After a strong end to her 2024 campaign, Molly Spalding is the latest driver to commit to a full Australian Rally Championship (ARC) season, with the South Australian to run in all six rounds of this year’s calendar.
Having run within the ARC Junior Cup throughout the past few years, Spalding will now make the step up to the WOLF Production Cup alongside regular co-driver Matt Dillon, and will campaign the season in a recently purchased Subaru Impreza Wagon.
In addition to running the Production Cup, the vehicle also allows her to be eligible for the Classic 4WD Cup.
In purchasing the wagon, there is plenty of work to be done for the Spalding Dillon Australia (SDA) outfit to get the car race-ready, with the team currently rebuilding it from scratch.
“At the end of last season, we had a great team and were on a roll, so we wanted to keep the momentum going, which we did by taking the logical move and stepping up into Production Cup,” Spalding said.
“We had seen Aidan (Peterson) and Bodie (Reading) doing incredible having worked their way up from the Junior Cup, so we were keen to follow in their footsteps and join those ranks.
“Our wagon may seem an odd choice, but we wanted a car that was different, interesting and something our crew would be excited to work on. Being from 1995, it’s also eligible for the Classic 4WD series, so we are going to enter it in both. I’m interested to see what other cool cars are going to going to come into the woodwork.
“For me, this will be first time driving a turbo and in a car with 50 per cent more power, so it’s going to be a big step – that said, I can’t wait to have some grunt behind me.
“Our focus is to be playing the long game. We want to be at every round, keep improving as the season goes on and hopefully give some teams something to worry about.”
In addition to her new wheels and promotion, Spalding was looking forward to the year after also securing a new workshop for the team to work out of.
“We have been working really hard and were lucky enough to get some extra sponsors in addition to the few that have stayed on with me from last year,” Spalding added.
“That helped motivate us to acquire a dedicated rally workshop that we can base ourselves out of for this year. It comes with all the bells and whistles required to help us improve.
“To be honest, it’s extremely exciting to have the space, and it’s a really big achievement for us.
“Everything seems to be falling into place at the moment and I am truly hopeful this team can become highly competitive in the long term.”
The 2025 Australian Rally Championship season begins later this year with Rally of Canberra, which takes place in the nation’s capital on 21-23 March.
