ARC Rally Victoria :: Lardner Park

It was that time of year again when the Bosch Australia Rally Championship rolls into town, this year bringing with it some new cars, like this FWD Mazda 2. With upcoming changes about to hit the Australian rally world next year, this was to be the last time we would see the 4wd warriors battle it out because of the move towards the two wheel drive formula.


The new rally formula is more focused on the 2wd category, but this is going to make the competition more interesting!
These integrated jack stands make it far safer to work under the car but not all of the teams had such a luxury.

Back on four wheels and ready to go! Gerald and Barkley were excited to get on the stage.

I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest of ION into the VIP tent and let me tell you, once I was inside I didn’t waste any time. I found the nearest food source and started grazing. The VIP tent was fully set up, complete with plasma screens and some very impressive footage being displayed. The ION Cameras were impressing everyone with their crisp picture and detailed sound straight off the camera’s with no editing or processing!

With so many Mitsubishi Evo’s around it was great to see some Subaru’s offering up some stiff competition even if it was only in the looks department.

Claiming the best view on the hill was Penhall and Middleton’s Subaru WRX. The view must have inspired them to drive faster, as they were managing to keep with the top four VRC leaders over the course of the rally.

Pedder and Ryan’s car receiving some attention before it was scheduled to get on track, if only the crew had attached a turbo, living in Evens and Westons shadow cannot be easy.

After scrutineering, the cars were able to get on the public road and drive to the stage. It was common to see many of the rally cars on the road while driving to the spectator view points. This was interesting because many of them would go pretty hard on the road almost as if there were competing in a tarmac stage!

I do wonder if the guys who are scrutineers are also parking inspectors? These guys would mark the tyre with serious speed.

This is the first time I have seen an import LHD M3 and damn, I want one! This thing was fully legit with a nice set of BBS rims to match.

The classic rally car series is one of the best things to happen to rally in 2012 and this Datsun 1600 is just one example of the calibre of cars within this series.

It’s a bit hard to see but this car is sporting some little aero components, that is something I haven’t really seen on many rally cars.

Pulling sideways and trying to not go off the track after this jump was challenging, however this wrx took it all in its’ stride. If you look closely you can see the little ION Air Pro’s doing it’s thing on the roof. It was great to be able to see what the driver and passenger were experiencing around the track.

If you have ever been to a rally event before you will know about flying rocks but of course the danger is all part of the fun!

The long straight on the special stage soon followed into a sharp 90 degree turn which almost caught out a few of the drivers.

Nissan’s are not only used for drift but this photo shows it is hard to stop an S14 going sideways whether it is on dirt or tarmac.

One of the great things about rally is how close you can get to the action when you have a media pass! Unfortunately I didn’t get time to apply for one and had to shoot from the fence. This keen media personality from 7tune got nice and close to the action.

Classic rally cars are probably my favorite class in rally to date and it is crazy to see cars that where dominating on the track back in the eighty’s, getting back on the track and going hard as ever.

This little Ford Fiesta was going off tap! Not that you can see from this photo but he lost half his front bar in the forest stage!

This photo totally reminds me of playing Colin Mcrae on Playstation and the Australian forest stages, where it was easy to get out of control on the dirt if you hit a corner to hot.

It was great to catch some rally action, it is a shame that big rally events like this really only come once or twice a year to Victoria. It would be good to see more grass roots rally action much like the Excel rally series. This was the last event on the Bosch ARC Rally calender and Eli Evans / Michael Boaden have taken out the series in there maiden debut, talk about a good preformance!
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Thanks for looking,
Grant.