The EROAD Australian Rally Championship (ARC) season is slowly reaching a climax as it heads to South Australia for the fifth round of 2025, the Copyworld Adelaide Hills Rally.
Taking place in the forests of the picturesque Adelaide Hills, more than 160 competitive kilometres spread across 18 stages awaits 18 of the best rally drivers in the country as the title fight looks to reach boiling point ahead of November’s season finale.
Following a busy first endurance event of the season in Gippsland, the ARC reverts back to the Sprint format where points will be on offer for both Saturday’s Heat 1 and Sunday’s Heat 2, as well as the all-important Power Stage.
With a maximum of 220 points still on offer ahead of the visit to South Australia, the title fight is likely to go down to the final round however there is still a slight chance that current leaders Hayden Paddon and John Kennard could seal the deal.
The Kiwi duo currently sit 71 points ahead of the next best crew in Lewis Bates and Anthony McLoughlin, while the Bates and McLoughlin’s Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia teammates Harry Bates and Coral Taylor sit a further 17 points adrift – and with all three entered at South Australia, there are sure to be fireworks.
What makes this weekend even more intriguing is the fact that Lewis has dominated in recent times having won this event the past three years, making him the instant favourite for the penultimate round of the 2025 season.
Of course, a victory here for Lewis and McLoughlin would be crucial for their pursuit of the title and keeping them as the main challenger for a dominant Paddon and Kennard.
In addition to the outright title fight, the WOLF Production Cup also has an entertaining battle starting to occur as reigning champion Bodie Reading and Brad Jones will need a massive result if they are any chance to prevent Clayton Hoy and Erin Kelly from putting one hand on the trophy.
The two crews lead a strong field in the Production Cup, which includes Toby Price and Holly Kilbride for their first event in the class, as well as Victorian Danny Traverso and Anthony Carr who are coming off the back of a strong podium in Gippsland.
Another notable entry is current WOLF Production Cup leaders Jackson and Damien Long, who are upgrading to a Subaru WRX Challenge car for the event, ruling them ineligible for the WOLF Production Cup but putting them in the Subaru WRX Challenge.
View the full entry list here.
KEY DETAILS
Serving as the fifth round of the season, The Copyworld Adelaide Hills Rally sees a return to the Sprint format for the final time in 2025, which will see the 18 stages split into two Heats – 10 of which are Saturday’s Heat 1 and eight on Sunday’s Heat 2.
The 18 ARC crews will tackle 160 competitive kilometres during the weekend, with ten quick-fire stages on Saturday totalling up to 82km, while the event’s remaining 78.92km will be run on Sunday for Heat 2 and will take place over eight stages.
Heat 1 kicks off with Retreat Valley 1 (SS1) at 7:58am ACST on Saturday morning before wrapping up with Wattle Flat 2 (SS10) at 4:09pm ACST. All the times then refresh for Heat 2 on Sunday morning, which gets underway with Clarendon 1 (SS11) at 8:03am ACDT and concludes at 4:40pm ACST through the ever-important Power Stage (SS18).
Fans will have an abundance of opportunities to see the cars being worked on with eight official service breaks taking place over the weekend – seven of which take place at Galvanize Insurance Rally Central (three on Saturday and four on Sunday), and one taking place at a special remote service in Strathalbyn on Saturday.
STAYING IN THE LOOP
There will be plenty of coverage throughout Copyworld Adelaide Hills Rally for fans to stay up to date with all the happenings from the event.
For live results of each stage, as well as the cup and overall standings throughout the event, fans can view the Subaru Results Hub on rally.com.au at any point over the weekend.
Four stages will be livestreamed throughout the rally via EROAD Australian Rally Championship’s YouTube and Facebook, and Instagram.
Below are the estimated start times for each.
Saturday Heat 1
SS3 Charliegate 1: 8:46am ACST / 9:16am AEST
SS10 Wattle Flat 2: 16:08 ACST / 16:38 AEST
Sunday Heat 2
Clarendon 2: 10:53 ACDT / 11:23 AEDT
Callington Back 14:17 ACDT / 14:47 AEDT
Friday night’s MSS Safety Rally Show will also be livestreamed from 7:20pm ACST, which will include the Bosch Motorsport Ballot.
There will also be live updates, crew interviews and extended highlights via the ARC Instagram, Facebook, X and Threads accounts.
SPECTATORS
Fans wanting to come down to the picturesque Adelaide Hills Rally to watch the highly important round will have many opportunities to see the best rally cars in action via four spectator points on Saturday and Sunday.
Register a place at any spectator point for free via rally.com.au
The two stages open to spectators on Saturday will be Charliegate (SS3 and SS6) and Wattle Flat (SS8 and SS10). Both passes of Charliegate will be completed in the morning with the first car passing through SS3 at 8:44am before SS6 begins at 11:26am. Fans then have two hours to make their way to Wattle Flat where they will then run SS8 at 1:53pm and again at 4:09pm for SS10.
Similarly to Saturday, Sunday’s two spectator points are split into morning and afternoon with cars passing through Kuitpo 1 (SS12) at 8:48am and Kuitpo 2 (SS14) at 11:41am. The afternoon will see the cars going through Red Creek 1 (SS15) at 1:46pm and Red Creek 2 (SS17) at 4:07pm.
For those unable to see the cars on stage, they can see the cars being worked on via the important Service Breaks at Galvanize Insurance Rally Central, which is located at the Summit Sport and Recreation Park in Mount Barker.
There is also the special remote service in Strathalbyn, which is located on Commercial Road Strathalbyn, which will see cars arrive around 2:20pm on Saturday afternoon.
Read the full Spectator Guide.
Friday Night MSS Safety Rally Show
Before the action gets underway bright and early on Saturday morning, the MSS Safety Rally Show will kick off the event in style on Friday night from 6:30pm ACST.
Taking place in the bustling Morphett Street in Mount Barker, all 18 ARC cars will be on display for fans to get up close and personal with, as well as having all the drivers in attendance.
Following on from the signing session, the top three seeded drivers in Harry Bates, Lewis Bates and Hayden Paddon will participate in the Bosch Motorsport Ballot, which shakes up the trio’s starting order for the event before crews depart from around 7:30pm.
The Copyworld Adelaide Hills Rally takes place in Mount Barker and its surrounding forests on 3-5 October.
Get more information on the event via rally.com.au/AdelaideHills.
