With Mac Kierans alongside in his Toyota GR Yaris and before the next round of the ARC, Harry Bates won eight of the nine stages at the Techworkz Automotive Stages / Horizon Apartments Narooma Forest Rally. Teammate and brother Lewis, together with Erin Kelly finished 1:53.5 adrift.
Third place went to Josh Redhead and Ray Winwood-Smith in their Hyundai i20 while Coral Taylor joined Neal Bates in his Classic 2WD Toyota Celica RA40 to finish 51.6s behind in fourth place.
The pacenoted one-day event took place took place through forests of Narooma, on the South Coast of New South Wales and included night stages.
Besides the ARC stars, the event also featured Taylor Gill and Daniel Brkic who currently leads the FIA Junior World Rally Championship with one round to go. They were competing in a GR Yaris AP4 and won the first stage before sidelined on Stage 2 with the right rear suspension failure.
Harry Bates was second on the opening stage and then proceeded to win the rest while Lewis started out with a third before a string of seconds. Redhead was fourth on Stages 1, 2 and 3 and third for the remainder which won him the Shamrock Haulage NSW Rally Championship fifth round.
The Irish team of Darren Sweeney and Connor Woods (Subaru Impreza GC8) started out with a stage fifth, followed by two stage thirds. But after a Stage 4 seventh, they were retirees with a blown engine.
Sixth were Dean Ridge and Muireann Hayes (Ford Fiesta) ahead of Mal and Reegan Hurley (Subaru WRX), Lachlan Moore/Paul Bailey (Mitsubishi Evo VI) and Nathan Quinn/David Green (Mazda RX2) as they filled out the top five state places. Points leaders Tony Sullens/Kaylie Newell (Citroen DS3) finished 24th after drama on Stage 4.
Destined to miss the final two rounds of the ARC, Scott Pedder and Glenn Macneall were in a Renault Clio but stopped on the first stage. They were among 23 of the 47 entered that DNF’d which included Tom Clarke and Ryan Preston after their Datsun Stanza scored two stages in the top 10.
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