Australian Rally Championship, West Australian Round, night stage. 2006.
The Motorsport Australia Rally Championship, also commonly known as the Australian Rally Championship (ARC), is Australia's premier gravel rally competition. A multi-event national championship has been held each year since 1968, excepting 2020.
Competition
The Australian Rally Championship (ARC) has, in recent season, been held across six rounds in most parts of Australia.
The drivers' champion of that year will claim the prestigious Possum Bourne Memorial Trophy, inaugurated in 2003 after the tragic passing of the seven-time Australian Rally Champion.
Alongside the outright drivers' and co-drivers' titles are multiple ARC Cups. With a variety of machinery on offer, these Cups give crews the ability to battle amongst like-for-like machinery. These include the Production Cup, 2WD Cup, Junior Cup, and Classic Cup.
Events vary between a mixture of endurance and sprint events. Endurance events will typically cover multiple days, with points awarded at the conclusion of the rally. Sprint events distribute points at the conclusion of each day, otherwise known as Heats.
A Power Stage also provides outright ARC crews the opportunity to collect bonus points on the final stage of each rally.
Events
Six rounds will comprise the 2024 Bosch Motorsport Australia Rally Championship
• Rally of Canberra: 5–7 April
• Forest Rally: 17–19 May
• Rally Queensland: 28–30 June
• Gippsland Rally: 9–11 August
• Adelaide Hills Rally: 13–15 September
• Rally Launceston: 22–24 November
Competition classes
A Subaru Impreza WRX competing in an Australian rally.
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 (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 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.
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 and Ed Ordynski. Privateer crews that have enjoyed recent success include Nathan Quinn and Steve Glenney. In 2015 Molly Taylor became the first woman to win a heat in the Australia Rally Championship.[1]
Winners
Possum Bourne and Craig Vincent (1998)Scott Pedder and Dale Moscatt. Renault Clio R3. International Rally of Queensland 2014
* 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.
