Rick Bates (born 19 March 1965) is an Australian rally driver. He is the twin brother of the rally and racing driver,
Neal Bates
Neal Bates (born 19 March 1965) is an Australian rally and racing car driver. Throughout his career Bates has been associated with Toyota in the Australian Rally Championship and for 19 years his Neal Bates Motorsport outfit ran Toyota's official ...
. Whilst Neal has achieved more success in the
Australian Rally Championship, winning it four times, Rick has won two major cross country events in a nine-year span. The first was Panama-Alaska in 1997 and the next win was the Carrera Sudamericana in 2006.
He has, on at least one occasion, competed directly against his twin brother.
Career
In 1997, Bates won the Panama to Alaska rally driving a
Porsche 911 with his co-driver Jenny Brittan. He has also appeared in two events of the
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...
. First, he drove to 30th place at Rally Australia 1997 in a Daihatsu Charade GTi. Then, he drove at China Rally 1999, this time in a Volkswagen Jetta GTX, but he retired on the fifth special stage.
In both occasions, he was co-driven by Jenny Brittan with whom he won the Panama to Alaska rally in 1997. The former event saw him race with his twin brother Neal who scored points with an eighth-place finish.
In 2000, he was third in the
London-Sydney Marathon, finishing behind
Stig Blomqvist
Stig Lennart Blomqvist (born 29 July 1946) is a retired Swedish rally driver. He made his international breakthrough in 1971. Driving an Audi Quattro for the Audi factory team, Blomqvist won the World Rally Championship drivers' title in 1984 an ...
and
Michele Mouton.
In 2006, Bates and Brittan also won the Carrera Sudamericana in
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
.
Results
Complete V8 Supercars Championship results
(
key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
WRC results
Complete Bathurst 1000 results
Complete Sandown endurance results
External links
WRC Results (eWRC)Profile on Driver Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bates, Rick
Australian rally drivers
1965 births
World Rally Championship drivers
Supercars Championship drivers
Living people
Twin sportspeople
Australian Endurance Championship drivers