Australian Rally Championship

The Australian Rally Championship (ARC) is a 6 Round National motorsport Championship run in forested countryside throughout Australia.

Current Competition

The Australian Rally Championship takes in some of the country’s most stunning locations and starts with the Quit Forest Rally in the coastal tourist town of Busselton near Margaret River in WA. The series then travels to Canberra for the combined ARC/Asia-Pacific Rally Championship event Rally of Canberra, then to Queensland’s Sunshine Coast with coates Rally Queensland. From there the Championship heads to the Barossa Valley for the Sprint Auto Parts Rally SA, and then across to the Rally of Melbourne. The Championship finishes in the popular holiday destination of Coffs Harbour in November.

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 series has support from manufacturers Toyota and is boosted by a host of top privateer teams all capable of notching wins. The competition is stunningly close, with drivers trading stage times over the gravel and tarmac roads and often finishing just tenths of seconds ahead of 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 Australian 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 (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 regulations. Another award that is desirable for competitors to chase is the Privateers Cup for competitors who don't have support form 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.

The Cars

The more successful cars in recent years of the ARC have been the 4WD 2.0L Turbo models such as the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions, Subaru Impreza WRX STIs and the Toyota Corolla ARC-spec cars, which are actually running Toyota Celica GT4 chassis, engines, etc. Michael Guest and Mark Stacey campaigned a RWD 2.5L normally aspirated Ford Focus during the 2006 season, switching to a Ford Fiesta prepared for the Super 2000 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, Mitsubishi Galant VR-4, Subaru Legacy, Datsun 1600, Datsun 240Z, Nissan Stanza and the Suzuki Swift GTi.

The Drivers

As with the cars, it tends to be the factory-entered drivers that take the outright placings. Some of these drivers have been Cody Crocker, Scott Pedder, Simon Evans, Neal Bates, the late Possum Bourne and Ed Ordynski. Privateer crews that have enjoyed recent success include, Dean Herridge and Steve Glenney.

Rally Calendar for 2008

Rd 1. QUIT Forest Rally 5 – 6 April

Rd 2. Rally of Canberra 10 – 11 May +

Rd 3. coates Rally Queensland 21 – 22 June

Rd 4. Toyota Rally SA 26 – 27 July

Rd 5. Tasmanian Tarmac Challenge 5 - 7 October

Rd 6. TBA

+ Rally of Canberra is a joint NEC ARC and FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship event

"Past Winners"

Australian Rally Champions

Australian Formula 2 Rally Champions

Australian F16 Rally Champions

External links

* [http://www.rally.com.au/ Series Official Web Site]
* [http://www.thedogbox.info/ Australian podcast featuring ARC news and events]