, and its category-leading sub-brands, has built a reputation for best-in-class products through a relentless dedication to identifying the needs of professional tradesman across the globe.

“We will have competitions across Australia and New Zealand to find the very best in this part of the world; then we will see if our local tradesmen are the best on the planet.

“The chance to give an Australasian tradesman the opportunity to take on the best in the world, and have the opportunity to win US$1 million, is something that no other tool company offers their end user.”

2010 IRWIN UTC DATES

Event	Date	location	State
1	8 April	Habourside (Docklands)	Victoria
2	16-18 April	Hamilton V8 Race	New Zealand
3	7-9 May	Worldskills Expo Brisbane	Queensland
4	21-23 May	Tradesman’s Expo Adelaide	South Australia
5	5-6 June	Tradesman’s Expo Perth	Western Australia
6	5-6 June	Hidden Valley V8 Race Darwin	Northern Territory
7	9-11 July	Townsville V8 Race	Queensland
8	7-10 October	Bathurst V8 Race	New South Wales
9	21-24 October	SuperCarnivale Gold Coast V8 Race	Queensland
10	19-21 November	Sandown V8 Race	Victoria
11	3-5 Decmeber	Homebush V8 Race – FINAL	New South Wales

Check out the video from the launch: