The Australia Rally Championship (ARC) is Australia's leading road motor rally competition. A multi-event national championship has been held each year since 1968.

Competition - to 2010

The Australia Rally Championship takes in some of the country's most stunning and picturesque locations. The 2010 season starts with Rally Tasmania, the only tarmac round in the championship. Based in the small coastal city of Burnie, Australia's longest-running tarmac rally is celebrating its 30th Anniversary this year. The second round sees the championship head across the country for the Quit Forest Rally. The rally is based in the coastal tourist town of Busselton, near Margaret River in Western Australia. Many of the rally stages are narrow and tree-lined, and are often covered in the notoriously slippery, ball-bearing gravel. The third round of the championship takes place in the forest roads in the hills around Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. The Coffs Coast Rally, known for its numerous surface changes, was cancelled in 2009 due to heavy rains and road damage. The championship then moves to the

Rally of South Australia The Rally of South Australia is a round of the Australian Rally Championship. Rally SA is promoted and staged by the South Australian Motor Sport Board (SAMSB). After a six-year break, the SAMSB re-introduced a round of the ARC in 2001. The 2019 ...

. The rally stages are located in the

Barossa Valley The Barossa Valley ( Barossa German: ''Barossa Tal'') is a valley in South Australia located northeast of Adelaide city centre. The valley is formed by the North Para River. It is notable as a major wine-producing region and tourist destinati ...

, Adelaide Hills and Mount Barker regions, and are within driving distance of the state capital Adelaide. The rally stages are the smoothest and fastest in the championship, making the rally a favourite for competitors and spectators alike. Round four of the Australia Rally Championship, and also a round of the FIA Asia-Pacific Championship, is the International Rally of Queensland. The stages are held in the forests around the township of Imbil, in the Mary Valley just north of Brisbane. The stages vary between tight and technical and fast and flowing, with many rough sections that give this event a reputation as a potential car-breaker. The final round of the ARC will be a new round in the state of Victoria. The event is set to based in the town of Drouin, located about 100 kilometres east of Melbourne. The rally stages are to be held mostly in the foothills of Mount Baw Baw, using forestry roads in the Nojoee - Neerim district. The Championship itself is a highly competitive series, featuring a host of talented teams all racing the clock for the honour of being champion. The competition is often very close, with drivers trading stage times over the gravel and tarmac roads and often finishing just tenths of seconds ahead or behind their rivals. In the forest, the action is thrilling. Cars slide sideways through high-speed corners and dodge and dive over challenging crested roads as the team-work between driver and co-driver is tested to the limit.

Competition classes

The Australia Rally Championship caters to a range of different competitors in the series and with a number of classes and categories; competitors can start rallying at the level that best suits their budget. The outright competition is fought out amongst the names of rallying and is the ultimate test for the competitors at the pointy end of the field. The ARC's top drivers compete in

Group N In relation to international motorsport governed by the FIA, Group N refers to regulations providing 'standard' large scale series production vehicles for competition. They are limited in terms of modifications permitted to the standard specific ...

(Production) - cars which have direct links to their road-going counterparts. The ARC also offers opportunities for manufacturers who don't produce Group N cars to build comparable machinery under both the Group N (P) and FIA

Super 2000 Super 2000 is an FIA powertrain specification used in the World Rally Championship, the British Touring Car Championship, the World Touring Car Championship, and other touring car championships. The engines were originally 2 L naturally aspirate ...

regulations. Another award that is desirable for competitors to chase is the Privateers Cup for competitors who don't have support from the manufacturer teams. The F16 Championship is the small car category (1600cc, 2WD) and a budget-level place to start rallying. The outright winner of the Championship is an Australian Champion in the small car category and is added to the record books. The Aussie Cup is the Australian award for large cars (over 2500cc) that enables competitors in the big cars to run popular passenger car models such as V6 and V8's. Amongst the outright awards are the opportunities to chase individual class awards that are based on car capacity and specification which gives competitors the opportunity to pursue class victories.

Cars

The more successful cars in recent years of the ARC have been the 4WD 2.0L Turbo models such as the

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, popularly referred to as the 'Evo', is a sports sedan and rally car based on the Lancer that was manufactured by Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi Motors from 1992 until 2016. There have been ten official versio ...

Subaru Impreza WRX STI The is a compact car that has been manufactured by the Japanese automaker Subaru since 1992. It was introduced as a replacement for the Subaru Leone, Leone, with the predecessor's Subaru EA engine, EA series engines replaced by the new Subaru EJ ...

s and the

Toyota Corolla The is a series of compact cars (formerly subcompact) manufactured and marketed globally by the Toyota Motor Corporation. Introduced in 1966, the Corolla was the best-selling car worldwide by 1974 and has been one of the best-selling cars in ...

ARC-spec cars, which are actually running

Toyota Celica GT-Four The Toyota Celica GT-Four is a high performance model of the Celica Liftback that was produced from 1986 to 1999, with a turbocharged '' 3S-GTE'' engine, and full-time AWD. It was created to compete in the World Rally Championship, whose regul ...

engines, 4WD system, etc.. Michael Guest and Mark Stacey campaigned a RWD 2.5L normally aspirated

Ford Focus The Ford Focus is a compact car (C-segment in Europe) manufactured by Ford Motor Company since 1998. It was created under Alexander Trotman's Ford 2000 plan, which aimed to globalize model development and sell one compact vehicle worldwide. The ...

during the 2006 season, switching to a

Ford Fiesta The Ford Fiesta is a supermini car marketed by Ford since 1976 over seven generations. Over the years, the Fiesta has mainly been developed and manufactured by Ford's European operations, and has been positioned below the Escort (later the ...

prepared for the

class in 2007. Most of the cars in the privateer fields are of a similar make, but other makes with success have been the

Mitsubishi Mirage The Mitsubishi Mirage is a range of cars produced by the Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi from 1978 until 2003 and again since 2012. The hatchback models produced between 1978 and 2003 were classified as subcompact cars, while the sedan and stat ...

Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 The Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 (Viscous Realtime 4WD) was the range-topping version of Mitsubishi Motors' Galant model, available in the sixth (1987–93), seventh (1993–96) and eighth (1996–2002) generations of the vehicle. Originally introduced to ...

Subaru Legacy The is a mid-size car built by Japanese automobile manufacturer Subaru since 1989. The maker's flagship car, it is unique in its class for offering all-wheel drive as a standard feature, and Subaru's traditional boxer engine. The Legacy was sold ...

, Datsun 1600,

Datsun 240Z The Nissan S30 (sold in Japan as the Nissan Fairlady Z and in other markets as the Datsun 240Z, then later as the 260Z and 280Z) is the first generation of Z GT 3-door two-seat coupés, produced by Nissan Motors, Ltd. of Japan from 1969 until ...

Nissan Stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have eithe ...

and the

Suzuki Swift GTi The Suzuki Cultus is a supermini car produced by the Japanese manufacturer Suzuki from 1983 to 2016. The nameplate is currently used as a rebadged second-generation Suzuki Celerio in Pakistan since 2017. It was first presented at the 25th T ...

Drivers

As with the cars, it tends to be the factory-entered drivers that take the outright placings. Some of these drivers have been Colin Bond, Greg Carr. George Fury, Ross Dunkerton, Geoff Portman, Scott Pedder, Simon Evans, Neal Bates, the late

Possum Bourne Peter "Possum" Raymond George Bourne (13 April 1956 – 30 April 2003) was a champion New Zealand rally car driver. He died under non-competitive circumstances while driving on a public road that was to be the track for an upcoming race. Awards ...

and

Ed Ordynski Ed Ordynski (born 21 July 1957) is an Australian former rally driver. He served as Chairman of the Australian Rally Commission (ARCom) in 2007. Ordynski is best known for his exploits driving Mitsubishi cars. Driving a Galant VR-4, he won t ...

. Privateer crews that have enjoyed recent success include Nathan Quinn and Steve Glenney. In 2015

Molly Taylor Molly Anne Taylor (born 6 May 1988 in Sydney) is an Australian rally car driver. She is the 2016 Australian Rally Champion, the first and only woman to win the Australian Rally Championship and the youngest regardless of gender, and the 2021 E ...

became the first woman to win a heat in the Australia Rally Championship.

Winners

Australian Rally Champions

* Fred Gocentas co-drove for Greg Carr during the 1978 season while Dawson-Damer co-drove for Colin Bond while also scoring points on one occasion co-driving for Dave Morrow which enabled him to beat Gocentas to the co-driver's title.
** Kate Officer co-drove for David Officer during the 1986 season.
*** Bill Hayes co-drove for Molly Taylor during the 2017 season. David Calder and Ben Searcy co-drove for Quinn in 2017.

Group N Rally Championship

Australian Manufacturers Champions

Australian Formula 2 Rally Champions

Australian F16 Rally Champions

References

External links

Series Official Web Site
{{Rally championships Rally racing series Rally Championship Rally competitions in Australia