In their Audi TTRS Sport, they won seven of the 10 stages and led throughout the two-day event. They placed 2:08.6 ahead of Jeremy Dennison and Casey Rumble aboard a BMW M140i while Paul Dowie and John Allen placed their Porsche GT3RS third a further 40.6s behind.
Close and Reeves consistently led from the first stage and finished Saturday with a 29.6s lead over the Jason and Fiona Wright. The Wrights won two stages, however on Sunday the winners of the previous event, the Snowy River Sprint in May, were forced to retire their Nissan Skyline R35 with mechanical issues.
The AASA-sanctioned event was based out of Marysville in Victoria with 250 competition kilometres scheduled. The competitors would run through Cambarville and Cumberland Junction to Reefton on Saturday before the field was set to proceeded via Buxton and Taggerty to the popular Eildon-Jamieson Road on Sunday. The last two stages on Saturday and the final one on Sunday were cancelled.
Besides Close and Wright, the only other stage winner was Chris Exner who had Dean Lillie as his Mazda RX7’s codriver. They finished second on Sunday after a 23rd on Day 1.
Fourth at the end of the event were Crichton Lewis and Anthony Carr (Subaru Impreza WRX STi). Next were Jonathan Moir and Rian Calder (Ford Escort Mk2) who won Super Classic by a meagre 0.03s over Mick Downey and Jarrod Akker who were ahead in the Holden Commodore until the final stage.
In seventh and eighth were Matthew Gibbens and Tim Jurd (Lotus Exige), and Mark Griffith and Neill Wooley (Mercedes-Benz AMG GTR). Neil and Sue Cuthbert debuted of their Mitsubishi Evo X for ninth and first in Early Modern AWD while Xavier Franklin and Jaidyn Gluskie brought their Porsche GT4 home in tenth place.
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The next Australian Tarmac Rally event is the Mt Baw Baw Sprint on October 26-28.
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