Richard Dalton and Dale Moscatt have won the 2018 AMH Automotive Rally of the Bay in Batemans Bay, New South Wales.
Behind the wheel of the world-class Skoda Fabia R5, the pair didn’t put a foot wrong all day, claiming all bar one of the nine stages to power to an outright win, two minutes and 46 seconds ahead of their nearest rival.
Competing in one of their first rallies since an accident earlier in the year, the Shamrock Motorsport team made a dream start. Their first three special stage wins set up a commanding overall time of one hour, nine minutes and nine seconds.
Eventual runners-up Glen Brinkman and Harvey Smith were the only other team to finish every stage in the top three in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 9.
Click here for the full results.
Their time of one hour, 11 minutes and 55 seconds was too good for fellow Lancer Evo 9 pilots Justin “JJ” Hatton and Nathan Long, the pair rounding out the podium with a time of one hour, 12 minutes and 26 seconds.
Finishing fourth outright was Michael Harding and James Thornburn with the Subaru WRX ST drivers’ major highlight being on the fourth stage where they became the only team other than Dalton and Moscatt to win a stage.
The Techworkz Automotive team almost gave up their outright fourth on the final stage of the day as they came in seventh fastest to post an outright time of one hour, 13 minutes and 12 seconds.
Watch some of the rally’s highlights here.
With Chris Higgs and Daymon Nicoli finishing third in the final stage, they managed to close the gap to within six seconds but were unable to overcome Harding and Thornburn, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6 drivers rounding out the top five.
A poor start from the event’s number two seeds in Gavin Croker and Brad Fitzgerald saw them drop to 10th outright after just the first stage. Following their start, the Evo 3 drivers were only able to regain three spots from there on, before settling with seventh outright.
With 55 drivers taking part in the 115km rally around the streets of Batemans Bay, 43 drivers managed to complete the rally, with only four drivers failing to finish the first stage.
The rally, which acted as the fourth of the MTA NSW State Rally Championship, will see competitors next head to the iconic Bathurst on 22 September.
