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 been held across six rounds in most parts of Australia. Alongside the outright drivers' and co-drivers' titles are multiple ARC Cups including the Production Cup, 2WD Cup, Junior Cup, and Classic Cup. Events include a mixture of endurance and sprint events. Endurance events 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

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 specifi ...

(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 Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA powertrain specification used in the World Rally Championship, the British Touring Car Championship, the World Touring Car Championship, and other touring car racing, touring car ...

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 version ...

s, Subaru Impreza WRX STIs and the

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

ARC-spec cars, which are actually running

Toyota Celica GT-Four The Toyota Celica GT-Four is a high performance model of the Toyota Celica, Celica Liftback that was produced from 1986 to 1999, with a Turbocharger, turbocharged ''Toyota S engine#3S-GTE, 3S-GTE'' engine, and full-time Four-wheel drive, AWD. I ...

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 from 1998 until 2025. It was created under Alexander Trotman's Ford 2000 plan, which aimed to globalize model development and sell one compact vehicle worl ...

during the 2006 season, switching to a

Ford Fiesta The Ford Fiesta is a supermini car that was marketed by Ford from 1976 to 2023 over seven generations. Over the years, the Fiesta has mainly been developed and manufactured by Ford's European operations, and had been positioned below 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 from 2012 to 2024. The hatchback models produced between 1978 and 2003 were classified as subcompact cars, while the sedan ...

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 (1987–1992), seventh (1992–1996) and eighth (1996–2002) generations of the vehicle. Originally introduce ...

Subaru Legacy The is a mid-size car built by Japanese automobile manufacturer Subaru from 1989 to 2025. 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 Leg ...

, Datsun 1600,

Datsun 240Z The Nissan S30, sold in Japan as the Nissan Fairlady Z but badged as the Datsun 240Z, 260Z, and 280Z for export, are 2-seat sports cars and 2+2 GT cars produced by Nissan from 1969 until 1978. The S30 was conceived of by Yutaka Katayama ...

, Nissan Stanza and the Suzuki Swift GTi.

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 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.

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

Official Championship Web Site
{{Rally championships Rallying series Rally Championship Rally competitions in Australia