Over two days at the end of July, operators demonstrated agility, speed and precision in a variety of challenges using the latest Cat equipment. Among a tough field, Finning announced the UK regional winner as Bryan Williamson with an overall time of 6 minutes and 6 seconds.

The Irish regional winner was returning 2019 champion Tommy Murphy, who did even better with an overall time of 5 minutes and 54 seconds.

Both are pictured here and will now go through to the European semi-finals which are being held in Malaga in October. Here they will compete in a further series of challenges against machine from across operators in Europe for a place at the grand final at Conexpo in Las Vegas next year to be crowned Global Champion.

For the UK & Ireland contest, operators faced three challenges using different machines to test different skills. This year’s challenges included working with a Cat Next Generation 313 excavator and a 930 wheeled loader.

 UK regional winner Bryan Williamson said: “After competing at the previous Operator Challenge in 2019, my day-to-day work as an operator at Eastern Civils & Construction and a bit of luck prepared me for this year’s challenge.  Although there was some tough competition and challenging tasks, I know it will be fiercer competition at the next stage in Malaga.”

 

Irish regional winner Tommy Murphy (pictured below), said: “It’s great to see that the stakes are getting higher each year, but a returning win feels incredible. After the tough finale in Las Vegas in the last Operator Challenge, I hope this time I will be crowned the champion.”

 

With a two year hiatus since the last event, a new mystery challenge was introduced.  Using new Cat Command technology, operators were tasked with using a remote console to control a dozer located 5,000 miles away in Arizona.

Tracey Earp, marketing manager for Cat dealer Finning, said: “We are so pleased with the turnout at this year’s challenge after a two year break during Covid. We have been really impressed with the quality of entrants and how they all took to the range of challenges we had set. So both Bryan and Tommy did absolutely brilliantly to finish in first place.”