What Is The ARC

What is the ARC?

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

The ARC 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 Toyota Kluger Rally SA, and will then on to the Rally of the Great Lakes. This event is staged near the holiday township of Forster in the central north coast region of NSW. It’s then on to Victoria’s Yarra Valley for the grand finale NGK Rally of Melbourne.

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.

Each event runs over two competitive days, with points scored by the top ten placed teams on each day. The final victor is decided by the most successful combination over the two days competition.

Each event supports the outright competition with a gala start and finish to ensure the fans get what they came for. One of the most accessible and friendly motorsports in the world, fans can easily mingle with teams and grab autographs and have a talk to their heroes before the teams race off in the forest.

ARC Series Overview (PDF)

Australian rallying compared to Asia and the World

The Australian Rally Championship has the reputation of being one of the closest and most exciting regional Championships in the World and, as such, an attractive prospect for Internationals (like former competitor Juha Kangas) to compete.

We pride ourselves on the competitiveness of the Championship and the depth of competition at every Round of the series. We have been fortunate enough to see a number of our talented drivers take off to pursue drives in the Asia-Pacific Championship and jaunts to Europe to expand their experience.

One of our best known champions, the late Possum Bourne, really put Australia on the map in terms of recognition. Chris Atkinson's performance in recent years has witnessed his launch into the World Rally Championship last season with the Subaru World Rally Team. Atkinson and co-driver Stéphane Prévot will once again contest all Rounds of the World series in 2008.

For the ARC competitors, having the chance to compete against their Asia-Pacific counterparts at the Rally of Canberra and to take on world competition at Rally Australia in Perth is a great opportunity to match it with the best.

The impact of the success of the World Rally Championship is doubtless and the opportunity the ARC has to run some similar specification cars to the WRC is a real strength of our series.

Different Classes

The Australian Rally Championship caters to 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.